"My Crazy Kids"

Summer Heat By Allan Olson Another crazy, hot and busy summer week has flown by and the dog days of summer are almost here. Unfortunately that also means for those of us in the north country that we will soon be treated to days of much cooler temperatures and while I wouldn’t mind a slight temperature dip, I’m certainly not advocating for the return of sub-zero temperatures any time soon. The summer days of the weekend for myself was spent largely in town on Saturday covering the many festivities of Summer Fest. The day kicked off with the parade and was filled for the next several hours of jam packed entertainment and things to take photos of.   The evening found me heading home to enjoy the remainder of the day with my family – where we largely did little or nothing. Sunday morning found us up and out of the house by 7 a.m. – not the leisurely day I was originally planning but rather a productive day. We headed north to pick up a new china cabinet for our home – it will...

Exploring Ely By Allan Olson The weekend flew by in a blur of miles as we left town again for another camping trip of the summer. We made our reservations back in February when the government was cooperating with each other and as summer approached we thought they were going to screw up our summer plans again. The last time we were in Ely was four years ago and it was because the state government shut down. We found a Federal Park to camp at and enjoyed our stay. This time we had reservations at a State Park and feared the worst. Thankfully they settled their arguments and didn’t close the parks. We arrived at our camping destination late Thursday afternoon and we were greeted just outside the entrance by a young black bear that wasn’t scared of us and was perfectly content munching on some greens near a yard. We thought this was a great omen as it stayed their long enough for a few photos for a comparison “then and now” remembrance. We signed in at the park, found our camps...

Marcus – doesn’t mind climbing the trees to explore possibilities for hiding new caches. It’s helpful to have four kids eager to climb and a lot more limber when it comes to exploring these trees that blew down in the storm three years ago. A Clean House By Allan Olson It’s a house of madness and my kids are creating it, the summer schedule with all the time on their hands are catching up to them and the time they spend at home versus at school is also showing its wear and tear on the house. Over the last two weeks we’ve tried to have an entire house clean at the same time but it never fails – we get one room clean and then another gets trashed. If we get the downstairs cleaned – the upstairs suffers in the process or vice –versa. The kids seemed to be destined to make the downstairs their jungle gym. Several times a week – or possibly a day they need to re-clean a mess they just made, usually consisting of their toys or pillows, blankets etc to jump on. This w...

A Family Weekend Abigail enjoyed spending sometime with her Great Grandfather at the family cabin on Friday, July 3 near the Canadian Border. By Allan Olson This weekend we were once again out of town – this time for a family gathering with my wife’s family at the usual gathering spot – a former farm nestled along the Rainy River –a perfect place for family to gather, 4-wheeler, get loud – basically do whatever they want to do without worrying about bothering the neighbors or campground rules. We arrived north late Thursday evening – but not so late to help my dad with a few items and we even managed to get in a small game of baseball before the evening got very late. During the game Marcus managed to crank off a hit right towards me and through entirely my own fault I missed it. I scrambled after the ball grabbed and proceeded to attempt to tag him out since he kept running for home. I was scrambling towards him, reaching out to tag him, made the tag before he r...

A Camping Weekend By Allan Olson We decided late last week that we needed to squeeze in another camping weekend – just a quick overnight trip to a state park we have never camped at before, and an area we have never really explored before. My wife and I discussed two directions – the northwest corner of Minnesota, or east of Grand Rapids. We settled on going northwest, in the direction of Hallock and points west. Our destination was one of two state parks – Lake Bronson or Old Mill. Our initial thought was to stay at Lake Bronson, a larger park and a little more centrally located in the area I had planned to geocache. We checked out the status of both parks Saturday morning prior to our departure, and both still had plenty of openings. My older brother and his family had decided to go camping this weekend, too, and ended up going to that part of the state as well, and when we were over halfway, we decided to point our vehicle toward the campground they went to – Old Mill State Pa...