Ron Has Another “Project”

He is smiling, but......is it really fun?

Tree roots are in the main sewer line in Andy's back yard, oh boy!. Ron had not used the plumbers’ eel before outside but he had seen it done in our Ohio house.  We looked on YouTube. It’s quite a process and can be scary and can also break the pipe if you’re not careful or something goes wrong, and then you have a real mess.

     But it worked out well, quite interesting.  We rented the heavy duty machine  
 ( ¾” cable, Youtube people said you needed the heavy duty for tree roots, and it also has to go straight in; the smaller cable diameters will make the turns.)  The biggest problem was the weight of the machine.  Moving it was difficult and time consuming.  Ron said he almost tipped it over twice going down the hill.  So heavy !!!  Then propping it up to go up to where the pipe entrance was (it was not on the ground.)  He had to manually push the cable into the hole, then use the motor for the actually turning of the cutting head.  He may have spent maybe 15 min actually drilling but lots of time getting it into place and then pulling it back up the hill and lifting it back into the van.  ]  

     But when he poured water down the spout with a hose, it went through!!!! YAY!

Quite a machine!

 We returned it to the rental place at 3:56 – 4 minutes less than the 4 hour rental.

Culvers!

On the way to the Minneapolis airport, we stopped one last time at Culver's!!  We will not be back to the Midwest for another year!  We leave for Seattle this evening.

g.

Yes! Ron Caught a Fish!

Fishing along the dock

Our friends originally had planned to return home to Albert Lea on Wednesday but since there had been no fishing for the two days they were here, they stayed another day so Ron could fish too (since we flew SEA-MSP, we had no fishing poles, etc, so they had brought theirs.  It was a beautiful day.  They went out in the morning but caught nothing, but in the afternoon, they caught two fish: Ron caught a (cute) Bluegill and Bob got a little sunfish.  We ate them for dinner! (No minimum sizes on them; previous catches by Bob and Diane were thrown back – but we were now desperate.)

You can relax this way

The duck caught more fish!

Caught one!

Happy fishing

Bob and Ron are fixing breakfast

Bob and Ron watched TV every night

A Short Road Trip North

Ron and his friends went out fishing in the morning, but it was just too cold to stay out…so we took another drive around the area. We wanted to check out some other MN timeshares up north.  Ron has long talked about Pelican Lake and Breezy Point since his father had purchased a building lot there by the airstrip.

And Joan has long wanted to go to Nisswa on Gull, which has such great reviews.

       We enjoyed the drive, despite the driving rain sometimes!   And the highlight of our trips are to stop at Thrift Shops in the little towns…lots of fun to look at what’s available. 

     Nisswa on Gull was beautiful with large townhouse units in the woods.  A few units were lakefront but most not, but very isolated and quiet even though a lot of units.  (We like that!)  A nice marina was there; we’ll have to see it they charge to launch a boat there (like at Izatys).

Danger!

     Then we went on to Breezy Point, looking at all those timeshares there.  A little disappointed:  some are lakefront, but….from the reviews, it looks like you won’t usually know which ones you get.  Whitebirch, which always has openings, was not near the lake at all although they had large units.

    The town of Brainard was great with old-fashioned lights and buildings and a great chocolate shop; we did not resist!  We finally felt the “Northwoods atmosphere” a  little when we got to Brainard, but even though they are on about the same latitude as Cable, WI (Telemark), it wasn’t so obvious.  

     Turns out Ron’s family used to go to Sand Lake which is another two hours north, so we didn’t go up that far to check that area out.

A Brainard building showing street lights

Downtown streets had lots of old buildings

Lake Mille Lacs Is Large but Shallow

This is only 1/2 the lake view, it is so big

We drove around Mille Lacs Lake, whose area is 200 sq miles, with one of Ron’s high school friends (who lives in Albert Lea, MN).  They came up for a few days to join us to fish.

       It poured rain, though. Ron bought a 72-hour MN fishing license.  They went to the dock this morning to fish but it was windy and cold (he brought no sweatshirt or anything... he thought it would be hot).  It rained for the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow too… So much for fishing?

     

At vista  point, lots of seagulls

Our friends

This  lake is so shallow it freezes every winter so there were  lots and lots of ice houses (on skids) stored for the wintertime. During the winter, there are 5,000 ice houses on this lake and it has the nickname of "Frostbite Flats."

Here you see rows of ice houses in storage

What’s that traffic about? We’re not in Seattle!

We went north this morning to visit good friends Lois and Jack who have a summer cabin in Crosslake MN.  Google maps said 1 hr 18 minutes north of Onamia and we were there  in 1 hr 20 minutes, going on US 169, several state routes and several county routes.  We were so surprised to see how heavy the traffic south was -- after all, we are in the far north – until we realized that people are going home south now, Sunday noon:  they’ve been up north for the weekend vacation.

    We had a great time at their cabin; Jack took Ron for a boat ride into three connected lakes and we had a great meal in the cabin together while meeting their extended family.  Joan has known Lois for over 30 years!  And they have been going to this area for many more years than that (Lois’ parents owned one of the cabins.)  It was a super day.