Walking in the Snow

Walking in the Snow

Lake Bemidji Bog Walk in the winter.

By Allan Olson

Oh what fun it is to – enjoy the great outdoors in a warm January thaw, unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should’ve.

A couple weeks ago when Marcus got his last cast I had this idea about a geocaching event, one that would require finding the right Olson kid with the correct log book – his cast. Since it was January I planned for an indoor event at the mall. Marcus would be wandering about the mall while those who signed up to attend the event would be searching for him. To help with this I enlisted the help of my niece who was supposed to walk around the mall with him. Of course – being a college student she had difficulty following instructions on this task, although the reality of it was, she never took the time to eat prior to us picking her up from the dorm and went straight to the pretzel place for some food and sat down in the middle of the mall. Since Marcus is too young to wander about the mall himself he was left sitting like a duck out of water and was quickly spotted by a geocacher who was familiar with our family. Once my niece was finished with her food they set about for a walk around the mall and it took a little bit longer for the other geocachers to find him – especially since a couple of them had never met him before. In the entire short impromptu event was still fun visiting with a couple familiar cachers and a couple unfamiliar ones.  We enjoyed a little ice cream and then headed home. At home, I decided that I was tired and was going to take a little snooze – two hours later, I woke up to the daylight gone and the darkness canceling any plans I might have thought about.  The rest of the evening, was spent reading and playing with kids.

On Sunday, I knew I was going to go out and enjoy the weather, I couldn’t convince any kids to join me for a walk, but my niece was willing so I headed into town to pick her up. Our goal was one of the two geocaches at the nearby state park. The walk took us down the boardwalk and bog finding clues and new coordinates along the way and by answering the questions correctly we were able to obtain the numbers needed for the letter combination lock and access to the log book.  The walk took about two hours but the warm winter air felt great.

That evening, my wife and I started tackling the guest room project. As with many other rooms that don’t get frequently used, it became a catch-all and the catch-all was becoming a spill all into a chaotic mess and it was getting old. I started with the closet – hoping to condense my two totes of books into one by carefully stacking them together – mission failed. I did get all the books stacked nicely, however it wasn’t possible to get them all in one tote. Apparently my Louis L’amour books along with my Hardy Boy books and other books from my youth take up too much room and I’m not willing to part with them.

Unfortunately while we got a good start, but it was too late when we started it and soon kids needed to be fed and made sure they were ready for school the next day.

This week, we will have a teenager in the house – on a full time basis. My oldest son – Nikolai will turn 13. Its’ crazy how fast those years have gone and it seems that there isn’t too many years left before he will be adventuring out into the great big world, trying to carve his own niche in the world.

It’s a possibility we will have some company this weekend, if we do, it might be a chance to head out for some geocaching or just sitting around playing games. Even if we don’t have company, I’m pretty sure I’m going to find some excuse to head out for a walk in the great outdoors.

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.