Day Two
This entry was posted on 7/31/2010 3:19 PM and is filed under Vacation.
A thunderstorm blew in during the night. The cabin has a tin roof so the rain sounded wonderful.
In the morning Jay cooked us bacon and eggs and we drove to Brainerd for supplies. The sky was black and vicious looking. It rained and thundered all the way there. We went to the Fleet Farm and got supplies. Then we drove back to the cabin, had turkey sandwiches for lunch and Jay suggested we watch 24. He's never seen the second season, so I had brought it with. We watched until the sun came out. Then I hit pause and Jay went fishing.
I stayed at the cabin, writing, reading and doing no arithmetic at all. I worked on the Callaway Bear I'm needlepointing. Jay fished for hours. The sun was out some of the time, it rained some of the time but it didn't thunder anymore. Jay came back and picked me up later in the evening. The sun came out in time for a gorgeous, red sunset. We tooled around the lake from dusk til full dark.
By the time we had finished grilling our country style ribs a new swath of thunderstorm had come rolling in. We had to crank up the volume on 24 but it was a really fun night. It got so cold in the middle of the night that I had to get up to find some blankets as we had thrown the ones off the bed the night before because it was so hot. I'd rather be too cold than too hot.
Did I mention that there are 13 pairs of antlers adorning the living room walls? They're everywhere else, too but I only counted the ones in the living room. Three pairs of those are still attached to the heads they came on. So, you'd think getting up and wandering around this place in the middle of a thunderstorm at night would be creepy but it wasn't. It was AWESOME.
Wednesday morning dawned cool and bright with no trace of stormy weather. It's like the sky was saying "What? thunderstorms? No way, man. that wasn't me. You're thinking of someone else. Really."
Jay woke me up by bouncing out of bed and announcing that he was going fishing. After a moment's thought I decided that sounded great so I grabbed my needlepoint and went with him. He fished and I worked and we were out on the lake for 2 1/2 hours. Hunger drove us back to the cabin. I went up first and made coffee, which pretty much stretches the limitations of my skill.
Although I do pour a mean bowl of cereal.
Jay cooked us up a wonderful omelet.
After brunch we drove to Remer, a happening little town approx. 3 miles closer to the cabin than Emily. Jay and I had an argument as to which was closer and he won. I admitted he was right and that it galled me to say so. I know how much he enjoyed hearing that. We shopped at the Remer grocery store for dinner and bought a raffle ticket as part of a Knights of Columbus fund raiser. The first prize is a laptop and the third prize is a meat bundle. I can't decide which I'd rather win.
Jay was able to get a "Good luck on the bar exam!" text through to Katie from Remer.
On our way out of town, we forgot to turn off right away and we were at the Leach Lake Indian Reservation before we caught our (Jay's) mistake.
That's right. We went to Remer Minnesota and got lost.
What do you expect from a guy who tried to buy champagne at a biker bar?
He's the best. I'll fight anyone who says other wise.
Back at the cabin (you can't stay lost in Remer for very long. You just can't.) Jay went fishing again. I sat in the sunroom and wrote. I took a lot of photos of the lake and I got out my watercolors for the first time in two years. Believe me, it's not like riding a bike. My paint kicked my ass. But I'm pretty sure if I just work for a while it'll come back to me.
Later, Jay picked me up and we rode around. He caught a northern about a foot long. I took pics and he tossed it back in the water just in time for an osprey to swoop in and grab that big fish in it's talons. We watched that big bird fly off with that big fish in it's claws and we said "Nature!" simultaneously.
Jay showed me how to drive the boat and I drove around the lake for a while. It was fun. We were the only boat on the lake. I drove around and around and then we killed the motor and drifted, eating the peanuts we'd brought out with us. We got within about twenty feet of a pair of loons we'd seen out there all day. At sunset, the loons call to each other. They're quite noisy. The lakes up here are packed with them.
We had burgers for dinner and thanks to the Rebel Yell Whiskey Jay found while he was cooking, he forgot to put any meat on his first one. He thought it was kind of bland, then noticed there were still three patties on the plate.
The burgers were delicious. So was the whiskey.
