Exploring Grand Marais, Minnesota (Devil’s Kettle Falls, TACOS, & the Gunflint Trail!)

Yesterday we kicked off our North Shore road trip here in Minnesota with waterfalls, history, beautiful views, and even a bear sighting in Grand Portage. And today we're continuing our North Shore road trip down to Grand Marais with the goal of exploring the town and also heading up into the Northwoods. And our first stop is to Devil's Kettle Falls at Judge C.R. Magney State Park. We have just about a two mile hike to the falls but these falls aren't like your regular falls. For many many years there was quite a big mystery surrounding them which we'll explain when we get to them. This is Devil's Kettle Falls and as you can see the river splits into two at an outcropping of rhyolite which is a volcanic rock and half of the river goes down and just kind of like a standard waterfall and just flows into the lower part. But the other part just disappears into this big hole and that has been the mystery. Where does it go? There have been many theories of how this happens over the years and one of the more popular ones was that they thought that the one on the left just drains underground all the way to Lake Superior. And I guess after many years of research they finally figured it out that it simply just goes into that hole and then comes right back out underneath but the water rushing through is so powerful that they just couldn't tell for the longest time. So mystery solved. Apparently people used to like throw stuff down there like sticks to try to see where it came out and they never would see it again but I think the water was just so powerful that it would just stay underwater for a while. So yeah that's that's the mystery. It's solved. We headed about 15 minutes southwest to the town of Grand Marais which is right on the shore of Lake Superior. It is a creative artsy and outdoorsy town that has been named America's coolest small town, a top 10 beach getaway, and the next great adventure town. I grabbed coffee from a place called Java Moose which is right across from Lake Superior here. On the inside it had like these cozy cabin vibes. It's a really cool spot and we both got maple lattes. Oh that tastes like just out of this world. Like maple syrup, coffee, sweet. Maple syrup is a big thing in Minnesota in the north so we kind of feel like it's kind of local. Yeah we had to get its local maple syrup as well. We're just sitting here on the lake. It's right on the beach here. Hearing all the birds. It's just the water lapping up. It is a perfect spot. It's so beautiful here. One of the top spots to check out here in Grand Marais is Artist Point. It's a broad tombolo which looks like a peninsula that just juts out of town right on Lake Superior. There's all this rocky coast shoreline that you can walk along. There's a lighthouse back there. You have great views of town and it's really popular with artists. We actually saw someone painting right in the harbor which is just so cool. I keep getting very confused like we're at the ocean or the beach. It's just a huge lake so it feels like looks like the ocean. You hear the waves crashing. There's seagulls. Smells like it. It's a real mind trick. We grabbed lunch in town from a place called Hungry Hippie Tacos and they are known for their Indian fry bread tacos which is a fried dough that originates from the Navajo Nation and it has a very sad origin story. It was created when they were forced to make a 300 mile journey known as the long walk and relocate to New Mexico onto land that couldn't easily support their traditional staples of vegetables and beans. To prevent the indigenous populations from starving the government gave them canned goods as well as white flour, processed sugar, and lard which they used to create this fried dough. Yeah we're very concerned last time when we only got one taco. We got two tacos each and we got tachos. So this is the fry bread taco here. The shell is the fry bread and then I got a pork one so there's tons of pork in there. There's lettuce that's a chipotle crema, jalapenos, supposed to come with onions I think but they were out today they said and then there's tons of cheese on there as well and corn too I see. Heck yeah. I also got the special taco for the day. This is a shrimp and pineapple. It said it was a caramelized pineapple salsa somewhere down in there behind all this dang lettuce. And I got lettuce tacos. I'm just kidding. You just can only see the lettuce on the top but this one is brisket and this one is their pork which we saw them like shredding the pork in the back. It's just falling off the bone. It looks and as we mentioned we got tachos which are tater tot nachos. There's cheese on here, sour cream, all the taco fixings are on there. Some salsa and then oh just delicious oh tater tots. We are feasting clearly today for lunch. That taco is awesome. Starting out with the pork is nice and tender and flavorful. Cheese in there is awesome. Lettuce is nice and fresh. The chipotle crema there gives it a nice smokiness and then the fry bread is really awesome. It has a little bit of crisp on it but it's still very nice and doughy and just kind of very comforting. I'm digging the fry bread taco. The second I bit into that I immediately tasted the chipotle sour