For those of you who don’t remember, I decided this year to organize my blog thusly: Monday Meanderings, Tuesday Reading Roundup (quotes), Watercolor Wednesday, Thursday Thoughts and Fiction Friday. The one that’s been the hardest for me is the Reading Roundup. I’m not always reading very quotable books and I’m also not always very disciplined about copying quotes down when I do. It’s time for something new: True Stories! I’ve got lots of those right at my fingertips, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t actually live a very exciting life, but I do enjoy taking some of life’s interesting moments and telling them as stories. Gather ‘round the metaphorical campfire and let’s get started.

When Kris and I were engaged, I was looking for a job on the campus where he was a grad student. A temporary secretarial job was open at the Office of Minority Student Affairs, so I applied and then showed up for the 10:00 interview in the timely manner of my people: ten minutes early. I was welcomed into the small office and directed to sit in a chair and wait. The time of the interview came and went and nothing happened. Twenty more minutes ticked by. While I tried to look nonchalant and composed, the two people who worked there were looking increasingly uncomfortable. They whispered to each other, excused themselves and went into another room where they apparently had a little conference to determine a course of action. Eventually a phone call was made and the phone was handed to me.

“Hello, this is Matthew. I’m sorry I’m not there, but I overslept.” He sounded tired, like he’d just woken up. “So anyway, how fast can you type?” I told him. “Okay, then you can have the job. Can you start tomorrow?” Yes. This qualified for the most unusual job interview I’d ever had. I was to find out upon meeting Matthew (who was more or less the office administrator) that it wasn’t uncommon for him to be out late at night and then come in late morning.

My first day on the job, I met the two women who worked there: Nancy and Carol. At some point the director, Dr. G. Jackson, came in and we were introduced. Everything was going smoothly until he came out of his office and asked me to come in and take dictation for a letter. Dictation! Nothing was mentioned about this in the job “interview.” I went into a cold panic – I don’t know shorthand, I had no training in stenography. My first day on the job was looking like it might be my last.

Blushing and stammering, I explained to Dr. Jackson that I didn’t know shorthand. “Oh,” he said, “Well, then, just do the best you can.” He then proceeded to dictate the letter to me and I tried to keep up with my own note taking using lots of abbreviations. And that’s how we did things from then on – it was a little nerve-wracking, but I sort of developed my own shorthand with him.

My two co-workers added to the zaniness of the whole job experience. Carol was an older lady who dyed her hair black and was hilariously quirky. Nancy, about ten years older than I, had one glass eye, and an aggressive and opinionated personality which I found somewhat intimidating, but she was also witty and had a great sense of humor. We soon settled into a fairly comfortable routine with lots of jocularity and camaraderie.

I was a relatively new Christian and with all the zeal of a new convert, I decided that I would do my best to share the gospel with my co-workers. So how did I go about doing that? Talking about it? Good gracious, no! In the manner of my people I took the indirect approach and wrote Bible verses on index cards and placed them on my desk. I switched them up every week, just to keep it fresh. Also, I brought my Bible in and read it sometimes on my breaks. That oughtta do it, I thought.

One of the students who stopped in regularly took note of this. His name was Fred and once he discovered that he and I were brethren in the Lord, he took to asking me every time he came in, “Lynn, have you told anyone today about Jesus Christ?” I don’t think writing Bible verses on index cards was his style of evangelism.

Nancy, however, began to get her feathers ruffled by the indirect approach. She’d sometimes make snarky comments about the Bible verses, which I didn’t take personally, since she was usually good humored about it. But one day, she’d had enough and challenged me, “Oh, so am I supposed to believe all of this stuff? What could possibly be in this Bible that would mean anything to me?” She picked up my Bible, randomly opened to a page and started reading aloud, as if to prove that it was all completely irrelevant. And this is what she read, “Now if your right eye is causing you to sin, tear it out and throw it away from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” Let me remind you that Nancy had lost an eye, her right eye, and had a glass eye in its place. She stopped reading, her mouth hanging open, and for the first time since I’d known her, she was speechless. Well played, God, well played.

