"My Crazy Kids"

Pic: Nikolai, tying a hook on the line.  By Allan Olson In our world, every week is crazy, and occasionally the weekends are even crazier. This past weekend was one of those. I kept asking my wife what she wanted to do for her birthday, and her final answer was she wanted to go fishing. We set about figuring out a way to make it happen. The kids had a long weekend off from school, but Saturday was busy for Nikolai and I had an interview scheduled for that day as well, so we decided that we would head of Lake of the Woods late Saturday, spend Sunday in the fish house, and return home Monday. On Saturday morning I headed to Nevis for the Robotics Zero Day competition to check out the completed robots from our team and the various other teams. The competition was crazy. The beauty of this event is that it provides all the teams an opportunity to see what the other teams are up to, as well as a chance to realize some things they might need at a competition that t...

Marcus grabbed some air as he guided his sled over the bump on the hill while sledding on Sunday afternoon a few miles from home in Pennington. Photo by Allan Olson. By Allan Olson The weather outside was so delightful, it truly was very nice this weekend, there wasn’t anything frightful about it. The weekend was so nice it didn’t snow and the temperatures were above freezing instead of well below the donut it felt great. This weekend, I didn’t embark on some crazy adventure through a frozen Cedar forest, instead I walked on the frozen waters of Cass Lake visiting with all the crazy anglers out trying for the big prize at the Chamber of Commerce Fishing tournament and getting many pics of the event on the ice. That evening the family did some cleaning, trying to get some things straightened up in the house for the millionth time. We finished up the cleaning chores in time to eat supper and then enjoyed a movie together which finished up just in time for me to get ...

Two other geocachers and I embarked on a no-trails trek through the woods on Saturday near Gemmel. The entire journey took just over three hours. It was fun and exhausting at the same time. By Allan Olson I’ve embarked on a few crazy adventures while geocaching over the last five years, but the one I went on this last weekend has them all beat. On the last Sunday of January, I came up with this idea of going after a geocache that I would never attempt by myself for a couple reasons. First, I don’t trust my own navigating skills. I probably could’ve done it, because I had the final coordinates and I remembered to mark my starting coordinates prior to departing my vehicle, and as a double bonus, there was another geocache only 50 feet from my vehicle, so I had those coordinates as well.  Another reason was safety. I knew it was going to be a nasty journey, based on everything I had read, and I was correct. So I checked with a couple of like-minded crazy fr...

By Allan Olson Another week has flown by, and the month will be over by the time the next issue of the Cass Lake Times hits the newsstands. I don’t mind winter too much, but I really prefer the warmer weather to the cold, and snow over the cold as well. So I’m looking forward to closing the book on January and turning the calendar page to February, which means we are just that much closer to spring. This past weekend wasn’t overly exciting; I did some office work on Saturday while Nikolai was at robotics. Then we headed home so he could do some work there, while I continued north to pick up my sister in-law. Abigail had her check-up at the Shriners Clinic, and my wife’s sister agreed to accompany her on the drive to the concrete jungle. On my trip to the big town of Mizpah (a half-way point where we met for the pick-up) I decided to do some geocaching. My first stop was a quick grab and I was back on my way. The second stop wasn’t quite as easy to find; I ...