Sunday Evening
After Sunday's visit to Vermilion Gorge & Vermilion Falls in the Crane Lake area, we made a quick trip to International Falls to pick up a few groceries.
It was a lovely evening so, after a quick dinner at home, we headed over to The Pines of Kabetogama. One of the perks of our workamping gig is that we can use the pontoon boat and fishing boat at the resort (as long as they aren't rented by guests) for just the cost of gas.
It was about 8:00 by the time workampers Don & Carol checked us out and gave us a little demo of the comfortable, like-new pontoon boat. Linda called Lee & Tracy to see if they wanted to join us for a short sunset cruise. So, they came down to the dock and boarded.
We just went out a little ways on Kabetogama Lake toward the Sphunge Islands, the islands closest to the resort. On the northwestern tip of West Sphunge Island, we could see a Bald Eagle in a nest, so we headed that way to get a closer, but still long-distance, look as the moon rose above.
We had to stay at a certain distance in order to be able to see.
But as we crept in a bit closer, we spotted the mate in a tree right on the shoreline.
Lee & Tracy got this wonderful shot.
Along with eagle-viewing, we tried to get a picture of the loon that was hanging around. We never could get the lighting just right, but at least you can tell it's a loon. :)
Unfortunately, a wall of clouds moved in to our west, so our sunset didn't last as long as we'd hoped. Still, there's nothing quite like a setting sun over the water.
We slowly headed toward the resort. Lee & Tracy got this shot of the wind blowing through my hair. :)
It was still too early to go in, so we just stopped and floated for awhile. Linda was quite comfortable.
Suddenly, we heard a splash as Tracy decided to go for an evening swim.
Though Tracy is still working full-time from their rig, during our day of hiking and being out on the water, she said more than once "I can't believe this is our life now".
It is a wonderful life, even when we are too young to have a retirement income and have to spend several hours making sure we can put food on the table and fuel in our trucks to get to the next beautiful "office". :)
Monday
I had a lot of photos to go through and it took me all morning to get the Journal entry posted about yesterday's hiking. Linda headed to the garden early to pick vegetables. She picked a bucket of cucumbers and zucchini, plus a half bucket of yellow zucchini.
Then she started in the green beans - not her favorite to pick. Around noon, I joined her to pick the two rows of green beans and yellow wax beans. We ended up with two huge, full bags of green beans and a couple bags of wax beans.
After that, I took the trimmer down to the road and cleaned up around the gate. There are large rocks and logs along the road frontage (where there is no fence) to keep trespassers from by-passing the gate. I hadn't been able to bush hog there because I couldn't tell where all the rocks and logs were in the high weeds. So, I got that taken care of - just one more step in making the farm look nice.
Linda went down to the pond to turn on the pump to irrigate the garden for a couple of hours, but she thought that the hose that was supposed to be sucking up the pond water was out of the water now that we have lower water levels.
So, I put on my fly-fishing waders and walked out into the pond.
The hose is tied to a post, and we thought that was probably to keep it off the bottom so it wouldn't suck up mud. However, when I got out there I found there is an elbow connection and that hose is connected to another hose that goes deeper into the pond.
Now we know. It wouldn't be good if we couldn't get water to the garden, so it was worth checking it out.
So, we each got in a few hours and then called it a day.
Linda cooked some baby new potatoes in a pot of fresh green beans, and I grilled us a couple burgers for dinner. Fresh is great, and produce just seems better when you harvest it yourself.
That was about it for today.
Tuesday
Today rain and possible storms were predicted to move in around 11:00 a.m. So, we got out at 8:00 to get in a few hours of work. Linda picked more zucchini, and I used the push trimmer to clean up another fence line.
I ended up wrapping a hidden wire around the trimmer. It sucked the trimmer into the fence and stopped it dead. Sheesh.
It took some time, but while Linda was fetching me some tools, I was able to unwrap the wire and free the trimmer. Fortunately, there was no harm done, and I moved over to clean up the banks of the pond.
I had previously trimmed around the pump, and Linda had trimmed another section, so we got about half of the pond done before the rains came. So, our work day was cut short.
We got cleaned up, and Linda decided to bake some zucchini bread. She's enjoying having the little apartment in the barn where she can bake without heating up the rig.
By the afternoon, she had three loaves of fresh bread.
We had zucchini brownies last week. :)
This evening, we had plans to meet John & Sue for dinner. They had emailed and wanted to meet us. We thought there was no way, up here in northern Minnesota in the middle of nowhere, that we would have readers in this area. But, sure enough, John & Sue are volunteer workampers at the national park this summer, and they happen to check in on our Journal once in awhile.
