MEA Weekend

This weekend was MEA weekend in Minnesota.  For those of you not familiar with that, as I was when we moved here, it is a weekend in MN where the teachers are given two days off of school to attend a conference in Minneapolis sponsored by the MEA...Minnesota Education Association.  Actually they have 3 days off, the first, Wednesday, is a teacher planning day, the next two are to attend conferences.  Although  after 12 years in the school system, I have yet to hear of any teacher attend a conference.  Most do what the rest of us parents do...we take our kids on a long weekend.

We are no different from most parents.  Our location of choice for MEA is Duluth.  And OH, BOY did we ever luck out.  We've done Duluth in Oct when it was so cold we had to wear winter jackets.  This year, Thursday and Friday were GLORIOUS!

We arrived mid afternoon on Thursday and checked into our hotel, Comfort Suites on Canal Park.  This hotel is the one closest to the lift bridge through which most of the behemoth container ships must transverse in order to off/on load their containers.  And when I say these ships are huge, I mean HUGE!  From our room, right across from the indoor pool, we were able to see Lake Superior and the pier and watch ships pass through the canal.

Our first afternoon, was cooler, probably mid 50s with a light breeze.  The kids immediately ran to the water (TO the water, not IN the water thank heavens).  We had a very  nice Packer fan (yes, there ARE nice Packer fans out there) offer to take a picture of the family:

No ships on the horizon meant we'd have to wait until Friday to see them come into the bay.  So we walked the pier and canal street before heading to Grandma's Saloon for dinner.  It's become something of a tradition.  Kids love it and even though it's almost always a wait, it seems to be worth it.


Back to the hotel, as we had a busy weekend ahead of us.  And there was a pool, calling the kiddie's names.