At the Lake

When we posted last, we were planning to move the motorhome to our cabin on the Whiteface Reservoir.  We traveled on that Thursday, the day before the opening of fishing season.  Traffic was no problem and the drive was stress free. 

Once here, we took a little time to rake our parking area and unload the motorcycle before backing in and leveling.  Since then we have filled our days with mundane tasks like a complete raking of the lawn, floating the swimming raft, putting out the dock, and planting flowers.  All of these activities were spread over 2 weeks because the weather has been miserable: frequent showers, cloudy skies, and brisk winds mostly off the lake.  We have made a couple of walks around the peninsula, and chatted with a few of the neighbors and played cards a couple of times with Paige’s cousin Steve and his wife Deanna. 

On the 20^th, Aerostich held an open house at its Duluth Headquarters.  This is the manufacturer of the well known motorcycle riding suit and a mail order supplier of many other motorcycle accessories.  We went there by truck since the temps were in the lower 40’s but many customers were hardy (?) enough to ride there.

           

One of their doorprizes was a booklet called “Zero below zero” which was a diary of the management and staff of Aerostich who ran an experiment with a Zero-brand electric motorcycle.  They took turns commuting to and from work all winter without parking the parking it indoors at all.  Reading of their experiences made that day’s temperatures seem balmy.

On one of the nicer days last week, we got a text message from Brett telling us he was on his way to the Boundary Waters on a search and rescue mission in the Minnesota State Patrol’s helicopter.  They passed nearby on their way to Ely, and then to Sawbill Lake, but they were too far east of us to be seen or heard.  Their mission was successful and, on their return to St Paul, they had time for a quick fly-by and wave.

Lucky for them that it was probably the best weather for flying during the entire week.

More recently there was one other nice-weather day just before the Memorial Day weekend, when neither jacket nor rain coat was needed.  We saw that many of our neighbors had lots of visitors for the weekend because of the cars and trucks parking nearby, but the lake and roads weren’t crowded and it was really pretty quiet up here.  We had 2 guests: David and Brayden came here late on Friday and spent Saturday hiking along the North Shore and getting some photographs at a couple of state parks.  Sunday we tried for another state park at Calumet but found that it is open Fridays and Saturdays only.  They left early on Monday to have time to photograph the St Louis River and its rapids in Jay Cooke state park.