I left that job for a permanent one shortly after that. I wish I could tell you that the gospel bore fruit in Nancy’s life, but I don’t know. I met Nancy and Carol for lunch a couple times, but lost track of them both eventually. But this I do know: God’s Word always does what He intends it to do. “So shall My Word be which goes from My mouth. It will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it.” Isaiah 55:11.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning – true or false?

When we got married, we lived in an apartment at first. It wasn’t until we rented our first house that the stuff started arriving. Every time my parents came for a visit, a couple more boxes of childhood memorabilia, books, saved schoolwork, etc. would arrive. We’ll call that “Stuff, Part One.”

Then came “Stuff, the Sequel.” In this phase, my parents started getting rid of their stuff. Fool that I was, I often took it. Sometimes I got rid of it and sometimes I didn’t.

And now we’re in the third phase “Revenge of the Stuff.” Our children have all moved out; some of them have been gone for over 10 years. The first summer that any one of them didn’t come home from college, I boxed up their stuff, labeled the boxes and stuck them in a closet. Every Christmas when they’ve come home for the last 5 years or so, I’d say, “I’d really like you guys to look through your boxes and get rid of the things that you don’t want to keep.” Ha! The words evaporated into a mist and floated away. Most of our children still live in apartments and don’t really have room for things and we have a large house, so it hasn’t been a huge issue.

But now I’m getting serious about this. Very serious. This year, I’ve been making phone appointments with each one of them to review what’s in each box. Much has been given away or thrown away at long last!

Some of you may be mystified by this strange habit of saving stuff. We recently had a family over and the father told us that he had just one small shoebox of things from his childhood. Our oldest son has 9 regular packing boxes of stuff, the next oldest has 11. Clearly we are a family of savers. And they came by it honestly.

When I went through our second son’s things with him, he had a huge box of specialty bottles and cans that he’d saved. I finally persuaded him to get rid of most of them and then I ended up liking some of ones he got rid so much, I kept them.

Is it time for an intervention? To justify this ridiculous decision, I found a use for one of them:

It’s probably time for the final phase: “The Zombie Stuff Apocalypse.”

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Either that, or I’ll put it in a box marked “Blog Posts to Delete” and forget about it for 10 or so years until my kids have to throw it away.

I’ve got a busy day today – no time to write anything for Fiction Friday. Of course, I really should be writing those pieces ahead of time, but let’s move on. I’ll share instead a poem I wrote sometime during my college years.

Remember when
shadows spelled words
and creaks were footsteps
Sirens always sent
jailbirds up the wall
knocking on my window
or dark shapes
in the closet
seemed to move to
make me shudder
with delightful fright.
Me, always prepared with
ten thousand blueprint
escape flights
of genius intricacy.
Just when
muscles tensed to jump –
Hall light
ran under my door
exposing the jungle
only my bedroom
and me safe…
But ready
for the next attack.

Ha ha – that really was me when I was a child. My imagination always took over when I was in bed and I did, actually, run through ways I could escape if that criminal did get into my bedroom, or the monster in the closet came out. Admit it – you did, too.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning while doing penance for not having a fiction piece ready to publish.

We had another overnight at a park before doing the hike at Lake Carlos State Park. This time we stayed at Chippewa Park in Douglas County near Brandon, Minnesota. It was pretty full by the time we got there, but our campsite, because there was no electric hook-up, was in another section, which we had to ourselves (fist bump!). The park is situated between two lakes, Devils Lake and Little Chippewa Lake. We loved the location right by the lakeside.

Previous occupants had kindly left some firewood for us, so we had another campfire that night – absolutely perfect. I hated to put it out and retire for the night.

In the morning, we went out to the dock to read our Psalms O’ Day.

I saw a snowy egret “hiding” near the shore in some high grasses and when we showed up, it took flight. The photos I took turned out so well, I gasped when I saw them. All credit goes to the camera – it happened so fast I literally just pointed, took the photos and hoped for the best.

