Father/Daughter Weekend

Awhile back by dad had invited me to Duluth for Grandma's Marathon weekend, an event he has been participating in since I was in high school. This year was no different, as he was running the half marathon. The drive to Duluth from Minneapolis is a straight two hour shot up 35, not us Bohlingers. We took the "back roads." See the traffic is horrific Grandma's weekend so we were going to go up through Wisconsin.... let's just say it took a little longer than we expected and the closer we got to Duluth the foggier it became.

This was a good day of fog, it was much thicker than this in Duluth and at our campsite.

Yes, I did say campsite. We decided to camp on Spirit Mountain. A good idea in theory, but let's just say its a good thing we had a good sense of humor about the whole thing. First there was the above fog to deal with at a high altitude in the mountains, second this sign at the check in building....

 Oh yeah, and it was raining, not a lot but a misty rain that never seemed to end. We set up camp right away because of the never ending rain.

We headed into town to bum around that afternoon and "see the sights" it's been five years since I had been to Duluth.

Friday night we ran the 5k together. It was a lot of fun. Not my best time, I overdressed because of the weather but we still had a lot of fun. This was at the start line. Dad even hung with me despite my slow pace.

 

 After the race and dinner, rain started moving no longer the mist we were used to but heavy rain. So we headed back to camp and attempted to get a few hours of shut eye. We didn't get much sleep that night especially since we had to be up and back downtown at 4:30am Saturday morning to drop dad off for the half marathon. Runners are bussed to the start of the race and finish downtown. I spent the morning in a coffee shop with a bunch of other families waiting out the cool rainy temps.

Dad less than two blocks from the finish line.

 Finished, this is post race after cleaning up. This Grandpa can still run a half marathon in under 2 hours. Congrats Dad!

 

Saturday after the race we headed back into Minneapolis. We were planning to camp another night but the weather was not cooperating for another night of camping. It was a pretty cool father/daughter weekend.