GnomeMania

Mr. Sweetie had a Boys Golf Outing weekend last weekend, where they played 90! holes! of! golf! On sort of spur of the moment, I took the kidlets up to Duluth.

We had a lovely room in a functional hotel--nothing special, but the view was lovely!

So, what do you do in Duluth? with kidlets who are 12 and 9?

You go to the aquarium, of course! Since we don't technically have an aquarium here in the Twin Cities, Bunny wanted to see the one in Duluth. It did not match up to her experience at the Shedd in Chicago. Are we surprised? No.

It was a very nice facility. You enter and are greeted by a two story wall of water, which really says it all, doesn't it? The Great Lakes Aquarium is dedicated to the ecosystems around Duluth. Which makes sense, of course, because then it is unique and educational.

But.

The ecosystems around Duluth are all freshwater. Freshwater fish, they are not so much to look at. Can you say carp? Walleye? Sure, there are trout, but they look mostly the same dull green as all the other fish do. Remember those days when you were about 5, and your parents took you up to a rental cabin on a lake in Wisconsin, and your dad would defy all the basic assumptions about a vacation and would get up at about 4:30 in the morning to go fish? And when he came back--just as you were waking up--he'd invite you down to the fish house where he would hack off the fishes' heads and gut them, and the smell was just soooooo bad? Guess what he was catching?

That's right. Carp. Walleye. Trout. The Great Lakes Aquarium is dedicated not so much to fish as to dinner.

We were more impressed with the Duluth Zoo. In the great tradition of the great zoos of the world, this one was started by a guy who acquired a tame deer, and decided to reach for greater things. Which it does surprisingly well, after setting your expectations incredibly low. The entrance is shabby, with a ticket sales booth that looks like it travels with the carnie and is otherwise used for selling cotton candy. The main building is a bit dark, and the exhibits are not immediately on display. In fact, you walk down some stairs that remind me of my old elementary school, and into a room that--if it weren't a zoo, you'd think was a pet store. There are rabbits, and geckos, and fancy rats, and gerbils and guinea pigs. Except there are fewer of them than there would be at PetSmart.

It's after you get outside that the zoo surprises. There aren't a great number of animals and exhibits, but the ones that are there are well done and interesting. The peafowl wander the zoo freely, and were ganging up on the prairie dogs while we were there. One male decided to show off for the lone female peahen, and opened his fan tail and rattled it at us all. The grounds are quite expansive, and there is room a lot of future development there. It beats the heck out of the Como Zoo.

However, the most successful part of our trip was the aquisition of a miniature gnome. He is about three inches tall, with a red cap and a suitcase under his arm, and he became the focus of many many photographs.

Which I shall not post here. Yet. For some reason the computer is not recognizing the memory card. But when it does...

PREPARE FOR THY GNOMISH OVERLOAD!