I need to digress a moment to talk about pit toilets. Don’t skip this part – it’s important or I wouldn’t bring it up! I’m a little bit squeamish about using them and they generally stink to high heaven, so I wasn’t thrilled to see that the bathroom at Chippewa Park had these instead of flush toilets. However, the kind they were using were called “Phoenix Composting Toilets,” and I want to bring testimony that they were amazing (as pit toilets go). There was no smell whatsoever, and there was a rather pleasant light breeze around your nether regions as you sat. TMI? I’d still prefer a flush toilet, but want to give the PCT’s a thumbs up. Research that produces an improvement in the pit toilet experience is research I can get behind – pun intended!

Okay, I’m done with that little commercial. Lake Carlos State Park was about a half hour’s drive from the campground and we arrived around 9:15 a.m. for the 2.9 mile hike.

As we arrived at the parking lot, we saw a deer running through and although we reached the point where we’d seen it just seconds after it had run into an area of very light brush, it was gone. Kris opined that deer are made out of forest butter, which allows them to melt away into the scenery. I thought that was rather poetic, don’t you?

Now you see it, now you don’t
A deer runs into the brush
It melts away before your eyes
And the rustling branches hush

You see, when God created the deer,
He left out the noise and clutter
But added in a goodly dose
Of silence and forest butter.

The morning dew was still on the grass and it was 61 degrees – all systems were go.

A grassy path beckoned us and led us away from Lake Carlos, which soon became the dirt path called Hidden Lake Trail.

You will not be surprised to learn that this trail went by a small lake. I suppose there’s a sense in which you could call it “hidden” – let’s just throw ourselves into the romance of this idea, even though it could be plainly seen. It’s part of the poetry of the place!

We came around a bend at one point and I saw a red-winged blackbird relatively close and it was the kind of bird who likes attention and doesn’t shy away. I got some nice pics, but the autofocus on my camera failed me on the one of him with his mouth wide open in song. Remembering the glorious egret-in-flight pictures, I can’t complain. It was probably my fault anyway.

Before long, we veered away from Hidden Lake Trail and onto Red Oak Trail, which had enough up and downhill action that I regretted leaving my hiking poles in the car. We passed a little fern forest – such beautiful plants!

We also saw some of what Kris called “scouring brush,”a segmented reed with rough parts that he said they used to use for scouring pots and pans while he was at Camp Icogawan as a youth. It just goes to show you that everything that we invent, God thought up first.

We got to the top of a hill and glory be, there was a nice bench which we took advantage of to have a little Clif bar break. Kris said it was a “sag bench,” a joke which was wasted on me until he explained about sag wagons placed at intervals on runs to give water to the runners and allow them a rest if needed.

After continuing on for awhile, we came to a bridge that had a troll on it. It was pretty handsome as trolls go, and demanded a kiss for safe passage on the bridge. I paid. 🙂

What with one thing and another, we finished the Red Oak Trail loop and got back onto the last part of the Hidden Lake Trail which took us right by Lake Carlos on our right and before long, we were back at the parking lot. This hike of 2.9 miles put us over 100 miles! We have 97 miles left to go on our Hiking Club journey. It’s been a grand experience so far (even with all my griping about parks with difficult terrain).

Knee score: 5 out of 10 with 10 being the most difficult. We climbed an equivalent of 9 flights of stairs.

We’re really on fire with our hiking schedule this year, visiting 7 state parks before the end of May. We prefer spring and fall hiking to mid-summer hikes anyway – too hot.

I have neglected to mention that we still take our state park sign photos separately and depend on help from my photo gurus to put them together seamlessly so that you can’t tell. The Kilen Woods trio were done by BIL Karl, and the set from the three parks we went to on this trip were done by BIL Rich. Thanks, guys!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, rejoicing that my readers will no longer have to see ads on my posts. (I ran out of storage room for my photos on the free version and had to upgrade to a paid one.)

