Happy Thanksgiving

We hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving weekend!
We certainly have much to be thankful for - our family, friends and a healthy retirement top the list, and there certainly is much, much more. We are blessed.
We've had a nice week with visitors from California and Tennessee. Last week several of Lowell's cousins came to Minnesota for the internment of their mother, Aunt Eunice. She was buried with her husband in North St. Paul. While these occasions are sad and difficult, it was good time for healing, sharing and reconnecting - and we made the most of our time together! We shared Thanksgiving dinner at Kim and Tom's house and then had a fish fry at our house on Friday night. Dawn, Alex and I participated in the shopping craziness of Black Friday at the Mall of America, and the card games were plentiful at 15th Avenue!
Today the California group heads for the west coast - it's been a very nice visit.



One week from today, we head to Cancun with Rick and Diane. Wow, gotta start planning for that! and then when we get home there's less than 2 weeks until Christmas... whew, this retired road is a busy one!!!

First Snow

Saturday, November 8th, the MN deer opener, marked the first snow in Hackensack for the 2008 season. The last snow here was on May 10th - the fishing opener and the day we put the dock in!
We arrived on Wednesday, the 6th, to prepare for the deer hunting season and get the cabin cozied up for winter. It’s very quiet here in lake country at this time of the year.
We’ve had a trail camera out behind the cabin along with salt and mineral blocks and some corn. There is a doe and her two young ones who have been visiting us periodically all summer. They have been here several times a day in the Fall, but when the snow and colder weather arrived they are not as frequent. We also have plenty of birds around – the big ol’ “pillyheaded woodpeckers” in addition to red-bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers, goldfinches, “nutch-hats”, blue jays, purple finches and pine siskins to name a few. The squirrels are still busy too. I decided I’ve gone over the edge – when we arrived Lowell got busy turning the water on and I filled all the bird feeders…before I even started to unload the car!!! Geez---
Lowell, Joel and Al went hunting on Saturday and Sunday – in the cold and wind and snow! They saw deer, but didn’t shoot anything. Al stayed until Tuesday, so he and Lowell went out again on Monday and Tuesday – the weather was much nicer, but the results were the same. Lowell worked on getting the rest of the loft sheetrocked - it looks so much better. We also did some driving on the Woodtick Trail in the Chippewa National Forest - Lowell is exploring other hunting areas for next year. I'd love to do some hiking there in the spring.
So, what do I do all day? Well, I’ve read 5 books, taken walks with my camera, done some clean up on the laptop (I have lots of digital pictures that need sorting and labeling), some Christmas craft projects and a little local shopping.
Now we're home for a few weeks. We'll celebrate Thanksgiving with the Schumacher cousins and then on December 6th we leave for a week in Cancun with the Theissens - Retirement is beginning to feel real –

October weekend

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Dock Out

Another chapter in "cabin life" closed today. We have taken the dock out of the water, stacked the firewood, and put away the pontoon, boat, kayaks, lawn chairs and lawn mower. This is always a bittersweet weekend. It's sad to pull the dock out and know that the next fishing will be through the ice!
We spent the past 6 days up there getting things ready - we owe a big Thank You to Sarah, Pete and Al for helping with the dock and lift. Now we get ready for the colder season, including a couple of deer hunting weekends, some ice fishing and then maybe some other winter activities - cross country skiing, sledding and maybe snowmobiling.
The critters were busy getting ready for winter too - the birds, squirrels, chipmunks and deer all seemed to be really, really hungry. We put the "Trail Camera" on a tree out by the driveway and got pictures of deer feeding out there every night.
Once again we are reminded how lucky we are, not only to have the cabin, but to be able to stay up there for several days at a time and enjoy the peace and quite of the north country!

Colors of Fall

After a couple of very quick days at home, we headed up to Hackensack to spend 5 days at the cabin with our good friends Karen and Doug.
October in the north country is absolutely awesome! The colors of the leaves actually changed while we were there - to a brilliant riot of yellows, reds and golds all around us. The temperatures were cool but we still were able to have coffee on the deck most mornings. Doug and Lowell did a little fishing, we took a boat ride, played cards, and took several long walks. We even met up with a grouchy porcupine on the Hiram Hiking Trail!
We are so lucky to be able to enjoy this beautiful time of the year at the cabin. The next trip will be to take the dock out and get ready for deer hunting.

