The final weekend of summer


The final weekend of summer
By Allan Olson
The kids at the site of the first vehicular bridge built over

the Mississippi River, located south of Shevlin. The bridge
there today is a replica of the original, but is still in the
same location.

Officially – at least according to the calendar, last weekend was truly the final weekend of summer, for most of us that weekend is Labor Day but the calendar folks disagree. Regardless if it was a summer or fall weekend it was a fun one.
Saturday morning found us cleaning for some company we were expecting, including some dusting of shelves, cleaning off photo frames and other assortment of stuff on our various shelves. Other parts of the house were also getting done – including the floors, laundry and the entryway. All needed to be done regardless of company or not –but the motivation isn’t always there unless we are expecting guests. Around noon we found out our company wasn’t going to make it – I told my wife, “then we go can geocaching.” I went back to finishing the job I had started and told the kids to finish their jobs so we can go geocaching. A few minutes later my wife was ready to leave and most of us weren’t – a little communication breakdown. She thought I meant right away and I went to continue working. I said, I needed to finish this job or it wouldn’t get done. By 1 p.m. we were out the door and heading to town, we were going to treat the kids to lunch, which thanks to the kind waiter we got the early BOGO on the meal and the three younger kids ate free. A couple more stops in town after lunch and we finally on our way – the destination – Mahnomen county. That was the only county in the northern half of Minnesota that I yet to find a geocache in and I wanted to change that – so we did.
Our first stop of the day was at a city park in Shevlin – the cache was supposed to be on the swings, but it wasn’t at least not that we could find, so we left that spot without the find. The next spot Susan and Marcus made the discovery a cache hidden high in the picnic shelter. We continued our afternoon/evening adventure touring the backroads of Clearwater County taking photos and finding geocaches. One stop even included the location of the first vehicle bridge built over the Mississippi River – the bridge today is only a replica of what was first built there but the historical location was a pretty neat spot itself.  It’s hard to believe that little stream through the woods travels so far and becomes so large along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. 
Several more stops later and three more “did not finds” for us before we finally got our first cache in Mahnomen County – the purpose of the journey. From there we progressed into the town another ten miles down the road and found the only two caches in the city limits. Then we set our lights to home as the sky was dark and it was getting late.
On Sunday – I took some photos at the Cass Lake Fire Department 5K fundraiser and then the afternoon was spent playing softball with members of the fire department and local law enforcement along with some of my kids and other kids. It was a great day and weekend to be outside with family and friends.
The rest of the day was spent at home, preparing for the week ahead and getting a few things done for work.
Any plans for this weekend, are still undecided, perhaps I will finally get my boat licensed and in the water or we might up doing something different altogether.
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. And 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.



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