Next hike: William O’Brien State Park

I follow someone on Instagram who recently posted a short process video of painting an apple. I was completely transfixed and watched it several times. The painting was so simple and yet elegant and beautiful. I’ll post a link to it to you can see what I mean. It’s probably 6 seconds long, so you’ll have to check you calendar to see if you can afford that much time. [side note: I think I just figured out how to post a hyperlink using a word, which is a fairly major technological breakthrough for me. I hope it works!]

And in case you don’t have that 6 seconds of time, I’ve got you covered with a screen shot of the finished painting.

I decided to try my hand at it today.

As expected, the professional makes it look like simplicity itself, while the amateur must straggle along trying to figure out what colors to use, how much paint, how much water, etc. Attempt #2 really makes me laugh – why so small and blobby? Mistakes were made. I watched the video a couple times before each attempt and by the time I got to Attempt #5, I was feeling a little more confident.

So what was David praying about when he asked God to keep him as the apple of His eye? I have a dim memory of someone telling me once that the apple of the eye refers to the pupil, but this doesn’t really open up the prayer to me very much. “Keep me as the pupil of your eye.” Hmmm. Time to go to the internet and do some research.

Here’s what I found on Christianity.com:
“The phrase, which first was used in the Bible, comes from a Hebrew expression that literally means “little man of the eye,” and it refers to the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people’s pupils. To be the apple of someone’s eye clearly means that you are being gazed upon and watched closely by that person. Your very image is dancing in the eyes of that person! So when David asked God to “Keep me as the apple of your eye” in Psalm 17, he was asking God to keep an eye on him and not lose sight of him. David was asking that God would regard him as one would a cherished child, the object of great affection.

So, the next time you eat an apple, remember David’s prayer that he wanted to be the “little man” of God’s eye, to know that God was looking at him, seeing him, and regarding him with great affection.

O Lord, keep me as the apple of Thine eye.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning while contemplating apple eyes, which is almost the same thing as contemplating apple pies in my book.

I call this planter “Queen Mary.” If you were to guess what the expression on her face is telling you, what would it be? Does she look serene? Demure? Bemused? You may be surprised to know that she’s actually experiencing brain freeze.

I love having a planter that looks like a person, but this one that used to belong to my mother has always been very hard to keep watered because the opening is so shallow. Whenever I tried to water it, the water would just run down the side. I mentioned it to my mom once and she said she used to use ice cubes which would slowly melt in. It’s brilliant!

That’s my first and probably my last gardening tip on this blog. I’m not generally known for my green thumb. Plants under my care have to be able to tolerate a fair amount of neglect.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning unless Queen Mary objects to the ice cube treatment by saying “We are not amused.”

I’ve been biking every morning (ish) for the last couple weeks and I’ve appreciated the magic of gear shifting to accommodate different elevations in the path as I go.

I first learned, or tried to learn about gear shifting when I was a young lass of about 12 years of age. My bike at the time only had the one speed, so I was mystified by what it meant for a bike to have 10-speeds. A neighbor boy, Evan, labored to explain it to me. He was a few years older than I and had dimples, so of course I had a crush on him. Unfortunately, his explanation didn’t make any sense to me, which I had to admit when he asked if I’d understood. “Are you really that stupid?” he said, frustrated that his elegant explanation had not borne fruit. I’d like to be able to tell you that his dimples held less attraction for me after that rude comment, but girls are girls. Probably the only thing I really learned was not to admit it when I didn’t understand something. Too bad.

But now I get it. My bike has 18 speeds and the gear shift controls are really easy to use.

When I’m headed downhill, I shift up to take advantage of the ease of pedaling and to gain better momentum when the path starts to go back uphill. When I’m approaching an intersection, I downshift, so that if I have to stop, I can get going again easily. Frequent gear-shifting enables me to keep my pace more or less consistent as I go. However, I’ve realized that in order for me to gain strength in my legs for the uphill parts of the route, I have to challenge myself to ride them at increasingly higher speeds. If you’ve ever tried to go uphill at a low speed, you realize how frustrating it is. The pedaling is easier but it takes 2-3 times more revolutions of the wheels to get to the top.

