duluth, jamaica 1

Matt and I went to Duluth over the weekend for the Bayfront Reggae Festival. I knew we’d have a good time, but not that good. I loved it.

Because Duluth is full of Twin Citians all summer long, it’s hard to get rooms there. We managed to find an opening at Black Bear Casino in Carlton at the last minute, though; having stayed there before, we knew it was both cheap and really nice. Also, they gave us coupons for coffee, the buffet, and $5 from the cashier!

We had dinner there, then drove into Duluth and wandered around for a while. One of the streets were blocked off for bands and bars on folding tables, and people were milling around aimlessly. We decided to check out JJ Aster, in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Radisson. We had a couple cocktails while talking to the really entertaining bartenders, looking out on Bayfront Festival Park (where we’d be the next day), and watching diners rotate around us.

Afterwards, we went back to the casino to play blackjack. We both more than doubled our money, ending up with something like $220 total. We took our wad of cash to the lounge and watched the cover band, and, as is our way, ended up dancing the Cupid Shuffle with a bachelorette party before heading to bed.

We had breakfast at a Swedish restaurant on Superior Street called Takk for Maten. Listen: they have lefse pizza. It will be item #1 on the list of places to return to when we’re there over Labor Day.

After breakfast, we made the obligatory trip to Wisconsin for two items you can’t buy in Minnesota: New Glarus beer and Everclear for bitters-making. Since we’d never seen downtown Superior, we decided to check it out. OH MY GOD, I have never seen so many bars in one place. How could they possibly have enough people there to support it? It beats Milwaukee in tavern-density. There must be one for every three people in town. Insane.

There was the obligatory stop at Shopko, and then it was time to head to the festival. It was sunny and in the low 80s, perfect weather for sitting in a park overlooking Lake Superior, drinking rum punch, and listening to reggae.

There was some pretty amazing people-watching, too, as expected at any event that brings together hippies, old people, drunk bros, and actual Jamaicans (in Minnesota!). The main takeaways I got from it: 1) Bayfront Park is way more awesome than Harriet Island, dammit, and 2) white people look really stupid in dashikis.

My favorite person there was flag guy:

He carried his Kenyan flag on a fishing pole around all day long, alternating between dancing frantically near the stage and taking people’s picture holding the flag. I’m positive he got photos of every single person there. I’m not sure what his story is, but I love him.

We stayed for all but the last set (seeing Tosh 1 was the most important thing), then headed to our new lodgings at Fitgers, covered in about 5 layers of sweat and half-sunburnt (due to sitting in the same location all day). We checked in, made ourselves presentable, and headed to dinner in the brewery.

I ordered a wild rice burger that had bleu cheese and jalapenos on it. Our server warned me that they only put a couple of peppers on it because they were extremely hot. I thought, “how bad could they be?” Well, just try some face-melting jalapenos while you have sunburnt lips. You may want to die a little.

My coworker had told us we should stop at Blackwater to see the art deco styling, so we walked the few blocks there and found seats at the bar. A minute later, another of my coworkers came up and said hi; we hadn’t even known he was going to be in Duluth. The cocktails there were a little subpar, but it was definitely worth seeing, especially considering our friends are having their reception in that building in September.

We walked back to Fitgers hoping to re-visit the ‘ultralounge’, but as we approached it, it was clear from the noise inside (imagine a combination of blaring Lady Gaga and 200 ladies yelling over both Lady Gaga and each other) that we were not going to enjoy it. We headed downstairs to the Tap Room instead, because we’d seen a band loading in there earlier. After some finagling, we managed to get seats at the bar, where I spent the night being leaned-on by people ordering kamikazes and sex on the beach, but it was still worth it: as Matt realized after scoping out the band members hanging around, the headliner was a ska band. WIN. We stayed to watch the show, then headed upstairs to our conveniently-located hotel room.

…Where we found the largest spider in the universe hanging out on the ceiling. Since there was no way we were sleeping with that guy lurking nearby, I climbed onto a chair and killed him with almost the entire contents of a box of kleenex.

The next morning, we checked out and wandered around the shops at Fitgers. We went out to see the Lakewalk, too. I’m not sure what the story is with all the little carts scooting down the railroad tracks was, but I know that I want to ride in one.

We went over to Canal Park for further shopping (it’s a tradition) and lunch. Matt wanted to visit the Northern Waters Smokehaus, which we’d seen on the Food Network. The best part of the awesome meat store? They had an amazing veggie sandwich. When we met the owner in the parking lot afterwards, I told him I appreciated it.

Round about gametime, we went to Grandma’s Sports Garage (or something on that order) to watch the World Cup finals. I figured we may be the only Spain fans there (the Scandinavians seem to prefer the Dutch, I’ve found), but that was not the case. It was awesome to see the place packed full of people watching the game and cheering.

We headed back to the Twin Cities after the game, managing to miss both cabin traffic and the storms in Minneapolis. Between that and our blackjack wins, I’m thinking Duluth might just be lucky for us. We’ll test this theory in September!