Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Top of the Harbor

New Years day dawned in Duluth, and my plan to head over to the deer camp early and snowshoe in to retrieve some forgotten clothing and check things out began to seem less attractive at -10F (-23C). The VoiceOfReason suggested that we have a leisurely breakfast at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Radisson hotel instead, once again cementing her blog name with a practical solution.

On a crisp, cloudless day like New Years, the view from up there is pretty spectacular. The restaurant revolves 360 degrees in an hour, about six degrees per minute. The clip below give an idea of just how fast that is. I should probably find out if such speed and altitude would cause a combination of motion sickness and vertigo in the GurneyGranny, a poster child for such queasiness. Iwill admit to a bit of disorientation in the beginning but a good coffee buzz and a healthful sausage, eggs, and hash browns breakfast made that disappear pretty quickly. The food was nothing to write home about but the waitress was extremely competent and friendly and sitting there on our hind ends, watching the scenery rotate, was worth the price of admission. It was fun to see Park Point in the image above, stretching south toward the Superior entrance to the bay. Neither of us had been there for literally decades and it was kind of nice to revisit an old haunt and view the harbor from a high, close up vantage point. By the time we left for our cross country ski and snowshoe weekend on the Bayfield peninsula, the temperature had skyrocketed to 5F (-15C), perfect ski conditions, and once again the VOR had demonstrated her considerable powers of reason.

1 comment:

bonnie said...

Oh, man, I've been wondering how you folks in the Midwest can stand it!

I should have added all of you to my "Who's Tough" post.

Midwesterners. Midwesterners are tough.