So the question on all of your minds is, “Why is she boring us with all of this?” It’s a good question and I applaud you for your discernment. I’ve been thinking lately about how much this whole business of biking and gear-shifting is an apt metaphor for life and sanctification, particularly as I get older. I’d really prefer my life to be easy and if it were up to me, I would never put any hills in the terrain of my life. And if hills had to come, I’d prefer to make it as easy as possible to get up them.

God’s grace is better than that. He wants to make me more like Jesus, and for that I need to share in the fellowship of His sufferings. God brings me the afflictions and trials I need, in just the amount of difficulty I need. The hills may sometimes be steep, but His grace allows me to shift gears, not to make it easy, but to make it possible to get to the top and build strength of faith along the way.

And then, that glorious downhill sprint! How thankful I am that life is not always an uphill battle.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:10

I’ll probably delete this in the morning while shifting gears.

“Mom, what’s for supper?” Freddy called out while running upstairs with his latest takings while out on Finder Patrol.

“Chicken and wild rice casserole,” she answered from the kitchen. Freddy approved of this and felt his appetite rising. “And asparagus,” she added.

Disaster! Freddy didn’t just dislike asparagus, he loathed it. “I LOATHE asparagus!” he murmured to himself because he liked the sound of it. He dropped off the booty in his room and ran to find his brother, Matthew who was playing with Legos in the living room.

“Matty,” he whispered, “We need to have a secret meeting. Right now! It’s URGENT.”

“Okay,” Matty whispered back. He was a year younger than Freddy and shared Freddy’s room – he got the bottom bunk. Dad always liked to call them “Partners in Crime.” They weren’t quite sure what this meant, but since he said it cheerfully, they assumed it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

Matty followed Freddy back up to their room and when the door was closed, Freddy announced, “Mom’s making asparagus for supper.”

“So what? I like asparagus!” Matty said, disappointed in the topic of this urgent meeting.

“I know, but I LOATHE it and I’m gonna need your help so I don’t have to eat any of it.” Matty looked dubious about this, since the general family rule at the table was to eat what you were given without complaining.

“I don’t see what I can do. Just eat it, you big baby!” Freddy ignored the taunt. He was prepared. He’d given this some thought since the last time asparagus was on the menu, which admittedly didn’t happen often.

“If you help me and if it works, I can help you the next time Mom makes cucumber salad.” This got Matty’s attention. Cucumber salad was an old nemesis.

“Okay. What’s your plan?”

Freddy explained. Matty listened. They practiced and rehearsed the whole thing. Operation “Freddy Versus the Asparagus” was ready for action.

The supper bell rang and they raced to the table, trying not to look suspicious. Their parents often could tell when something mischievous was afoot, which mystified Freddy. How did they know? At any rate, they were determined not to give anything away.

Dad said a prayer, they all said “Amen,” and the food was passed around. Mom occupied herself with getting food on a plate for their two-year-old sister, Philomena, and the boys dutifully took some casserole and asparagus for their own plates. It was time to begin. They had a round table and Freddy and Matty always sat next to each other, an essential part of the plan.

“Hey, Dad,” said Matty, “Tell us the story again about how you and Mom met.” This was an oft-repeated tale, one that everyone enjoyed hearing. Dad told it so often that lately he’d begun telling it with just a few details off and it had become a family contest to catch the errors. Freddy had noticed that when Dad told this story, he and Mom looked at each other a lot, which meant they wouldn’t be looking and him and Matty.

Dad launched in with enthusiasm on the latest version of “How We Met,” and every time Matty ate a piece of asparagus, Freddy surreptitiously replaced it with one from his own plate, making sure that neither of his parents were looking at him when he did it. It was a finely orchestrated thing of beauty. The Asparagus Maneuver (as they called it in rehearsal), didn’t take long to complete. There was one dangerous moment when Philomena saw what they were doing and said, “Funny Feddy, funny Feddy” while pointing at him. Mom turned to look at him, but didn’t catch him in the act.

By the time Dad finished, they were done eating. It had worked! Freddy felt a sense of glee with just a touch of guilt.

