A Weekend of Celebration

Marcus, Abigail, Alivia and Nikolai are pictured on the last

day of school, and their fifth year of attending Cass Lake-

Bena schools.

A Weekend of Celebration

By Allan Olson

It’s officially official, the 2015-16 school year is over and summer is here for my students – yeah! In case you can’t tell, there is sarcasm in that previous sentence. Summer for some, means joyful bonding time with their darling children, summer for those with a teenager and three younger children means, higher food bills, keeping them entertained without the constant stream of electronics, more minor quibbling and sometimes some knock down hitting (yes, teachers these are the same kids you describe as perfect), and of course mass chaos at various intervals throughout the day. Of course summer also means, camping, some fishing and more fun memories of my crazy kids.

This last week with the closing of the school year means I will now have three students in middle school, wow, I’m honestly not sure I’m ready for it. It doesn’t seem possible that my twins Abigail and Marcus, will now by middle school students. As much as I want them to grow up, I know when they start middle school next year, I’m going to be anxious and concerned that my children will once again by the “bottom of the food chain” and we will deal with a whole set of new issues as they deal with “growing up” issues and learning to balance a more rigorous academic schedule while also trying to be involved in the school. Thankfully, it will be another full year before they can be involved in sports or other extra-curricular activities so that will alleviate some of my already busy schedule. 

As for my other two children, Alivia will be entering third grade, my baby girl is growing up fast as well. Then there’s my oldest, Nikolai who will start his final year in middle school – “GASP”  almost a high school student and then in a flash we will be celebrating his graduation.  I’m truly not sure where time goes, as someone else said recently, “it seems like the older you get the faster time flies,” I concur.

The weekend was a busy one, starting with school out on Thursday along with graduations to attend on both Thursday and Friday. On Saturday, I took the time to play. Nikolai and I along with a geocaching friend Allan Habedank made plans to find a geocache that was last found in 2013. He had attempted to locate this one before but the road in was obscure and hard to find. In preparation, I spent some time on google earth and google maps studying the location and determined there was only one road in. The questioned remained was how far in could we drive. I picked him up about 1 p.m. and we set off for a course about 25 miles north by northwest from Turtle River. I had google maps directing us and he was also studying the maps both on his phone and the ones I printed when we were in the proximity. In the end we ignored the turn by turn directions and going by the printed map, we were able to locate the road in. The road looked much like a “gopher trail” narrow and winding around and around, but it was a solid base. I had decided to take the wife’s vehicle that morning as I had something else to pick up in town so I made extra sure that I was going slow and steady as not to bring her vehicle back harmed. We were able to drive to within 700 feet, much better than parking at the highway and walking the full distance of over a mile one way and about 10 minutes later we had found the cache, inked our names and set off for a new destination – after enjoying the view of the river from above.

The next cache he had on his “to get” list was another one that was on a very low maintenance road, but it too was a solid road and we made quick work on finding this one and we thought we were done. Of course, as it always is for those of us out on a geocaching adventure there was just one more. We struggled finding the road on this one also and I started driving in and was a little concerned that my big wide vehicle might be a little too much for this road – but all was good. We took one wrong turn in the woods but thankfully it was at a spot that was wide enough to easily turn around. I was a little concerned that the direction we needed to go might again be a little too narrow but it wasn’t and we made it just fine. We were close to the area where it was supposed to be hidden and I said, I’m not going any further as ahead of us was a steep muddy looking hill. Going down wouldn’t have been a problem – but coming up might’ve been, even in four wheel drive.  Thankfully, we didn’t have to even walk down the hill as the cache was at the top providing us a nice view of another river. With that, we were done, he had a dinner to be at and I promised I wouldn’t be too late – even though there are still several others in that area we need to locate.

The plans for this week will be getting a fishing license now that I finally have my boat and trailer licensed. I’m still in need of a few things for the boat, but as long as it’s floating on the water and we have a fishing license, all should be good – I hope. The boat hasn’t been in the water since 2005 and I’m not sure of the last time the motor was in the water, but I had it checked out last year and was informed all was well – so wish us luck.

Other plans, will be preparing for camping as our first trip of the summer is fast approaching!

Lastly, hats off to my children’s teachers this year, we thank you for your help and encouragement as they struggle through this journey with all of us on this thing called life!

Please enjoy your summer and be sure to 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.