I don’t know exactly what’s going on in the Big Lake They Call Gitchee Gumee but there were about a gazillion boats out there this morning, according to the marine traffic app. I can only guess that it is some combination of the bad weather conditions that were recently keeping ships holed up in various places, the upcoming closing of the Soo Locks for the winter, and maybe shipping traffic is up in general? Thought an article about that flew by my radar screen recently. Anyway, here’s a screen shot.

The restaurant, on the other hand? Deserted. As in it was approaching 8:00 AM and we were the only customers. I felt kind of embarrassed to be making somebody cook breakfast for me. Although I guess if I’d had to schlep into work at 0-skunk-30, cooking for a measly couple of customers would be better than nothing. The town was absolutely dead last night and there were very few guests at the hotel. By the time we finished breakfast, another couple had entered the restaurant and, when I walked by late in the afternoon, I could see people at a few tables, so I guess things were picking up a bit. Oh yeah, look at the sun column!

Our excuse for making this last-minute rocket trip to the yooperland was that I had some laundry and a few other items to return to the moomincabin. And so we did travel out there to drop that stuff off. It was one whole degree when we got out there and even without any wind, we did not hang around for very long. Brrrrrrr. I visited Harry’s outhouse, may she stand forever! Love that ice-cold seat! We warmed up with coffee at Jeep and Pan’s house before heading back to town.

Laundry may have been the excuse to brave icy freeways to travel up here. Laundry? Really, KW? That could have waited until spring! Of course, the real reason was to attend Otto’s funeral. I didn’t take any photos at that. Somehow it didn’t seem appropriate although I kind of wish I had gotten one or two of St. Joe’s church. I have not been inside St. Joe’s in about a billion years. I am not Catholic but my best friend in grade school went to the Catholic school there. Our houses were a couple blocks away and we used to sneak inside the church so she could collect any holy cards that parishioners had left behind.

But I’m digressing. My brother, cousins, and I grew up playing with Otto’s children and their cousins on the moominbeach. Our grandfathers bought the property in the early 1920s. They were friends and colleagues at the First National Bank here in Sault Ste. Siberia. We are all scattered to the winds these days and, when we do return to the beach, we are often so busy seeing our own family members that we don’t bother to reconnect. So good to see so many of those old friends today.

A bit of a breather in the late afternoon. The GG napped and I walked. Then dinner at the Palace Saloon with Jeep and Pan and I am so tired (in a good way!) that I am struggling to write coherently tonight. Poised to head southward tomorrow, at least to Gaylord, probably through bad weather again. More “dnow” in the forecast (according to Chloe Belle). Sigh…

Good night. Love y’all,
Kayak Woman

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2015 at 9:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.