Skip to main content

Popular posts from this blog

Backcountry Camping with Kids in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Day 1  Back in May I stumbled upon Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had no idea there was a National Park in North Dakota and that it was the northern end of the Badlands. Usually our summer vacations coincide with Scott's work trips. Since he didn't have any this summer I thought we should take advantage of actually taking a vacation. What, my workcations are always classics? I suppose a second real vacation this year wouldn't hurt. We definitely have more time than normal. As long as we took Covid-19  precautions and avoided people. We finally settled on a time to go. Blake joined us so we borrowed our dad's van so we could ride together. Scott had just driven from Michigan the day before. Blake had met my parents in Wisconsin to get the van and then drove from Duluth to pick us up. I offered to drive since I literally only drive twice a month.  I was still pretty tired from a long drive home. Since we were near Fergus Falls we had to stop by the abandoned state ho...

The UP's Copper Cabin for Brooke's 36th Birthday

  We went big for my birthday cabin weekend this year. Scott even said, What is this your 40th birthday? Usually we just do one or two nights somewhere but this year we did 4 nights.  I figured we wouldn't be traveling quite as much this year, so we could splurge a bit for Brooke's birthday weekend. We started our first night at a  yurt in Cable, Wisconsin  to break up the drive.   It was a pretty hike in.  They insisted you'd need snowshoes or a fat bike, but really the trail was tamped down so much we could've used just boots. I had no idea we would be staying in the middle of miles of skiing and snowshoeing trails. You can snowshoe or ski right up to the yurt.   

Six Months, More Like Six Years

Approaching the 11th hour of this Sunday we finally rolled out of bed. Brooke and I made a night out of our six month since being married. In a way we could be celebrating six plus years together. I met the little lady above in February 2006. Now we garden together. We had a lovely night indeed: dinner at Red Stag and drinks at Aster Cafe.  I went outside to show Brooke where our new boulevard tree was going to be planted. We found a love letter in our bushes. Brooke couldn't read it, so we let it dry on one of the radiators.  The first page was mostly apologizing for not writing and then the second page turned sour with lots of swear words.  We drove downtown to eat brunch. We parked across from this rare small pre-1950s building that has somehow survived in downtown Minneapolis's ongoing urban renewal. We decided to eat at La Belle Crepe since I picked up this for our post-wedding breakfast back on that October day. This creperie is...