Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there.  My father is in Florida and I am sure I will talk to him today.  We are up in Minnesota rehabbing my grandfather’s cabin that my father bought last fall.  It’s been quite the Odyssey.  Especially with supply chains totally messed up from COVID 19.

Our drive up Thursday started at 5am.  We packed the truck.  Picked up my daughter and her dog.  Drove to my cousin’s house to pick up a trailer full of IKEA that we had collected at two stores earlier.  Parking a trailer on a city street isn’t the best thing to do these days.  We hooked up the trailer and drove to Bloomington, MN to another IKEA.   On to Menard’s in Duluth.  Then up to Grand Marias.  Thirteen and a half hours.  Usually we make it in 9 or 10.

A lot of people joke that our place up here is my “Unibomber” cabin.  The Unibomber’s family did live in my hometown but our place up here is more like Walden Pond than an anarchist cabin.  Although, with the way things are going in the US right now maybe Walden Pond will be classified as anarchist.  When you can do it to Harper Ferry and Mark Twain, anything is possible.  If I wrote any kind of manifesto it would revolve around free markets and unfettered capitalism.  I don’t think the Unibomber and I would get a long.

My favorite time at our lake is at the end of the day.  It almost always gets calm starting at 4PM until late into the night.  It’s quiet.  No boat motors to speak of.  It’s rare when you hear the whine of an outboard.  Our lake is a wilderness lake. No jet skis or water skiing.  Last year, my wife and I saw a family of nine otters.  In the winter, they sit on my neighbors dock and eat shellfish.  You can see the bugs flit on the surface of the water and sometimes an eagle sits across the lake from us in a dead white pine tree, fishing.  We have seen him have success.  Every time I see an eagle it is an awe inspiring site.  Never get tired of it.  I am glad it is America’s symbol, and not the Turkey which was a favorite of Ben Franklin’s.

No bomb building for me today.  I am unloading the trailer.  I painted the ceiling yesterday.  The cabin is coming together nicely and by the middle of July it might be put back together.  Sadly, I haven’t been out fishing yet this year.  Our lake only has walleye (or suckers).  I am going to try and go out tomorrow.  We have been too busy and I have to build a new floating dock.