A Fall Weekend

Photo: Alivia and I did manage to get out hunting during the week while everyone else was busy with school stuff. We only had about an hour and chased up no birds, but it was still a great time to be outside.

By Allan Olson

It was a pretty decent weekend weather wise, except I didn’t spend as much time enjoying it as a I probably should have. It wasn’t like I was a shut-in all weekend; I just didn’t get out hunting or fishing. I’m thinking I might as well put my motor away and flip my boat over, because it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting out on the water again this year.

Friday night was a good one as the girls and I watched the Panthers cruise to a homecoming football game victory – their first in nearly a decade! The victory made shooting pictures at the game tons of fun – and the decent temperatures made for comfortable conditions all the way into the fourth quarter.

Most Saturdays I like to stay in bed, at least past the time I normally get up for work, but that was not the case this week. We were running in all directions on this Saturday morning. I kicked things off at the Walleye Classic Fishing Tournament, trying to get a few pictures of the anglers in their boats as they waited for the fog to lift. My wife headed to Blackduck for Abigail’s volleyball tournament, and I joined her there at about 10:30. Unfortunately, the home team didn’t bring home any medals, winning just one set out of three games. It was still positive experience for the girls, who were able to get valuable court time developing skills for the future.

Marcus and I headed off in search of a geocache after the tournament, while the girls went home. The cache was a two-stager, and I screwed up the math, but after reading some previous comments I found out I wasn’t the only one to do that. I fixed my math and headed to the location. We struggled making the find, so I called the owner of the cache and he came out to assist us – well, to laugh while I struggled to make the find. I eventually did get signed in on the log sheet, and we visited a bit longer before heading for home. 

We made a stop at a rummage sale and found a couple small treasures, and were just turning our nose toward home again when Nikolai called. The crowd noise from the BSU football game he was attending with his friends from Upward Bound was too much, so we turned around and headed to Bemidji.

From there we headed home. I thought we would be taking off again shortly on a road trip to the east, and possibly sneak in a visit to the Bena Haunted House on the way back. However, my wife was suffering from a migraine, so we stayed home. 

Instead, I conducted a nearly complete inventory of our cupboards, pantry shelves, fridge and freezers, before finally getting thoroughly bored and heading outside to do something else. I decided to get the drag for my driveway out of the back yard and use it for the first time all year. I spent nearly an hour working on the driveway and I was just going for a rake to level off some of the rough spots when my wife called me inside. She was feeling better and decided to take Nikolai to a movie she had promised him, so I stayed in the house with the rest of the kids. 

At my request, my wife had kicked them off electronics prior to leaving and forced them to get a game out to play instead. Later, after grinding up some zucchini, I interrupted their game to ask the girls bake a zucchini quick bread for a snack, which turned out great.

While I was waiting for the bread to bake, I decided to look at YouTube – something I hardly ever do. I guess it was out of boredom more than anything. I accidentally discovered a “show” called Demolition Ranch – I thought it was cool (I think most of us enjoy watching things being shot and blown up) and a couple of the kids watched it with me. 

Thinking I had discovered something neat that the rest of my kids hadn’t seen, I kept watching it. Later I informed Nikolai about this cool new show. “Oh, did Marcus show it to you?” he asked. I came back at him saying, “You mean you found a cool show like this and you didn’t tell me?” 

His reasoning was that I don’t watch YouTube much, so he didn’t think about it. A right poor excuse if you ask me. For some reason I never did give Marcus any grief for letting me think I had discovered a new show or for not letting me know he was already aware of it.

On Sunday morning, instead of me making the usual breakfast, my wife and Marcus made pancakes and helped Abi’s friend make scones. That afternoon we took her friend home and headed out on a road trip – we had to visit Best Buy to exchange a broken electronic and had only 15 days until the warranty expired. After that, we headed to another store for some food items before making our way home. 

Of course, no road trip would be complete without a few geocaches, and since our time was limited, we only found a few. We did spend an hour at a park in Pequot Lakes at a veteran’s memorial. The memorial was the beginning stage to a two-stage multi-cache, and after several failed attempts (my math – I missed one key detail), my wife rescued me and figured out what we believe were the correct coordinates. Still, we never did find the final stage. We made it home at about 8:30 p.m., just in time to put away our purchases and send kids to bed.

This weekend looks to be busy again. I will be taking my nephew’s senior pictures (hopefully the weather cooperates), and then I’m sure we’ll find time for some other things to fill the remaining weekend hours.

Please remember to watch out for the buses that will be 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.