Not a Reading Post

Every once in a while I feel like getting back into not-reading posts.  Bare with me.  Hmm...I bet it's bear with me.  Otherwise we're going to have to shed some clothes, right?

So what did I do for my birthday this year?  Celebrated it a day early for one.  We headed up to the cabin to see my folks and took a bunch of steak, porkchops, and potatoes with us.  And some games.  My wife and kid took crokinole.  We learned to play it at a gaming day with friends last weekend and they loved it.  Then discovered that the board I'd had forever because it was the same board I'd had as a kid in the old farmstead home when I farmed in the summers, was a crokinole board on the flip side.  So there was a bunch of cribbage and crokinole pre-steak.  

You can tell we're in heavy covid concern because of the masks.  I literally used my mask between bites of dinner.  I was pretty sure we were all safe, but my kid bags groceries, and we talked to the neighbor to get Luna - the dog - watched, and the meat store in Osseo was off the hook with people.  Better safe than sick with all the hospital beds pretty much full.

I got a cool pillow case from my mother that means I'll never have to guess which pillow is mine again, and I'll know if my wife is stealing my pillow to use as a reading pillow in the living room.  Reminds me that I need to get mounting bolts for the bars to hang my cycling quilt she made me.

And I got a cycling game.  I told my wife Flamme Rouge was on my short list of potential gifts.  She got the expansion as well so I can play solo.  I'm worried that it's sort of pathetic if I sit around drinking and playing cycling games all by my lonesome, but I'm willing to deal with the shame.
I got this game

Cabin

I took my annual run up to the cabin to help my folks pack today.  I tend to leave early (e.g. 5:00 a.m.) and head to the Dunn Brothers in Elk River in order to avoid rush hour.  If it weren't for that, it would have been an amazingly short day.  With the smaller RV, they just don't have as much to pack.  It was mostly some sewing stuff, the freezer, and getting a few boats and chairs and vehicles into storage.  Ah...and getting the bikes on the rack.  That was tricky with my mom's women's bike.  Those things never rack up quite right.

So overall....four hours of driving and four hours at my folks place.  They gave me a cool googly eyed birthday card before they skip town and an Indian Head nickle.  And a Christmas (tree) ornament.  A bag of meat trash.  And a big box with lots of little stereo equipment in it for Kyle.  As they say at the Trylon BIG box.  Teeny Tiny stereo equipment.  BIG box.  Itty bitty little stereo equipment.

I stopped for breakfast in Onamia and enjoyed these two sites, in addition to the usual Halloween setup they have near the bathroom every year I head up.

The creepy pillow cleaning post by Connie.  I joked on FB that it was hard to tell if I'd get a pillow free of mites, or meet a serial killer.  Maybe both.  I missed it, but presumably Connie gets the "urge" to clean pillows on a regular basis.

And a raccoon poster.  With a rubber duck!  It's like a Dad and Mom poster all rolled up into one.

Weekend - Cabin

On Saturday we did a quick drive up to the cabin to visit all of the family for the day. It was a beautiful day for taking the convertible for a ride - which was good because 4 hours in the car was probably 1/3 of our time. Eryn, A (my niece), and I took the rentered waterski out for a long ride between the lakes.  We hit a wake at significant speed at one point and Eryn bit the back of A's head.  I know they're older now because they were more amused than shedding tears.

It was good we got our ride in because not longer afterwards the jet ski just sort of quit working.  Andrew went to town on it with a wrench, locating all the weeds.  But while it wasn't running, we tried to get it down to the landing to get it up on the trailer to take back to the dealer.  It would have helped if the boat was running right.  My observation to my sister about visiting the cabin is that I'm always fixing something: water heater, pipes, flooded foundation, myself (when I'm stung by wasps), trees, shingles, myself (when I rip my arm open on the flashing for the roof)...I'm sure I've missed many things.  Fortunately, this time Andrew was taking care of it and I could ignore it beyond fetching knives, tools, and making sure bolts didn't go lost.

Here's a view of my sister-in-law at the cabin.  That's not our cabin on the left - ours is behind me (the picture taker).  Way off in the water, that's the jet ski fixing convoy.

Panoramic View

Here we are zoomed in much closer.  Six people trying to get the jet ski to the landing.  Me taking pictures while moving back and forth between the landing and the cabin fetching things.  And my father at the landing controlling the truck.  Eight people dealing with the jet ski.


The live action version...as exciting as you probably expect.


We had a good time despite all the mechanical issues and had a good dinner at the bar in Garrison.  I snuck out to do a little bit of Ingress-ing as there aren't many Ingress-ers left up there and the portals were unclaimed/gray.  I saw a Pokemon Go article that said there are 5,000,000 portals in existence out of 15,000,000 submitted.  No wonder some are in unfrequented locations.