cream. It was so good and the pork is so tender. You can get regular or chipotle sour cream. You have to get the chipotle. The brisket is super good as well. It's kind of more like a roasted beef. It's just kind of a shredded beef but it is so tender as well. Oh I'm just loving all the toppings they put in this. The corn gives a little bit of like a fresh like crisp like not crisp but like just juiciness. I don't know. That taco is amazing. You instantly get the freshness of the pineapple and the shrimp. The shrimp are nice and plump and juicy. It just mixed so well with the chipotle crema. This this taco just tastes super fresh and refreshing and sweet spicy a little bit of smoky. Here's your weapon set. Oh yeah. Oh look at this brisket right here. Now we're talking. Oh my god. Get the tachos. They are off the charts. So good. This is this is the winner right here. This might be my favorite thing. For our last adventure of the day we're gonna drive the 57 mile gunpoint trail which is a National Scenic Byway. It connects Grand Marais to the Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness. It's said to be a great place to see wildlife and there's lots of hikes and sights along the way. So the gunpoint trail is a very forested drive. You're surrounded by tons of trees as you drive down the road. So to see some of the sights along the way you have to go on some side roads because there aren't a ton of views from the actual road. We're making a pit stop at Honeymoon Bluff which is I read a 0.4 mile hike but the sign said 0.7 mile hike. Either way super short and we should have an awesome view of I think it's called Hungry Jack Lake. That overlook was pretty dang awesome. That blew my expectations out of the water. I'll admit I didn't know a ton before we got here but you can see a really big lake right in front of you and then a bunch of what looked like a bunch of other little lakes off in the distance. Our next stop on the gunpoint trail is Magnetic Rock which is about a three mile hike round trip and this rock has some magical powers that we're excited to see for ourselves. You might already know what it is based off the name but it should be pretty cool. We said that you can see wildlife on the gunpoint trail we haven't seen anything yet until now. There's a beaver! He just went underwater. See his bubbles? Oh my gosh we've never seen a beaver in real life before and he was just using his little hands and eating the grass. It's especially cool to see a beaver because that is a huge part of the fur trapping history in this area so it may not be a bear or a moose but we've been learning all about beavers recently so this is very cool. Oh wow it's huge! It's massive. If you haven't guessed by now the Magnetic Rock's special power is it's magnetic apparently. The only magnetic really thing we have is this little slider for our yeti lids. I guess there's a little tiny magnet in there. Do you think it's gonna stick? I think so. I don't but we'll see. It really sticks. I didn't think it would. You really didn't? I mean I thought I thought this magnet was gonna be too weak for this. I thought maybe yeah it's really magnetic but wow. We made it to the end of the gunpoint road the Boundary Waters although there wasn't really much to show because it was mostly just campsites and then parking if you're gonna go canoe but that's okay. So the Boundary Waters are a vast wilderness that extend 150 miles along the U.S. Canada border and encompasses over 1 million acres. You may have heard that Minnesota is called the land of 10,000 lakes but did you know that there are actually 11,842 lakes and over 1100 of them are in the Boundary Waters and also in the Boundary Waters there's over 1500 miles of canoe routes. We really want to canoe the Boundary Waters but just logistically with Kona it wasn't going to be possible this time so we'll have to come back and maybe when we come back we'll be able to do Voyagers National Park and Isle Royale National Park both of which require a boat to get to. It's also just kind of logistically challenging this time but we will take any excuse to come back to this part of the United States. One challenge that we're going to have now that we're moving east is sleeping at night. Out west there are tons of free campsites many of them with amazing views but in the midwest and the east we pretty much sleep in parking lots every night and while we're really grateful for a free place to stay or somewhere cheap like last night it's definitely not glamorous. But Best Western hooked us up with a few nights at Best Western plus Superior Inn right here on Lake Superior. We are so pumped for hot showers, free coffee, free breakfast, AC, Kona freaking loves it here she's flipping all over the ground and we got a room right here on the beach here we can enjoy the beach all we want. And the timing is pretty perfect because tomorrow is actually my birthday and our plan is to do nothing but just hang out at the hotel and relax a bit so a big thank you to Best Western for not only making my birthday extra special but for giving us a little bit of a vacation while here on the north shore. We are so excited to continue exploring more of this area and after resting up a bit tomorrow we'll be back on the road to see more of its beauty.