Day 10: Duluth

 

We cleaned the bugs off the front of the coach this morning which had accumulated on the  upper cap since we left Rome. Then we went to Glensheen, a 39 room mansion built between 1905 and 1908 along the shore of Lake Superior.  It’s a lovely home and very  cutting edge for it's time:  early electric lights, all indoor plumbing bathrooms, even a shower with 8 shower heads. Even the servants quarters had full indoor bathrooms at a time when most middle class families did not.  There was a multilevel terrace with flowers and a fountain at the back of the house and lovely vegetable and flower gardens.  The annual arts and crafts festival was being held today – an added  bonus to our visit. The source of the wealth? Iron ore from the iron range.

Our next destination was the North Shore Scenic Railroad at the  historic Depot where we boarded the Lester River excursion train which runs along the shore of Lake Superior.  George enjoyed talking with our conductor who is a retired Delta 747 pilot who became certified as a train engineer after he retired from Delta, though today he wasn’t the engineer.  He took his training to be an engineer at Peachtree City (near Atlanta).