“Freddy,” Mom said, “I’m impressed that you ate all your asparagus. I know you don’t like it much and it takes a lot of maturity to eat it and not complain. Don’t you agree, Jim?”

“Absolutely!” Dad answered. “In fact, I think it’s a strong step toward manhood and one that I’d be willing to reward with a double portion of dessert tonight.”

Freddy squirmed uneasily in his chair at this unexpected praise.

Mom went on, “Oh, I don’t even think double dessert would be enough to reward this act of valor. Let’s take him to Disneyland for a whole week!”

Dad added, “And then we can put a water park in our backyard and let him play all day instead of doing schoolwork!”

They knew. Rats. He looked at Matty and Matty looked at him. Partners in crime for real this time.

Freddy confessed, Matty confessed, and on the whole, both of them felt better having gotten it off their chests. More asparagus for Freddy and no dessert for either of them.

And there would be no Cucumber Salad Maneuver.

I’ve been wanting to do another story about Freddy and this one tapped into my own feelings about having to eat food that I didn’t like as a child. And I also LOATHED asparagus. I love it now, though. Funny how that happens. I also wanted to introduce Freddy’s whole family and basically just met them myself as I was writing.

Thank you for joining me for another Fiction Friday.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning during an URGENT meeting to discuss other ways to avoid eating detestable things. Will you be there?

Glendalough State Park is in west central Minnesota near the town of Battle Lake and has a 3.3 mile Hiking Club hike around Annie Battle Lake. As a curious person, you no doubt have a couple questions starting out: what does “Glendalough” mean and who is the Annie of Annie Battle Lake? Rest assured, I have you covered on these important questions. “Glendalough” means “the glen between two lakes” and was named by Minneapolis Tribune owner F.E. Murphy and his wife, who were of Irish descent (the original Glendalough is a valley in Ireland). When the Tribune owned the property they hosted VIP’s like President Richard Nixon and President Dwight Eisenhower.

I like the word “Glendalough” mostly because I say it like “Glenda-loo,” which makes me happy. Unfortunately, the correct pronunciation is either “Glenda-low” or “Glenda-loch” (like Loch Lomond). As to the matter of Annie, of Annie Battle Lake, I spoke too soon. I thought this would be an easy thing to track down, but as far as I can tell, Annie’s story has been lost to time. I do know that the town of Battle Lake was named after a battle at a nearby lake in the 18th century between the Ojibwe and Souix Indians. Is it too much to presume that the site of the battle was Annie Battle Lake? Well, two paragraphs in and I haven’t even started the hike, but you have been made richer in knowledge, so I think it was worth the digression.

We didn’t start our hike at Glendalough until around 2:00 p.m., having gone to church in Moorhead with our friends who live near there. We arrived at the park around 1:30 but had a picnic first, just the two of us…and a host of wretched caterpillars (which shall henceforth be known as WC’s). They seemed to appear out of nowhere and were crawling over everything (you may assume a little exaggeration on my part, but not much). I picked a couple off my plate and when I was done eating, I stood up, realized I’d sat one one, too. *shudder*. Nothing like hiking with squashed caterpillar on your jeans.

Once again, I left my trusty hiking poles behind, feeling confident that there wouldn’t be a lot of up and down at this park. My confidence was not misplaced. The initial part of the hike veered away from the lake, but we knew that we’d be getting back to it about halfway through.

It was a warm, sunny afternoon and we were seeing loads and loads of dragonflies. I was on the hunt to get a good photo of one, but my, they are a flighty insect. They would rarely alight on something and then only for a fraction of a second. Here’s my favorite shot of one, even though it’s mostly grass and very little dragonfly.

Kris also espied one on the ground and it was so well camouflaged, it took me forever to find it.

We also saw what I’m pretty sure was a dung beetle, pushing his large dung ball across the path. There’s so much that goes on in the tiny world of insects that is completely amazing.

