The dust is just begging to settle and the laundry is almost done after more than a week in Minong. We rented a cabin with the Bryan clan and put on our relaxation faces. The weather was great all week on the Flowage and everyone had a great time. The first couple of days were filled with fishing, swimming, canoing , paddleboating, campfires and smores. Everybody was catching fish of some kind or another, there were plenty of sunnies and bluegills as well as a nicely colored pumpkinseed and a walleye, redhorse and northern tossed in for good measure. To that we added a couple more species on long distance catch and release, but we did cook up the panfish one morning for second breakfast and everyone was able to get a little. The kids were able to swim all around the dock area as well as walk out to an island and swim on the sandy beach there as well. We did take the canoe in tow behind the 9.9 horse to the big sand island but we didn't stay long as it was also used as a depository for all of the pontoon boat dogs and quickly headed back to our own little beach on the flowage. The rid to and from the big island however was an absolute gigglefest as Brad pulled the canoe at speeds never reached by paddle alone. With me in the back of the canoe and Sophia in the front, I am pretty sure that only the back half of the canoe was in the water. We were able to hike on a nice loop not far from the cabin and had regular morning and evening hikes and the loose sand was great for tracking, and we even found some very fresh bear tracks meandering on the same route as we had chosen in search of the last straggling summer berries before the hazelnuts come into harvest. The kids were able to arrive at Pogo's in the boat and Merrick and Ollie kept us safe from any shoreline ambushes as they guard our water craft with their dollar store guns and enough imagination to turn our boat into the PT-109. They did get a kick out of going to and from the restaurant in the boat, although some of that may have been overshadowed by the adults hemoraging dollars to feed the video games and temporary tattoo station. We did do a couple of day trips, once to Hayward and once to Duluth. Hayward mostly to break up the week and a candy store and wilderness walk excursion are a requirement when in the flowage area. While DuBecks was reminding her kids to stay on the trail at Wilderness so we didn't get kicked out I did notice over her sholder that Merrick was evacuating his bladder on the backside of an animal cage. It was a hilarious juxtapostion but it did remind me that I need to remind him that sometimes outside is still public. By the end to the trip I think all of the boys had found a tree somewhere to claim as their own. He did much better at the "Big Muskie Museum," also mostly outside, and asked me "is this public?" I quickly grabbed his hand and headed for an 'indoor shrub." The kids were able to fish in a small pound under the musky with cane poles catching some blue gills and we toured the old boats, old fishing lures and prompted by a pair of strange anatomically correct big foot statues we also made up a new song that isn't fit to print but was sung by the kids with plenty of laughing. A little lunch at the Angry Minnow, with an angry waitress and it was a quick pass through the candy shop and time to head "home." We ended up in Duluth because it was a cool, rainy Saturday morning and we weren't quite ready for the vacation to end. The weather became increasing nicer while we were in Duluth until it turned into the weather pattern we have come to expect this year. We stopped at Pattison State Park on the way up and hiked back to look at the impressive waterfall. In Duluth we had a nice picnic at Leaf Erickson park and then played in the waves and looked for rocks along the Lake Superior shoreline. It was the kind of vacation where the days bleed together and the kids think it is only Tuesday when sadly it is Friday. In that time the kids became pretty adept in the water and took the paddle boat out several times to use it as a diving platform. With all five of them on the paddle boat on a windy afternoon there was apparently enough squabbling about where to place the anchor that Merrick dove off the boat. The adults were on shore and I heard the kids hollering at Merrick to come back. With his life jacket on I watched him swim about 250 feet to the island and then walk back across to shore, about a 10 minute trip for him. When he got to shore I asked him what he was doing, he simply replied "I couldn't take it anymore, I had to get out of there!"
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