Happy birthday Connor

We missed Connor's 4th. Sad but unavoidable. We are in Grand Forks ND. The campground we are in is built in a neighborhood that was removed by FEMA after a huge flood in 1997. 140 homes were removed and we are literally camped in someone's front yard. It's kinda creepy. There was nearly 500 million $s spent in this town to insure the flood damage doesn't reoccur. There are many miles of bike trails along the river. We rode for 1 1/2 hours. Note the flood retaining wall built to protect the riverfront neighborhoods.

Detroit Lakes day II

Yesterday, during a bike ride, I discovered a public boat ramp on Detroit Lake. Jenny dropped me off there this morning and I had a good 3 hour training paddle. Our afternoon was filled with a visit to a downtown festival, groceries & laundry. We move tomorrow, don't know where yet.

Detroit Lakes Minnesota

I was going to call this post, 'entomologist delight' or 'mosquito apocalypse' but the bugs are not in evidence here. We are in a commercial park. Tomorrow in town there is festival of some sort that we will probably attend. There is a lake near here and I'm thinking about doing some training. This pic was taken while sitting with a plate of nachos and a beer downtown.

Chocolate shakes northern Minnesota

Miss-Kito returns

We are at Sandy Lake recreation area in Minnesota. We spent one night here about 20 days into our Mississippi River trip. There are showers and a laundry, we thought it was heaven. Well, today we thought we had accidentally entered a mosquito convention. We need to get used to this I guess. There is standing water everywhere and the temperature has just recently become appealing to mosquitoes apparently. This is our campsite. 

Impeccable judgment

We set out this morning to paddle our kayaks to some caves along the shoreline of Lake Superior. We were unloaded and ready to push off but the conditions were pretty bad and seemed to be getting worse so we turned around, reloaded the boats and returned to the MP. We then took our car via a ferry to Madeline Island, the largest Apostle Island, and did some exploring. These pictures were taken during that afternoon sojourn.

Not sure

Maybe this is what happens when they jump over the fence or maybe what happens when you hit them with your car.

Westward Ho!

We have left Pat & Steve's home in Fifield and are now in Bayfield WI. We only drove 90 miles but I have always wanted to visit here because it's the home of the Apostle Islands National lake Shore. I want to paddle a few hours tomorrow. The water temperature in lake Superior is in the 30s. In fact there are islands of ice floating in the lake, still. It's almost June. Jenny has not expressed much enthusiasm for my planned paddle tomorrow. I'll try my powers of persuasion but they have had only limited success.

A hard winter in the North Country

This is what your typical "Brad Pitt" type, good looking Wisconsin young man looked like after the winter of 2014.

Northwoods training paddle

2nd annual Memorial Day fish fry

Last year Pat & Steve had the neighbors over for a party on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. It was a rousing success, so it was determined that it will become a yearly celebration. This is year 2. Tucker observed the proceedings from the highest perch he could find.

Administrative details

Today we had documents notarized so that Lu can act as our power of attorney at the closing. We had to fax something to our accountant because the IRS is pissed at us and we went to the post office and grocery store. That was all before we rode bikes for 10 miles and I paddled for 2 hours. This is vacation?

Warning! Warning! Will Robinson

If you ever see this item for sale at your local grocery store,  turn around and run.

Shang-gra-la

We have arrived at the estate of my sister Pat, and her husband Steve, in Fifield Wisconsin. Where is Fifield Wisconsin? That, my friends, is why we have Google. We received news today that the sale of our home in Tega Cay will probably really happen. The date of the rumored closing is 6 June. I'm calling for a squeeze play on that date. (Aggies will understand)

Rock Cut State Park Illinois

No idea where the name came from. We are near Rockford which was named after the Rock river. There seems to be a 'rock' theme around here. We were on the road for 7 hours. During the drive we were having a texting conversation with our real estate agent. The home inspector produced a 17 page report of items he deemed worthy of attention. That's not too bad, considering, the last inspector produced a 60 page report. We are unsure what is going to happen but I can say unequivocally that we are getting really tired of the bovine defecation. Jenny and I rode around the park to get the kinks out after the drive.

Biking Day

We stayed on pavement for the most part. We rode around for 3 hours, stopping to do a couple of short hikes. We hiked to a cave that has a river flowing out of it. (See pic) This park has 3 of these caves. We visited the local cemetery. We never pass up an opportunity to visit cemeteries. Many of the headstones were so old and weathered the inscriptions were unreadable. Our last stop was The Virgil (Gus) Grissom Memorial. For those of you too young to know, Gus Grissom was one of the original 7 astronauts. He died in a fire on the launch pad of Apollo 1. His home town is near here.

Hiking Day

We spent 5 hours exploring the park by foot. The central attraction here is a  pioneer village established in 1785. There is a huge spring that flows out of a cave that was tapped to turn a water wheel that ground grain into meal or flour. Once an hour they release water and turn the wheel and mill corn into cornmeal. It's very impressive for technology that's over 200 years old. The park also has a 180 acre preserve of old growth forest. Tomorrow we will bike the roads.

Spring Mill State Park Indiana

Today, Jenny & I celebrated our 40th anniversary. That's 4 decades. During that span I can count on only 3 hands (+ or - ) the number of times she has threatened me with divorce "if we ever do that again". I have learned that it's best to "never do that again" but instead do something else. It's a loop hole that can be exploited. Anyway we will be at this park for 3 days. There is a lot to do and we are going to do some of it.

Cumberland Mt. St. Park Tennessee

We are west of Knoxville. This is one of those CCC parks. The bridge in the picture was built between 1935 and 1940 and is the largest masonry structure ever built by the CCC. We have no particular schedule other than to be in Fifield Wisconsin by the 24th to attend my sister Pat's annual fish fry.

Happy Birthday Jenny

We have begun our road trip. Our first stop is a KOA just down the road from our old house. We needed to stop here to figure out a way to close on the house absentee. Our real estate agent (Lu Aiken) has agreed to act as our representative at the closing. We had quite a few other loose ends to tie up so we were running around all day. Our final chore was a grocery shopping trip to Publix. We bought one of their world famous "Red Velvet Cakes" and had a fairly subdued birthday party at the MP.

Dave mows the yard

Close to departure

We are 2 days from the beginning of our 3 month trip to Canada and Alaska. We have been methodically preparing. That's funny! We have a contract to sell our house in Tega Cay. This has happened before so we're not overly whelmed with excitement. One bit of prep we have done is to prepare for the dirt\gravel roads we will encounter in the far north. Here is a pic of the dodad we decided to try.

Another 2 hour bike tour

The dogs were not as enthusiastic about the walk today as yesterday. We stopped several times to throw rocks or Frisbees. We hit all the parks.   

First pool visit

It took us a while, but we finally hit the road on our morning bike ride/dog walk. This is day 2 of that endeavor and it has taken, after numerous stops, 2 hours both days. The kids really wanted to go to the pool even though it was cloudy and cool so we packed a lunch and went. Connor, after hitting the cold water experienced his first episode of "male cold water retreat". Austin garnished his sandwich with a Pringle. 

First Friday

The first Friday of every month, Habersham has a special deal in the market place that's called, conveniently, first Friday. A stage is set up in front of the post office, a band plays a few sets, kids play in the grass and the adults drink beer and eat nachos, or pizza, or cupcakes. Linz and Jamie are here so we loaded up the kids in the bike trailer and rode the 5 minutes to the festivities. We have now been to our first, first Friday.

Connor gets caught in shrimp boat net