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Winter Update
Weather: It is said if you don’t like the weather ’round these parts, just give it a day. Sometimes, it can be mere hours. Either way, it is the end of January and we’ve not had much of a winter. I think many of us thought it would be brutal. The woolly worms I saw crossing the road were fat and black. Nearby friends count the fogs in August to correlate with how many snows we will get by April 1, and they promise three more. I guess flurries count. And how about those persimmon seeds? Surely umbrellas were found inside them this year. Then there’s Puxatawny Phil. How could…
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Appalachian Trail, Part 3
I felt no pain, but I was depleted of energy with every step and gasp for oxygen I took up Little Hump and Hump Mountains. It became worse with every false summit we encountered. I had stayed positive most of the trip, but it becomes devastating when you think you have reached the ultimate peak and see yet another in front of you when you think you can’t take another step. All I wanted to do at this point was get to the end of our section of the Appalachian Trail (AT), but I didn’t speak it. Looking back on climbing Hump Mountain, Dee Ann and I can’t agree on…
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Appalachian Trail, Part 2
Our first morning in Watauga Dam Campground came early. I turned the alarm on my phone off an hour before its scheduled blast at 5 a.m. because I was awake most of the night. Today was the day. Today we would hike a section of the 3,000+ mile historic Appalachian Trail. Adrenaline was surging through my veins as I woke Jim and we stuffed our packs with water, trail snacks, extra wool socks, and gloves in silence. The silence wasn’t for any reason other than Jim doesn’t talk much anymore. Damn Alzheimer’s. We drove into the dark to meet Dee Ann, our local hiking partner, at the McDonald’s in Hampton,…
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Northern Minnesota, Part 2
The days we spent in the Sawtooth Mountains above Grand Marais and Lake Superior were beautiful. We left sticky temperatures at home, so the cooler days and nights were a blessing. But we couldn’t linger in the campground because there were too many things to see and do. Every morning we drove from our campsite at Golden Eagle Lodge and Campground https://www.golden-eagle.com/, surrounded by the Superior National Forest, and traveled along the Gunflint Trail where Native Americans, French Voyageurs, miners, hunters, trappers, and loggers came centuries before us. The trail is now a 57-mile National Scenic Byway winding through mountains, lakes, bogs, and valleys. There are no towns along the…
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Northern Minnesota
We pulled away from our first night in our camper in that Walmart parking lot and went forward. We met one of Jim’s sisters and her family for brunch in Madison, WI because we could park on the street in front of our niece’s house. We stopped that same night at our son’s house south of Minneapolis because we could pull into his driveway. The next morning, we loved on our two beautiful grandsons for a few hours and left for northern Minnesota. After our son backed the rig out of his driveway. It felt uphill the entire way. The car pulled the camper well, and I was feeling very…
