4th of July

We survived a 2 day camping expedition into the great northern woods of Minnesota. Well, actually, we managed to not kill each other while at the Father Hennepin State Park up near Brainard (2 hr. north of the Twin Cities).

Gregor had never been camping before; Michael last did more than 2 years ago. Which was also the last time Peter & I did.

A total fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants preparation found us without some of the more important items, like dish soap or fuel for the cooker.

Not being intimidated by the prospect of creating fire from combustible solid hydrocarbons, I simply purchased a small packet of extremely expensive firewood. Oh, make that extremely expensive wet firewood. Even the little bits pulled off to make kindling were kind of ... soggy. The family next door took pity on me, and gave me a little gizmo to help start it. Worked wonders, for about 10 minutes. The fellow came back over with a couple pieces of dry lumber (read: old 2x4 with, no doubt, lead-based paint). Worked wonders. For another 5 minutes. I’m sitting there, embarrassed, and wanting to defend my ineptitude by weakly stating that ‘no, really, I can start a fire’. After his assistance, he still couldn't get it to light. He walks away, and returns with the ultimate combustion intervention: charcoal lighter fluid. Splash, spray, whoom! Less than 5 minutes later, there’s no fire. At this point, I am no longer embarrassed. Yet another 10 minutes later, with a bunch of super-dry kindling and little twigs and one of those gizmos, I had a fire. Barely. the whole time it was lackadaisically burning, I could hear the hissing of the moisture in the wood. Luckily, there was enough heat to manage to cook our dinner.

While walking along the shore of Lake Mille Lacs (one of those “you’re from Minnesota if you can pronounce this ‘right’” location names), Michael got to see many different things of nature: Monster-sized white mushrooms, and boy, do I mean monster-sized. A couple families of ducks. Crayfish (I didn’t realize they could live this far north and survive winter). Little fish. Dead crayfish and equally dead fish. Rocks. A bald eagle. Spiders. Fishing dock, a boat ramp. And, apparently his favorite, the playground swings.

Both boys had a blast playing at the beach. Gregor kept piling sand on himself. And his shoes. And down his overalls. Michael on the 2nd day, simply did away with the clothing, and proceeded to run back and forth between rolling in the sand and washing it all off in the lake. The cold lake, I might add. July 4 is not far enough into Summer to warm up any lake here.

Peter and I got to enjoy the walks in the woods, and mused that in a few years, we might actually get to see more of the woods once both boys are capable of walking with a bit more endurance.


On the evening of the 4th, after returning from the camping trip, we were sorting out piles and trying to get the boys in the bathtub, when someone knocks on the front door. There’s some man standing there as our neighbor hollers “there’s someone here to talk to you”. My initial thought is “who? none of my classmates or friends know where my new house is ...?” It’s a fellow we met at Mass last Sunday, who lives on the next block. They were having a neighborhood potluck-barbeque and thought we might like to join them. So, finish scrubbing the initial layer of grunge off the boys, and walked up a few houses on the other block and had dinner/wine/wading pool/beer with the neighbors & a pile of children. Our new neighborhood is certainly a ... diverse place. Hmmm ... Peter & I are straight and both white, making us, if not a minority, distinctly not a majority. Melanin content, sexual flavor or preference, or geographical origin not withstanding, we had a great time. Michael got to try his first Sparkler. A good warm-up for the fireworks.


After the potluck, we headed up another 2 blocks to the large city park where there would be some fireworks. Michael was not at all happy about this, having totally berserk freaked out the last 2 times we’ve seen fireworks. This went much better, all things considered.




















At Powderhorn Lake, waiting for the fireworks.
























At Minnehaha Falls, at south end of Minneapolis, where it flows into the Mississippi.