On the necessities of Life

Back to work today. And here I am blogging again. I'm sure to have plenty of new materials for the next few days!!
In some ways it's good to be back into the routine. But I have to tell you about our week in the wilderness. Who would have believed northern Minnesota would be so HOT! It was blazing, and we were in the woods! There were tons of mosquitoes this year so I came back with lots of war wounds. (Did you know Gold Bond is great for mosquito and deer fly bites?) We didn't really get much canoeing, or hiking in, though we did do some swimming and that's a leech story. I have a picture to go with that, but I'll save that bloody story for later. Caught one measly fish. (I don't eat fish personally, but it was an insult to everyone else!) It was too hot for them too. At any rate, I had a chance to sit around and eat. Think. Read. Sweat. Play games. Write. Eat some more. Sleep. We had a down filled sleeping bag, but believe me, we didn't even need the sleeping bag it was that warm. Oh well, It was truly worth it. I could, and did, forget about everything that wasn't important. Funny how you really can survive without the air conditioning, light switches, running water and other such lovely things. Believe me I really appreciate them much more. Now that I'm back I'll have to forgo the mid morning, mid afternoon and mid evening snacks and naps. Hope that works out ok! So Of course here are somepictures:

Surprise!

How long has it been since your husband really surprised you? We've been married for more than 35 years so mine is fairly predictable! He has been known to surprise me though. Saturday afternoon's was a pretty good one. Here's how it went: We've been planning a trip to the boundary waters for nearly 6 mos. You have to have your permits in place before you go in and those can sometimes be hard to get at the last minute. Boundary waters canoeing is fabulously beautiful and is the premier wilderness experience. We haven't gone for a couple of years and Ron has been longing for the quiet, the fishing and the beauty of it all. I have been secretly dreading it. Though I do indeed love to canoe, I wasn't looking forward to the 'roughing' it that this sort of trip requires. It's sleeping in the tent, on the ground; cooking over the fire or campstove, bathing in the lake and digging your own latrine for a week. (not to mention the physical endurance it takes to haul packs and traipse over mosquito infested portages) We are also going with another couple and they have been planning on this for as long as we have.

So when I got home from work on Saturday evening, he tells me to come sit down. He has news. I'm thinking 'oh my goodness. Did someone die?' But instead he tells me that he's cancelled our boundary waters trip and made reservations on the edge of the boundary waters instead. We will be staying in a cabin (with a stove and a refigerator no less) for the week. I am stunned. It means beds instead of the ground. No portaging but still the chance to canoe and fish as much as we want. It means no electricity, but we can haul in as many books as our heart's desire. I was truly surprised! And our friends, it seems, were just as eager to do this as they were to do a regular boundary waters trip. It's all set. I am actually looking forward to going and enjoying the seclusion of it all. I plan to read and write more than I've had a chance to in a very long time. What a guy! He is worth my effort.