If you hail from an urban area, Grand Marais’s summer traffic increase probably rolls off your back like water off a duck. City traffic with its construction snafus and long traffic jams is part of your life, and you’re accustomed to it.
But I left city traffic many years ago and have become spoiled. I’m used to peaceful commutes, so I avoid summer’s higher traffic level by changing my driving routes.
The one area I especially avoid is at the bottom of the “old” Gunflint Trail and Highway 61. Here, businesses, the North House Folk School, and several restaurants have thrived in the past few years bringing more cars and more foot traffic to this intersection. Great for businesses. I’m all for that. But sometimes, that small section of highway gets slightly crazy when wandering pedestrians, cars making injudicious left hand turns and large semis carrying heavy equipment intermingle.
I take a different route along the side streets of Grand Marais. Not only are my nerves calmer and my blood pressure lower, but my commutes have reacquainted me with the beauty of our little town.
One of my favorite alternate routes to the Gunflint Trail is Eighth Avenue. Wellkept houses with tidy yards line the street, and although the incline is steep, a driver can manage to drive slowly.
Sometimes I turn off onto side streets and find myself in almost-hidden neighborhoods. Third Street is such a place. Several nice houses are tucked in among the tree-lined street with lovely views of the courthouse and the blue shimmer of Lake Superior in the distance.
Today I turn down Sixth Avenue, noticing a yard filled with yellow day lilies and brilliantly orange nasturtiums. Further down the street, a driveway lined with red pines catches my eye. I’ve never noticed it before. I roll past a B&B and admire its rock garden filled with brilliantly colored flowers.
Finally, I turn onto First Street and slow down the car to better view a house with a white picket fence. This charming place has drifts of flowers planted on its boulevards. Rust colored gaillardia with daisy like flowers…pink poppies…. purple bell flowers. Everything is eye pleasing.
Another car approaches, so I move forward. Maybe I’ll take this route home and see more of this exquisite yard. At last, I turn my car down Eighth Avenue driving one more block to reach Highway 61.
As I wait to make a right turn and merge with the highway traffic, I take a moment to admire the deep maroon petals of a fading peony bush that droops to the ground in the yard of the corner house.
Yes, I took the long route, but it was worth it.
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