A Day on the Road


A day on the road
By Allan Olson
This weekend found us on the road – extremely earlier, it was so early that the birds weren’t even out of their nests yet – proving once again that they are much smarter than us. Since Nikolai had his first and only competition of the year for the Lego League Robotics Program in Duluth on Saturday we decided to head east and watch the competition first hand – to see what he had been working on all school year.
So we made the commitment to be there to support him and the rest of the team, doing so meant that we would be literally gone all day. He had to meet the bus at 5 a.m. – so since we are over 20 miles from town and six of us at to get out the door I had my alarm set for 3:45 a.m. – that’s worse than deer season. Our goal was to get out the door and on the road by 4:20, we made at 4:25, still in time to make it to the bus. After dropping him off with his team, we headed east ourselves – we arrived in Duluth at 7:30 a.m. and went right to a restaurant for some morning food. We decided to eat at the same place – Perkins, as we did for our camping trip in June and we ended up getting the same table. I ordered enough for two as I knew I was going to have to share with at least one of the kids still ordering from the kids menu and I was right. My plans for the day aside from watching Nikolai was to go in search for some geocaches, I thought that perhaps we would have lots of time to spare – I was wrong. We finished our meal about 8:30 and then met my niece who was driving through to take a friend home from college in the nearby state, a quick visit with her and then we had to find our way to the school since his first competition was at 9:30 I wanted to be sure we were there in plenty of time and we made it with over 30 minutes to go.
So we watched the first event, and then about an hour later it was time for them to meet judges and so the pattern continued, either they would have an event or they would need to meet with judges for one facet or another and there was never a long enough gap for us to escape to find some geocaches in a large city with plenty left for me to find. The team finished their final and best round around 2 p.m. and then we helped pack up and sent the bus on its way – this time without Nikolai. Since we were in town, I figured we had best see my aunt, so that was our next stop – still no time for geocaching, but my aunt was making food for us – so it was best that we go while it was hot. We visited for about two hours, before heading to only one store before making our way home. We had briefly thought about visiting a couple others, including the mall but since it was “the season” we passed.
We finally made our way home after a stop at Caribou for much needed caffeinated beverage to help keep my eyes open for the long stretch. Of course to help break up the monotony of the road, I had a few geocaches picked out to stop at, since I had the foresight to bring my big spotlight with to help with the searching process. We safely arrived at home once again at 8:30 p.m.  – 16 hours after we left, and while I wanted to go straight to bed, the likelihood of being awake by 6 a.m. was likely so I forced myself to stay awake for the next hour or two.
The next morning, I woke up briefly around 7 and then decided that it was too early and snoozed until 8:30, I then watched some television until around 10 before venturing out in search of some food. I spent the morning and part of the afternoon and enjoyed a late afternoon nap. My wife then made me get up and informed me that we had to leave the house for some Christmas shopping – this was horrible news as I had no plans to leave the house, but unfortunately with my work schedule this week, it was the only opportunity for everyone between then and our first Christmas party on Saturday.
So as usual it was a busy weekend for us and our crazy family and with our first Christmas party this weekend followed with another on Christmas Day and our usual New Year’s Party, it’s certain to be an even busier next three weeks.
This weekends plans, our first Christmas party and assuming we don’t spend the weekend shoveling out – most definitely some geocaching in the plans.
Please remember to watch out for the buses that are carrying our most precious cargo. Also snap a photo or two 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.


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