Planes, trains and automobiles

One of the many highlights of this journey was using different kinds of public transportation and mass transit in Europe. That, and the "interesting" roads, should one choose to drive a car!
Airplanes - This was pretty easy - planes are the same the world over. Airports, however, are another story. We flew from MSP to Heathrow in London. Heathrow has few, if any, signs to direct us to the bus stops, thank goodness Dan knew the we, or we'd probably still be looking for a bus! The Amsterdam airport is HUGE. Once our plane landed, it taxied for 15 to 20 minutes - over freeways and rivers - and finally dropped us off at a bus outside the cargo terminal. Then we took the bus for another 10 minutes to get to the passenger terminal.
Trains - The Eurail Pass is a great way to travel. Trains vary in age and amenities, but we were comfortable and got to see lots of the countryside. The overnight train between Florence and Munich was a new train. We had sleeping cabins with bunk beds and even had a small toilet and shower in ours. Obviously you didn't see much and sleeping was a little rough going through the mountains. The train from Luxembourg to Paris was a "fast" train, the kind you see in the movies. After a couple of stops at the beginning of the trip it started really moving - Lowell figured it was probably going 160 mph or more. Didn't gaze out the window much with that one!
Subways/Underground trains - every city we were in had them and they were great. You just need to be sure that you get on the train traveling in the right direction! Some trains were really crowded - like going to Oktoberfest! But it was an easy and efficient way to get places.
Streets in the cities are narrow!! I mean really, really narrow! I couldn't believe that you could drive 2 cars on some of these streets - but they do. And usually there are pedestrians, bikes and motorcycles on the street too! I really didn't get very many pictures of traffic - I guess when we were walking we had to pay attention to staying out of the way! The autobahns are busy and much like our freeways, except faster. Thanks to Dan, Tom and Laura for their wonderful driving skills.
Buses are usually crowded but another pretty quick way to get through the traffic and to your destination.
Everyone - young and old - rides bikes! We saw 70 or 80 year old men & women, young kids, women in business suits, pedaling down the streets with a basket of groceries, wine, books, etc. In France (and Italy and Germany too, I think) there are bike stands on every other block where you check out a bike and return it to another bike rack somewhere else in the city. The only problem is, you have to have the courage to share the narrow streets with French drivers!
We never got into a boat or used horse carts - both were options at one point or another.
Driving was truly an adventure. Both Dan and Tom had Garmin navigators which we used when while driving and sometimes walking. If you've followed Luara's blog, you'll know her as Miss B. We usually listened to her directions and always ended up where we wanted to be. Do you know that Miss B can find a Pizza Hut in Luxembourg? And if you follow her directions for pedestrians, well, we found a really cute little area with no street lights! She also guided us through some wonderful French vineyard areas, there we shared the roads with the tractors.

We used all kinds of transportation, but our most frequent and most reliable was walking! It was a great way to see and feel the cities. We walked and climbed to the top of domes, mountains, castles, & hills. We used a pedometer for a couple of days (until we lost it on a bus!). One day we clocked over 27,000 steps - that was not our biggest day of walking either. Figuring about 2000 steps per mile......

Home, Safe and Sound!

After 3 weeks on the road, Lowell, Mickey and I got home this evening. Dan is in Singapore for a couple more days and of course Laura and Tom are in Toulouse for a few more months!

This was our last European sunset - from the deck at Tom and Laura's flat.
We got up about 8 this morning, packed and walked to the bakery down the street for croissants. Then Laura gave us a ride to the airport. We left Toulouse at noon, flew to Amsterdam and caught a 3:20 PM flight to MSP. All of our connections went very well - including negotiating the huge Amsterdam airport. The plane taxied for 20 minutes before letting us off - at the cargo terminal! Then we took a bus to the main terminal, went through a passport check and another security check, and onto the plane. We landed in Minneapolis at 5:30 MN time (12:30 AM Toulouse time!) It's now about 4 AM in Touloluse - time for us to crash. Can't wait to look at pictures and share a few more adventures with you - but not tonight!!!