Black Beach was very nice. I hope to post pics when John gets them off the camera. It is crushed rocks rather than fine sand but good to walk on barefoot. They have picnic tables and trash barrels so it would be a great place for a lunch stop. The lake water was ice cold. The beach was pristine. It is a short walk on a well packed, dirt trail. There is a pit toilet at the parking lot.
Note: go to the END of the road. There are three parking lots in that strip and the last one accesses the black beach. The parking lot was big enough we could have pulled around with our 2552 and toad and parked along the edge without blocking anyone. That said, the lot was mostly empty. If it gets crowded people might park and block this so you could wind up dropping your tow vehicle.
Grand Portage was awesome! We made sure to hit on a weekend to catch their living history and it was great. I don't know how it would be without them. Interesting note, these were volunteer interpretive hosts. Their rigs were up behind the maintenance area. They were building a birch bark canoe, cooking with "state of the art" iron kitchen tools, fiddling and explaining music development (really good fiddling), teaching historical navigation, etc. Pretty impressive. There are also really good interpretive exhibits and a film at the Heritage Center which is where you park. It is a collaboration between the native tribe and National Park Service... Which brings us to the casino almost next door. We hit there for a good, inexpensive $5.99 breakfast buffet. They have a campground which was a step up from the standard parking lot with benefits you get at most casinos but still out in the open. There is a slight uplift charge for lake view sites.
We spent so much time at Grand Portage that we had to skip the state park. (I was out voted). We were starving, the rig full of food was back at the rest area at Tettegouche SP, we forgot our snacks and it was John's birthday. We rolled for Grand Marais where they were just shutting down their art festival for the day. Dinner at Harbor House restaurant was excellent! Dinner and dessert on their deck overlooking the harbor was perfect for John's dinner.
Tettegouche has a really nice combined park and state visitor center and rest area right on 61 that seems to allow overnight parking. We saw several semi's in there as well as a couple camping units popped up or with slides out. There is a separate lot for RV's and trucks. Google earth shows a construction site but it is complete. Lobby with restrooms is open 24 hours.
