Final Weekend of the Summer

Nikolai in his first kayaking trip on Lake Itasca. 

Final Weekend of the Summer

By Allan Olson

Summer went by in blast and we had a lot of fun tearing up the highway this summer with all our camping trips and other adventures. Last week the kids returned to school and it felt like our lives might return to ‘normal’ whatever that is.

This final summer weekend was a busy one. We had company planned for Saturday some time and our plans with them included visiting Itasca State Park. My brother and family along with one additional friend of theirs arrived for the evening – late on Saturday, they had planned to take in some water activities in Bemidji prior to coming out to our home but it didn’t work out for them. We visited for a couple hours on Saturday evening before I hit the bed. My wife and some of the kids were up until the wee hours of the morning playing a game so while I was enjoying my sleep – the rest of them were enjoying staying up late.

Sunday morning I got up hoping to put off breakfast for the masses only to discover that some of my kids were already diving into the bags of cereal. Since they were starving and diving into the cereal I thought maybe I wouldn’t have to fry sausage and bacon however the rest of the company thought that was much better than cold cereal so I started the process of breakfast. My wife got the pancakes ready and I fried the meat and made syrup – it all certainly tasted much better than cold cereal but certainly a more work.

We cleaned up breakfast and started gathering things for the afternoon at Itasca, we packed the cooler with snacks and sandwich supplies and hit the road, eight miles down the road, and my wife remembered we forgot our life jackets – back home we went. We finally caught up to the rest of our party at Teal’s, grabbed a few more supplies and hit the road again.

We arrived at the big park about 1 p.m. toured the visitors center, did the ‘mandatory’ walk to the Headwaters before heading over to the sports rental to check out some gear.

The younger kids of mine wanted to canoe, Nikolai wanted to kayak so we gathered the gear all the while watching the clouds in the sky. Susan took Alivia, Marcus and Abigail canoeing while Nikolai took off in the kayak for his first time. My niece tried her hand at paddle boarding and the others were in kayaks and canoe.

Then the storm came – those of watching from shore saw the first flash of lighting dart across the darkening sky, the crew in the water all started to make their way into shore as the rain started coming down strong. We went in to settle the bill and thankfully the storm waited just a little longer to deluge. We ventured over to the picnic shelter at the beach gathered our lunch supplies and sat down to eat at the tables and then the storm really hit. The rain poured down and some of the kids – and myself went to play in the cool rain shower – a welcome respite from the heat. We waited until the rains subsided and packed our stuff up back up in the van and set for home. The original plan for our guests were for us to part paths at Itasca – they would go home and we  would go home – however the group of kids convinced my brother to come back to the house for another game and supper – so they did.

That evening after everyone left –was a quiet one, I got caught up on some of the shows I had on DVR and retired for the evening early.

Monday I didn’t wake up before 9 a.m., which is 3-4 hours later than normal, when I finally did get up about an hour later, I made omelets for my wife and I. The kids had already feasted on their favorite cereal or something so it was a quiet breakfast. A little later that morning we tackled a project I had put off for a few weeks now – the garage. The kids cleaned up the mess from the rabbits and helped clean up the rest of the items in the garage that had been taken out or moved. I put away the extra bikes and soon it was done. There is still some work to be done – but that requires a little more effort than I was willing to do, we accomplished my primary task and that was to get my vehicles in the garage.

The kids and I then set off for Cass Lake in search of a brand new geocache that had been published, I of course took the wrong way and we ended up bush whacking 350 feet through the woods before coming to a nice trail. The description made it seem like I was in the right spot, however that was just a slight of hand trick from the owner. We made the find, signed our names and then I headed to another one at Norway Beach. This one was a little trickier and after several attempts in a few different locations we were able to make the find on this one also. That leaves one more to find in the park – one that I will need to have a conversation with the hider about to understand the puzzle in order to make the find.

The plans for the coming weekend are still in limbo – aside from cheering on the hometown team on the gridiron Friday evening.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Remember to take pictures to preserve a lifetime of memories. Thanks for reading, and have a great week! Feel free to drop me a line at cltimes1@arvig.net or stop by the office for a visit.