Minnesota

A few pictures and comments from my Minnesota trip. I was accompanied by Gina, who has now deemed the Minnesota vacation "annual"! She loved it so much the first time she wants to make it a yearly event, fine with me. The weather held up better than we expected and we were able to canoe and swim most days. I can't handle swimming in 70 degree weather, so I was only able to swim one day. Eagles were everywhere, as well as a few undetermined large birds, one of which may have been a golden eagle, whatever he was he was very impressive. This year our cabin was bat free, but we can never quite escape some sort of snafu. This year the toilet and spiders dominated our cabin woes. Spiders were plentiful and, well, the toilet just wasn't very flushy. So it goes, we had a good time anyway. My little cabin is still there, waiting to be mine. We visited with old friends (Dick & Phyliss) and made another trek to Phelps Mill. This year we discovered a farmer just outside of Old Towne who raises Scottish Highlander cattle, were they ever cool. We made several trips over there to photograph and moo at them, as well as to chat with the farmer guy. An interesting factoid about the Scottish Highlander: The bull's horns go straight out, and the female's horns curve upward. I'm not sure why I thought that was interesting….. On the way back to Omaha we stopped to check out the Carmelites, an order of nuns just outside of Wahpeton, ND. I'm not sure what we were hoping to see, because they are busy with prayer pretty much 'round the clock. They do other things as well, such as weaving and gardening, which they refer to as "manual labor", huh? That hardly sounds like manual labor to me, maybe I should have been a nun. Now there's a laugh… Right as we were leaving their compound Gina spotted a nun pushing a wheel barrow, of course Gina was mesmerized by the nun in her grey habit. Kind of fascinating that people are able to live such simple lives in today's world. Although, there are only a handful of Carmelites living in Wahpeton, kinda speaks volumes. I doubt there are too many women beating down the doors to be a Carmelite of Wahpeton….. Lastly, I started school at UNO yesterday. I just don't seem to belong there, and my gut is telling me it's all wrong…