We were tooling along quite well when Kris noticed his sunglasses were missing. We backtracked quite a ways, couldn’t find them, turned around and then he spotted them very near to where we’d first turned around. I just kept taking photos and tried not to think about what this was adding to our total mileage that we wouldn’t get credit for, but that my legs would certainly notice.

Occasionally we entered areas that were WC territory. They were all over the leaves on certain trees and when we stopped to look at them, we began to notice a curious sort of sound like when you pour milk on your Rice Krispies: snap, crackle, pop, pop, pop… We realized suddenly that it was the sound of caterpillars dropping from the trees onto the ground…or onto us. It began to feel like a very sinister place and certainly a place where you would keep your mouth closed just in case. Me no likee. Kris asked me at one point, “Why did the caterpillar cross the road?” My answer: “To get squashed.” No further answer was needed.

Much of the path at this point was paved and it was popular with bikers. Indeed, the park seemed like a popular recreation destination by the number of people we saw down by the beach and the fullness of the parking lot where the trail started.

It was nice to get off the bike path eventually and resume our relatively isolated walk. I was musing about the fact that I’ve been getting a few WordPress bloggers randomly following my blog lately, which initially was rather encouraging. But the notifications of this are always accompanied by the phrase “So and so thinks your blog is pretty awesome! Why don’t you check out so-and-so’s blog and follow it!” I suspect that these bloggers don’t really think my blog is awesome and probably haven’t even read it, but are just trying to get more followers themselves. I feel jaded now.

At one point, we passed a small creek on our left and I snuck a photo of this merry band of canoeists. If you were in that canoe, would you be upset if a complete stranger posted this photo on their blog? Just curious.

We saw an eagle high above us. We wanted it to come closer so to entice it our way, we tried a couple things. First of all, I called out, “Gandalf has need of you!” This didn’t work, so Kris suggested we try making the sound of distressed bunnies. Not knowing exactly what distressed bunnies sound like, we did our best, making high-pitched squeaking noises. This was completely ineffectual, but quite amusing, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Loved seeing the sign “Yurts ahead.” How often in your life will you get warnings about impending yurt appearances? Not very often, so treasure it when it happens.

The lake was a nice sight to have on our side as we hiked along the last half of the trail. We saw an assortment of people on the lake in their kayaks and canoes, and as we got closer to the end, plenty of hikers with their dogs. Glendalough is a happenin’ place!

At the end, we noticed that there’s a miniature model of the lodge up on a pole. We thought at first it must be a bird house, but Kris didn’t see any holes for potential birdie residents, so it must just be up high to keep mischief makers and hooligans away from it.

There are 68 total hikes in the Hiking Club booklet and Glendalough was our 34th, so we’re at the halfway mark!

Knee score: 3 out of 10 (with 10 being the most difficult)

Next hike: Lake Carlos State Park

I’ll probably delete this, or maybe you will, or maybe it will be eaten by wretched caterpillars. Anything could happen.

Here we are at Lesson 13 in the Watercolor Trip to Italy series. You’ve traveled so far with me! This lesson is called Riva del Garda, which without any help from Google, I’m going to guess means something like “the river garden.” Let me go check. I’ve confirmed it: you should never try to guess these things. Riva means “shore” and “Garda” is the name of a lake in Italy. It would have helped if I’d remembered that the reason the class is called “Watercolor Trip to Italy” is that each photo is from a different location there. Riva del Garda is the name of a town in Italy. Why do you put up with me and my senseless prattling?

I changed the color of the flowerpot, because I just bought a tube of “Payne’s Gray” and I’ve really been wanting to use it. I tried to put a little more definition on the flowers and leaves in the second attempt, but I suppose the “blobby” look of the first one isn’t too bad. Which gull do you like better? I was really excited about the second one until I messed up the beak. Also, note that there was neither gull nor flowers in the original photo – they were added by Artistic License and I heartily approve.

And to finish up with the week in watercolors, here’s a couple sketchy paintings from photos I’ve put on my blog lately.

