Back At It

During a quiet week with Brett and Jen and the girls, we got to see the girls off to school every morning and return most afternoons.  We also got our annual dental inspections done and had a few more social gatherings.

On Friday Sept 19 we hit the road, northbound, and arrived at Northern Pines Camp in Park Rapids MN for a 3-week Nomads project.  We met with the camp director during the afternoon to learn what he had in mind for our group to work on.  Four more couples joined us on Saturday and Sunday, so we have 10 people here.  It’s a great group and we’ve had a lot of fun getting to know everyone already this week.

After a busy 4-day work week, we all are enjoying the start of a quiet 3-day weekend.   We started with a number of our larger tasks and have made good progress already, but only a couple projects have been completed.  We started off the weekend on Thursday night with a bonfire and roasted hot dogs.

It’s a beautiful, unseasonably warm weekend here.  The sunset tonight was gorgeous!

Fall is Here

Last week we moved our groceries from the cabin to the motorhome on Thursday so that we could pull up the jacks and roll down the road to Brett and Jen’s place.  Friday morning the flowers were still standing and colorful, but we heard that a hard frost hit that night, so we apparently got out just in time.  We had a great summer up at the Whiteface and will miss everyone up there!  Here is how things looked when we left:

We now have this week to do some socializing, get annual dental checkups, and some delayed back-to-school shopping with the granddaughters.

We also got to a hockey practice for Anna.  She’s just starting hockey but is making great progress.

This week we have our pre-employment drug tests for Amazon, and more socializing with friends and family before we leave for our fall Nomad project in Park Rapids MN.

It has been a relaxing summer, but the time is coming to get back to work.

Goodbye Cabin, soon

Our summer at the cabin is wrapping up quickly now.  We just pulled the raft and dock out with the help of our neighbor.  We have 3 full days to transfer all our stuff from the cabin to the motorhome and spend one more day in Duluth for laundry and groceries before leaving on Friday morning for Elk River. 

This past weekend David and LeJoy came for a visit.  They brought a box of apples from a tree in their yard so LeJoy and Paige made Apple Crisp and Applesauce.  Bob and Dave went to McCarthy State Park for a hike.  We had such a nice time and it was hard to see them leave.  They have the honor of being our last company for the summer.  Another reminder that our time at the cabin is ending.

                                                                    last boat ride

After the left, we had a beautiful Sunday afternoon, when we could sit alongside of the motorhome and watch the renewed Vikings team record their first (of many) wins this season.

As we go on our golf cart rides around the circle, we think of all the things we did up here this summer:

• Having kids and granddaughters up here at various times
• Spending time with Grandma Joyce and doing things with her (celebrating her 85^th birthday in July)
• Picking raspberries
• Getting to know neighbors better, meeting new neighbors, and seeing old neighbors
• Playing cards and games with neighbors
• Enjoying campfires
• Going for a couple of boat and motorcycle rides
• Spending time with cousin Steve and family
  
• Having KJ/Rob and Almekinders visit
• Walks around the circle
• Quiet time reading our Nooks, knitting, and playing Cribbage (Bob enjoyed this more than Paige as he usually won!)

Today is windy but sunny and quite warm.  The forecast, however, is for a high of 45 and rainy by Wednesday.  This is nature’s way of preparing us for the move south!  We get to spend a week at Brett’s where we’ll take care of medical appointments and spend time with all the granddaughters and other family before we start our Nomads project in Park Rapids.  

What Summer?

Labor Day is less than a week away; we’ve already been to the MN State Fair; we’ve had a couple of nights with temps below 40; a few trees are beginning to lose their green.  Fall is definitely in the air.

We spent some time beautifying our new driveway by adding a rock border.  We still have a ways to go on this project.

We have also spent time with cabin neighbors, either playing cards or just sitting and talking.  Bob and Kathy Almekinder came for a short visit.  It was so good to see them.  Here we are at cousin Steve’s enjoying the fire. 

Late last week we made a quick trip to the Twin Cities for a day at the state fair with Brett and his girls, plus LaJoy and her kids (a first-time trip for them).

The shorter days and cooler nights let us know that summer won’t last much longer.  We will still be here for a few more weeks, and more company is coming to visit.  Our plans for the next few months are firming up:  after a Nomads project at a church camp, we will return to working for Amazon (this time at a warehouse in Tennessee), then we will spend the winter in Florida doing Nomads projects and just enjoying the warm weather.

Update

Last weekend was busy.  On Saturday afternoon we went to Paige’s class reunion.  It was small (30 classmates out of 350 attended) but we enjoyed seeing some old familiar faces.  The weather was perfect for it and it was held at a classmate’s lake home not terribly far from the Whiteface.

We left the reunion early as cousin Steve and Deanna invited us to their cabin for a steak dinner.  We had great food and great company there!  We sat on their deck and watched the sun go down – it was a beautiful sight and so peaceful!

When we got back to our cabin, we saw the moon coming up.  The moon has been spectacular this week!  It can be so beautiful up here!

This week’s weather has been great – just warm enough and a little rain.  We worked on the ceiling in the cabin and shampooing the carpet.  Mom came for a visit one day.  Not too many projects but enough to keep us busy.

We’ve started collecting rocks and creating a cobble stone edging around the driveway to stabilize the slope and make it look better.  That’s hard work and not anything we need to get done in a hurry!

This weekend we have our good friends the Almekinders coming for a quick visit.  We haven’t seen them in for 2 years so we’re real anxious to see them!

The Summer is Flying By

We just noticed that we only posted once during July – Sorry, we will try to post more often, but can’t promise it.  We have had some more company when KJ and Rob came for a long weekend.  We had a good time playing cards, going for walks, and a boat ride.  They also brought their watchdog, Kody.

                                       Rob and Kody on the kayak

After they left, we spent a day in both Superior and Duluth, doing routine errands but we were able to fit in a stop for lunch with Joyce at one of our favorite burger joints in Superior.   We celebrated the signing up on Medicare and a Medicare supplement for Paige.  Should cut the cost of healthcare for us a little bit.

We have had the area around the cabin to ourselves for most of the summer, but our neighbors on both sides have been here this past week.  These 3 families have a long history here on the Whiteface, so there was a bit of reminiscing when they were all together.  Joyce came up on Wednesday for a barbecue with some of the neighbors and she also got an opportunity to visit with Joe who bought the cabin next door about 6 years before Cliff bought ours.  Lots of memories and activity with the kids around!

We took a few hours earlier this week to get in a motorcycle ride, checking out a couple of new-to-us county roads and stopping in at Mineview, a tourist information stop outside of Virginia MN.  Here on top of a huge pile of mine tailings is an overview of some former open pit mines

They also had a couple of older mining trucks:

These have been retired since newer trucks are even larger.  These make our motorhome look small.

The weather up here has been perfect – sunny and in the high 70’s.  It’s so nice to be here when it’s like this!

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.