Travel plans for today were a bit derailed, but luckily not blown off the road. Instead of casually inspecting the nice little towns and kitschy off-highway attractions of the eastern half of North Dakota, I drove along hoping not to get stuck in the piles of snow in the middle of the highway, or drive off the road when all I could see was the taillights of the truck in front of me. I don’t think that my car is the best choice for deep snow performance, but it got me to a hotel with rooms, power, and dinner, so no complaints.

Yesterday, I wandered around Duluth for a bit in the rain (which in retrospect was terrific weather…). My guide book describes it as “one of the most beautiful and under-appreciated travel destinations in the midwest.” It also says that it is “gracefully etched into the side of tough, 800-foot granite slopes and gazing over the dark harbor hues.” Now, admittedly, the weather conditions might have affected my perceptions, but perhaps this description is a bit overly poetic. Positano, it ain’t.

However, there were two facets that I thought were really cool. Firstly, the whole downtown has a skybridge system, so that you can walk all over the downtown 1 floor up from ground level. Each building has public corridors on the 2nd floor, sometimes with shops, that allow you to walk from one bridge between buildings to the next. Obviously a useful feature in a place where the winters are a touch colder than San Francisco.

Secondly, there’s a drive north of the city called Skyline Parkway, which varies between views over Lake Superior from the top of a ridge to a multi-colored tree lined road winding back and forth over nice little bridges. Probably not pretty enough to warrant a visit to Duluth, but definitely worth checking out if you’re there.