Two things about Fig Newton: 1. I really want to start doing drawings of him and his cohorts. 2. I’m thinking about whether or not I would ever want to publish his story. If I did, I’d have to change his name because I’m using the name that came with the book of patterns. I LOVE the name “Fig Newton” for him, so it would be hard to let it go. Should it ever come that that, do you have any suggestions for another name?

A Fig Newton by any other name would…still be charming?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, sitting on a lovely sun-drenched patio in Italy overlooking Lake Garda. Ahh…

With a graduation party to go to up near Moorhead, we decided to take a long weekend and visit 3 state parks. Unlike last time, however, each hike was done on a different day, so I won’t be lumping them all together in one blog post. Also unlike last time, we brought our tent and all our camping paraphernalia, which now includes cots. Theoretically, we could sleep on the ground, but we don’t want to anymore. So there. We also decided to skip the sites with electrical hookup to save money. This clearly means we were only a few steps removed from a Survivor kind of experience, right? Back to basics, baby!

Our first campsite was at Wagner Park in Barnesville, MN. This place gets two thumbs up from us. The state parks were all filled up for the weekend, so my husband found this place and we hoped we wouldn’t have trouble finding a good site there. It turns out that if you choose the non-electrical hook-ups, there’s not much competition for those sites. We were camped near a little creek and close to the bathroom (with flush toilets!). Add a campfire into the deal, and you’ve got Camping Paradise. It got down to 44 degrees that night, which admittedly subtracted a wee bit from the paradise vibe. But we are Hearty Minnesotans – and we have warm sleeping bags.

Buffalo River State Park was less than a half hour from our campsite and we arrived around 9:30 a.m. for the 2.5 mile hike. The thing you need to know about BRSP is that it’s relatively flat land (rejoice, ye knees) and it has a scenic riverine forest. I don’t know about you, but the word “riverine” was new to me. I have this picture in my mind of the BRSP staff sitting around a table trying to write a description of the park. “Let’s make sure and mention that it’s a forested area around a river,” says one unimaginative fellow. His crossword-playing peer saves the day by suggesting the word “riverine” instead, which makes the whole place sound really magical. Bravo!

We started off with the stored-up energy you have in the morning and I made a bold decision to leave the hiking poles behind (which sounds better than the truth that I forgot them). It was 56 degrees, which hits the sweet spot for both of us.

From the parking lot we could see the man-made chlorinated pool, which prompted Kris to award Buffalo River the coveted “Most Like Flandrau” award.

One of the first signs we saw mentioned the amazing view of an area where buffalo used to roam in the thousands. We were instructed to touch and examine the bison bone attached to the signpost, but alas, the bone was gone. “The Case of the Missing Bison Bone” sounds like a good mystery title, doesn’t it?

The paths were wide and easy to follow and I did my usual thing of stopping frequently to take photos.

The route took us through the campground and we could see that they were indeed full up. No regrets on staying at the campground in Barnesville, though – it was much less crowded.

We walked past the pool again and off to the right, which turned out to be the wrong direction, but it got us to a nice bridge.

Frequent checking of the map by our Chief Navigator put us back on the right path, which was a nice amble down by the riverside (and very riverine, it was).

I began seeing lots of webworm, which I consider to be a sign of the groaning of creation under sin.

At one point I stopped to take a short video, just so you could hear the wonderful sounds of the hiker’s world: bird song and the river in the background.

We stopped for a moment to get a drink and then the path peeled away from the river and we met with our only uphill walk to the top of the hill and more of a prairie. It was exceedingly windy up there and I was suddenly glad for the fact that my nifty hiking hat has a secure tie under the chin (even though it looks sort of old-lady-ish to me).

We walked along the ridge of the prairie and Kris noticed a sign that spoke of the many rocks up there that had been brought by Glacier Express from Canada many eons ago. Kris’s comment on that was that if the Canadians wanted their rocks back, they’d have to “come and get ‘em.” 😆

It wasn’t long from there and we were back at the beginning. “Fool, fool, back to the beginning is the rule.” Ah, that quote from The Princess Bride never gets old.

Knee score: 2-3 out of 10 (with 10 being the most difficult)

Next Hike: Glendalough State Park