"Health, Money, and Love, and time to enjoy them." ~ Anonymous toast
Gentle Readers and Loved Ones,
It's been some time since that last time I posted. Not because I haven't done anything worth writing about because I have. I've just been lazy. Here's to start trying to catch up. Please remember that you can click on the blue links for more information and the pictures to make them larger.
Ann and I spent Valentine's Day at the cabin in Wisconsin riding the 'sleds'. This is something that a decade ago, I'd have thought you'd lost your mind if you told me I'd look forward to doing. Certainly, it's not a traditional Valentine's Day activity. We rode about 107 miles and spent just short of 6 hours in roughly 25° F weather. Romance is where you find it....
We rode over into Minnesota's St Croix State Park - a park that welcomes sledders.
To get there we had to cross the St Croix River which is the boundary of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The old railroad bridge has been converted to a snowmobile, bicycle, ATV bridge. This is a picture of Ann on the 'Gandy Dancer' bridge looking north towards Danbury, Wi. Note the open water on the east side of the river and the sled tracks on the west. We did not go down on the river and I'm not sure that the riders who did were wise.....
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| Ann looks north on the Gandy Dance Bridge |
The park sits about 25 miles to the west of the cabin on the eastern border of MN. Several big rivers flow through the Park. The second biggest river is the Kettle River. Here are pictures of me when we stopped to enjoy the Kettle River crossing. The sign you see next to the trail certifies that the ice is 20" thick and safe to cross.
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| Geoff on the Kettle River crossing |
Here's the sleds looking ready to cross. This was the farthest west we went. We just crossed the river to say we did and then turned around and came back.
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| Skidoos waiting to cross Kettle River |
That was Thursday. We had a short ride on Friday and had to go back down home for a family event. Now it is Saturday and something pretty interesting happened today. In the frozen north the snowmobile trails are usually maintained by clubs. The Lakes and Pines Club maintains a lot of the trails in the area of the cabin. They also publish the trails maps using advertising money from the businesses that serve along the trails and user contributionss.
Today they had the 21st Annual Barrens Chicken BBQ and Money Raffle as a money raising event to support the groomers and trail maintainers. Ann and I left home this morning and drove back up in time to have a tasty meal in the beautiful, clear 16° F weather. I turned on my GPS tracker on my phone and this is the track over to the BBQ.
View 2013-02-16 @ 14-27-25.kmz in a larger map
Here is a picture of Ann and and I chowing down.
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| Mmm, good stuff |
Note that at my left elbow in this picture is a TV in a box. It was one of the prizes raffled off. They convinced us to put $5 at risk. We didn't win.
Here is Ann right after we arrived. Note the crowd around the clubhouse in the background.
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad / Geoff
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| Ann, Sleds Lakes and Pines Barrens BBQ |
On that happy note, I remain,
Dad / Geoff
