Day 2 in Tofte started when the sun came up, 7:30am. The days are short here so we want to get the most out of our day!
The day started with pastries, and Uncle Josh!
My brother in laws have back to back birthdays and it was fun to Facetime Josh, he is usually always colder than we are, but today we were 19° and he was 39°! He said it was his birthday gift, some warm weather!
After breakfast and birthday calls we headed out. We read up on sighting moose and read that the Gunflint Trail was a sure fire bet to see moose. So we headed out. It is a 57 mile paved road through the heart of Minnesota Wilderness.
It was absolutely stunning!! As we headed out of town and up the trail more and more snow appeared. It was breathtaking, we found lake after lake frozen solid or have frozen half running. We soon realized why Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes they are everywhere.
The girls loved the snow at all the lookouts. Right across the lake was Canada that is how far up North we were. We continued our search for the elusive moose all the way to the end of the trail. 
We hoped to see some on our way back down the trail, but alas we did not. Though it was a bummer to not see any moose we had the best time!!! We played, we talked, we laughed, we enjoyed God’s creation with no phones, no iPads, no interruptions, no service!
It is definitely worth seeing, I am so glad we came in the winter!
After completing the trail and were back in town we decided to head to the Canadian border, maybe we would see a moose! On our way we did see a National Monument about the fur traders from Canada. The girls just happened to be studying that in school so we made a detour! 
Then we made it to the border, the sign when we came into Minnesota was under construction so Alan got his 49th state pic at the Canadian border! 
After that we ran across the street to a 1/2 mile hike to a waterfall Alan read about! We were now racing the sun that was setting so we booked it to the falls and it was so worth it! So beautiful!
High Falls, US/Canada border on the pigeon river
Seeing the 1/2 frozen water around here is so cool!!! The noise of the ice, the roar of the falls. These pictures do not do it justice! Plus the freezing cold…add that in and it is magical!! 🥶
We headed back to our hotel after this, we knew the place at our hotel had take out so we enjoyed dinner on the floor of the hotel with another Hallmark movie!
In a little bit we headed out to a fire pit and were able to roast marshmallows and enjoy s’mores! COVID has taken away all the activities of our resort, so this was nice to be able to enjoy! We also were able to get hot chocolate!
We hung around for a bit then headed out to search the skies for the Northern lights! We again were not able to see what we were searching for. The giant full moon made it almost impossible to see the lights, plus the probability was only at 50%, but the stars…they were everywhere. Being in a very dark area with only the moon to light up makes the sky almost light up with stars. and thanks to that incredibly bright moon we were able to even get pics on our phones they were so vibrant!
Ready to seek out the northern lights!
Orion, The big dipper, and Cassiopeia
It was a very full day we saw and did so much! Even though we didn’t see anything we searched for, we found so much more we didn’t even realize was out there!
Lastly, as we headed back to the hotel a little fox came running down the road! The perfect end to the day!
🦊