Jay Cook State Park, MN

St. Louis River, from the suspension bridge, at Jay Cook State Park, MN

I first visited Jay Cook State Park, 10 miles south of Duluth, Minnesota in 1969, when I was 16 years old and on vacation with my best friend and her family. My second visit was 37 years later, in 2006, while on a field trip with the Split Rock Artist Retreat. 

The only thing I remembered from that first visit was the 200 foot long suspension bridge that crosses the St. Louis River Gorge.  Both times I was scared to death to cross it. When I was 16, I wasn't interested in beautiful scenery though.  My focus, then, was on the young, two-legged "wildlife" of the male gender. On this second trip, so many years later, I was stunned by the rugged beauty of the landscape and the power of the mighty river roaring beneath the bridge.