It Has Been a Quiet Week (or 11) at Whiteface Resv.

Other than a few quick trips to Minneapolis, we have been parked at the cabin since mid-May.  We had a couple of non-ordinary days when the power went out, twice.  The first time was in mid-June, when the motorhome was in Duluth for repairs and we had no electricity for a little over a day.  We used a neighbor’s portable generator once or twice to keep the frozen food cold.  The latest time was just last week when a major windstorm hit northern MN and brought down many power lines.  Thousands of people had no electricity for over a day and a half.  By that time, we had the motorhome back and were able to run our own generator when needed.

That was near the end of a 10-day visit by our 3 youngest granddaughters, Sophia, Anna, and Olivia.  They kept each other (and us) quite busy swimming, reading, and playing games (Cribbage, Qwirkle, and Backgammon).

Grandpa and Anna reading by the fire

Olivia mowing grass with Life Jacket on - "you can never be too careful".

Girls putting on show on the raft

In the middle of this visit, we moved the motorhome back to Duluth’s Lakehead Marina for a couple of days of sightseeing in town, including the visitors center in Canal Park, the beach at Minnesota Point, and the aerial lift bridge.  Grandma Joyce’s 85^th birthday was July 16^th, so Paige took her to see Les Miserables at the DECC.  It was a local production but absolutely topnotch!

Lunch with Grandma Joyce along shore of Lake Superior.  Beautiful day!

At Canal Park

Granddaughters at marina on Lake Superior

After coming back to the cabin, we had one last field trip before their visit was over – we took them to the International Wolf Center in Ely.  We thoroughly enjoyed having the granddaughters to the cabin.  All of the granddaughters are growing up to be such wonderful young women!

View of wolf at the Wolf Center

Last Tuesday we met their parents in Cloquet and they then went back to Elk River.  Jen just returned from a trip to Japan so we got to see most of her pictures.  What a wonderful experience it was for her!  We came back to the cabin, cleaned, and are now getting used to the quiet again. 

Our smartphone was due for an upgrade so we went into Duluth and got the new Samsung S5.  One of the selling points was the great camera capabilities.  Dave has one and his pictures are so crisp.  With that new purchase, they offered a free Verizon tablet.  We took advantage of that but are still trying to determine its usefulness.  We will probably use it for electronic books.  Since we don’t have great connectivity on Verizon at the cabin, we’ll use it more after we leave here.

The weather is warming up and we’re finally able to enjoy some summer up here.