After dropping off some zucchini at the resort for Don & Carol, we arrived at the Rocky Ledge Restaurant & Bar a little early.
It's a typical little place for this area, and it's certainly unpretentious. There was no one in the dining room, and a few people in the back in the bar when we arrived.
As is often the case, we told the young lady "Another couple is joining us, but we haven't met them yet and don't know what they look like." Therefore, we usually try to find a table with a view of the door so they can at least see and recognize us when they come in. :)
John & Sue arrived right on time and they joined us at our roomy booth. They have been living and traveling in their fifth wheel for five years now. They have been volunteering at various facilities in Texas, Oregon, Alaska, and now Minnesota and they have a daily journal on MyTripJournal.com. They have separate trip journals for each location, and here is the link to Voyageurs Venture.
Sue starts each entry off with a weather report, the starting temperature, the high temperature, wildlife sightings, annual wildlife count, and a list of bird sightings for the day. They arrived here in early May with temps starting in the 30s and highs in the 40s. If it's a travel day, she includes where they stayed and how many miles they drove.
They still have a house in Missouri, a log cabin on a lake, but they are only there one month a year. Part of our conversation was about the house. They love it, but they love RVing, too. Their dilemma has been whether or not to keep the house. Everyone's situation is different but, in their case, I told them I'd keep the house if I were in their shoes under their circumstances. They seemed relieved by that opinion.
We also talked about workamping, and they wanted to know what it was like to work for a private employer as opposed to volunteering for public facilities. And we talked about some of their interesting positions. On their very first trip in June 2010, they headed to Alaska and then returned in 2013 to work at a wildlife refuge in Homer. They worked at Big Bend National Park last winter and will be returning this winter.
So, we had a great conversation, and the food was good. After dinner, we parted knowing that we would probably see each other again over the next couple of months.
Thanks John & Sue - it was a pleasure. :)
After leaving the restaurant, we went back to the resort to drop off a loaf of zucchini bread for Lee & Tracy.
Now, we had plans to take another guided fishing trip tomorrow, on my birthday. But the weather forecast was calling for rain, winds of 20 mph with gusts up to 40 mph, and much cooler temperatures. I called our guide, and we mutually decided that tomorrow's trip would not be fun, so we re-scheduled for next month.
With that out of the way, I joined in on the conversation. Tracy proudly showed us the graph on her blog statistics showing the activity before and after we linked to the Camper Chronicles in our Journal. She writes very well with a lot of detail and transparency. I think she'll be keeping a lot of her new readers. :)
Eventually, Lee started a campfire and we headed outside.
Lee loves his campfires. If a campsite doesn't have a firepit or fire ring, that's a big negative in his book.
They had a little packet that you put in the fire to create different color flames, so I took a short video of the greenish-blue flame.
We cut the packet and dumped in the crystal powder, but I think we were just supposed to put the whole packet in. So, we only got color on one side of the fire, but it was cool and it lasted quite awhile.
Tracy took our picture, .....
and we had another great evening of conversation under clear skies and the bright three-quarter moon. (Nice shot Tracy).
Time passed quickly, and we were all a little shocked when Tracy informed us it was 11:45.
Yikes. We know she has to work in the morning, so we felt a little bad for staying that long.
So, we said goodnight and headed back to our place. We'll be getting together again on Thursday to celebrate birthdays. Mine is tomorrow, the 29th and Lee's is the 30th.
Back home, the wind was picking up already. A couple of gusts shook the fifth wheel. Linda hit the button to bring in the bedroom slide so at least that slide topper won't be flapping all night. Hopefully, we'll get some sleep.
I want to be well-rested for my 52nd birthday which will likely be spent hunkered down in the RV. :)
Since I'm reading this on the 29th I guess it's a good time to wish you a big old HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOWARD! How many is it now?
-- jcw3rd
Posted by: JC Webber III | Wednesday, July 29, 2015 at 04:00 PM
Thanks for another great conversation although I was a little sleepy the next morning lol. So glad you got a picture of me swimming...it's nice having two photographers in the group 😀. I do want to thank you for mentioning my blog and your readers for popping over and taking a look. I've been writing for awhile now for friends and family and it's pretty exciting stuff to go from 100 hits a day to 800 hits a day,. Gotta love the Howard effect !!! Hopefully some folks will like what I write and stay for awhile but either way it's really feels good to have so many people see something you have worked so hard on. Looking forward to the big joint birthday celebration tonight and Linda's lasagna !!! See you soon.
Posted by: Tracy Perkins | Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 08:14 AM