Trails End Campground

The Gunflint Trail dead ends a few miles up the road from the lodge. There's a National Forest campground there that has campsites with incredible views overlooking the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. 

 

Magnetic Rock

No trip to Gunflint is complete without doing the hike to Magnetic Rock. It's a 30 foot tall monolith of a banded iron formation that was lifted up and put in place by the glaciers.

I didn't have a compass with me, so I used the magnetometer on my phone to see how magnetic the rocks were.

 

Sunrise, Sunset

The sunsets and sunrises on the lake were spectacular. One of the things that makes it so nice is that there is no one on it. 

 

Boat Day

We rented a pontoon boat for half a day and cruised down the lake and back. CG wanted to fish, so we ran at a slow trolling speed the whole way and enjoyed the solitude of the lake.

There were three other boats on the lake that were doing the same thing.

 

Fall Hike

We had beautiful weather despite it being too warm for this time of year. Who would have thought we'd be hiking in shorts in October up on the Canadian border?

There are a bunch of trails behind the lodge that go up to the tops of the bluffs. 

 

Sitting & Relaxing

Besides hiking and exploring, there's a lot of just sitting and relaxing up north.

There's a little river otter that lives near the boat house. I caught a glimpse of it at sunrise.

 

Gunflint Lodge

For the 3rd year in a row, we made it up to Gunflint Lodge, near the end of the Gunflint Trail 50 miles north of Grand Marais.

 

Book League

Since we completed the kitchen floor, I've been itching to host our book club. We had a perfect night for it and conducted business on the patio. We used to be known as the Lynnhurst Men's Book Club, but we changed the name and now it's the Lynnhurst Men's Book League. It's sort of like a golf or bowling league where each player has a handicap. In our case, we are spotted a number of unread pages. This helps those that never seem to read the complete book. September's book was Risk Pool.

 

Going Wild

CP's b-day gift was a Minnesota Wild vs. Chicago Blackhawks game. We grabbed some cheeseburgers at Burger Moe's and had a great time at the game. CP wore his autographed Ryan Hartman Blackhawks jersey (now playing for the Wild).. 

 

Birthday Season

For GP's b-day, we walked across the corner to the best Italian restaurant in the Twin Cities: Broder's Pasta Bar. For CP's special day, we played a rousing game of Scythe.

 

Backyard Burn Season

Our last order of firewood lasted almost exactly one year. The temps have cooled down enough to once again enjoy a backyard fire with the neighbors.

 

Huskers - Twins - Concert

We hit downtown for a day of sports and ended up with a bonus free concert at the end. First, we tried going to Lyon's, the Nebraska bar to grab lunch and watch the game. It was beyond capacity and standing room wasn't even an option. Next, we tried Tom's Watch Bar, the place to go to watch any sporting event. They had a 45 minute wait to be seated, so we ambled to the next place, Kieran's Irish Pub. We grabbed a table, and within 20 minutes, the place was packed.

While we watched the Husker football game, the Twins played their first game of the double-header. We walked over to Target Field and scored some new Twins hats. If anyone needs/wants a Twins hat, LMK; we have more than a few now. 

After the Twins game, we hit the free concert in the street for the 40th anniversary of The Dakota jazz club. What a long day!

 

Duluth Day Trip

We were supposed to do a three day camping weekend, but the weather didn't cooperate with us for tent camping. Since the boys both had the day off, they all went up to Duluth for the day. They stopped off at Jay Cooke State Park on the way to see what they had missed.

It was in the 50s with wind and rain. The waves on Lake Superior were pounding spray up over the breaker wall along Canal Park where they ducked in for a warm lunch.

 

Sushi Shiba

JP found a sushi costume for a cat at Target. She got out her sewing machine and added some girth to the belt to fit our sushi-fed shiba. He prefers to eat sushi rather than wear it.

 

Where it All Started

I saw an Atari 400 pop up on Facebook Marketplace. This was my first computer 40-something years ago that really got me into programming. It had an 8-bit 1.8 MHz processor and 16k of RAM. The run of the mill PC I'm using today has six 64-bit 2.6 processing cores running at 2.6 GHz each, 32 GB of RAM plus 12 more for video processing. To put that in perspective, that is 1,400 times faster with 2,750,000 times more memory. What other devices have experience growth like that?

 

Ditka

CP shaved his beard for the first Bears' home game against the Lions. Too bad they did not share his enthusiasm. 

 

Headboard Reduction

We switched from a king to a queen size bed, which made our king headboard too large. Nothing that some power tools on a Saturday can't handle. We lopped off 6-1/2" from each side and rebuilt the legs.

This is the headboard we made in Lincoln for the ginormous room. When we moved here, we had to cut it down in height so it wouldn't block the windows. Now we've taken it down in width. I didn't want to do it until JP showed me what a new headboard would cost. 

With the money we saved, JP ordered a pair of new nightstands. Yes, I suppose it was worth the effort.

 

Dog Walk Sunrise

There is nothing like starting the day with a dog walk along the lake at sunrise. 

There's a guy that is always at the dog beach taking in the sunrise. 

 

Camp Queen Avenue

One of the blocks in the 'hood is very active. To mark the end of summer, they blocked off the street and turned the block into a summer camp for the kids, complete with activities.

 

Afternoon Glow

When the afternoon sun comes around, it lights up the kitchen with a warm glow. The new floor sets off the oak rather than competing with it like the old floor.

 

Fall is Coming

One of the trees across the street is letting the others know that Fall is on its way. 

 

Annunciation Church

I stopped by the church to pay my respects. It is just so sad that stuff like this happens in the world. It's especially sad that it happened in our community. 

 

Dark Day

On Aug. 27th I worked from home in the morning to drive JP to a Dr. appointment. It was a strange visit: the parking lot was completely empty; normally it's like the mall on Sunday afternoon. She was just there for a routine blood draw, but the lab redirected her to the hospital. On our walk there I noticed there were flyers for a gun show on a table in one of the sitting areas. Very strange to see at a hospital!

We got back home and I was finishing up some work before heading in to work and then the sirens started. We're used to hearing one or two emergency vehicles going thru the neighborhood, but this was one after another. We went out to look and it was fire trucks, Minneapolis police, park dept. police, unmarked cars, and ambulances. 

We turned on the TV and watched the coverage of the shooting at the Annunciation School a mile and a half away. It's across the street from the Kowalski's at Lynndale and 54th. It was the first week of school. The kids were in the chapel sitting for service when a nutjob opened fire from the parking thru the church windows. 

We watched the chaos of parents running in the street looking for their kids as the police tried to secure the scene and determine if it was safe. I can't imagine getting a call that there's been a mass shooting at the kids' elementary school of 350 kids. It still brings me to tears.

I took the rest of the day off and we took a lap around the lake. It was a beautiful day, but the shooting cast a dark shadow over the community for the next week. 
 

Sidewalk Chalk

There's a house on our dog walk that always has fun sidewalk chalk doodles. Since the shooting at the school, the themes have turned to love and healing.