Minnesota - lakeside laziness

Firstly, Adrian's missing bag did finally arrive on Wednesday, three days after being lost.....luckily, as clothes shopping needed to be done in Fargo, an hour's drive from the cabin and not as much fun as lazing in the hammock or engaging in lakeside pursuits!

That night, we went to "Zorbaz on the Lake" - a pizza and mexican place that was abuzz with teenagers and family groups. We settled into a booth and had a fantastic night polishing off a "huge" plate of Macho Nachoz with marinated chicken. We then ordered individual meals of Tacos, Burritoes, and cheese pizza for the boys. We rolled out of the joint a couple of hours later, having watched the sunset, and Adrian was nominated chief navigator and deer-spotter during the drive home.

Thursday 16th July - happy birthday Adrian. John did a splendid job of the morning coffees and Shell cooked up some cinnamon rolls which were a hot and gooey treat, perfect for breakfast. After card and present opening, the highlights of the day included lunch at Riverside Cafe in nearby Pelican Rapids (the local Walleye Fish burgers were great), followed by nine holes at Rockpile Golf Course. Funny enough, we were still rugged up with wind-stopper jackets, but the excitement of zooming around in the buggies soon warmed us all up. The experience brought out the inner hoon in Heather, and she often had Adrian hanging on for dear life as she accelerated to each spot. The rest of us (John, Shell, Adrian, Ben and Noah) played a nice game of golf, with John winning by just one stroke over Adrian. Ben and Noah tee'ed off 50m from the pin, with Ben showing us all up with a birdie on one hole! Dinner for the adults was a fancy affair that night as we had fun sitting round a "Raclette Grill", melting the selection of delicious cheeses and sipping fine wine. Finally, we sang "happy birthday" whilst Adrian blew candles out on his black and white Collingwood chocolate cake.

The next day or so continued to be chilly; in fact locals said they had not experienced such unseasonally cool weather for over 30years - just our luck! But this gave us the opportunity to laze around, eat lots, sleep in, keep tabs on the Tour de France, and do some fishin' out on the boat. Adrian triumphed with a good-sized Large Mouth Bass and Heather gave him a run for his money by pulling in 5 smaller fish over a couple of days, both on the boat and off the jetty.

We also spent a couple of evenings shooting a multitude of fireworks up into the night sky. Somehow, no buildings or trees went up in smoke, and it was always exciting to see what was actually going to explode above you! We also huddled around the fire-pit for more toasting of marshmallows for "S'mores" (see photo in the previous posting) - hot marshmallows and a piece of chocolate sandwiched between two biscuits - gimme some more!!

Our final morning was spent packing then soaking up a little of the nice weather that was finally peaking out over the lake. The wind had dropped and the skies were blue, and the views over the slightly rippling waters were glorious. The hummingbirds were buzzing a-plenty around Shell's sugar-water feeder, and Tilly (3yr old golden Labrador) was bouncing around after Adrian and the boys as they played with the ball and frisbee. We were sad to leave the family, especially as the weather was improving rapidly, but we had a flight to catch and could not afford to dilly-dally. After goodbyes to John, Shell, Ben, Noah and Tilly, we left the lakeside cabin with plans to return during another "summer" in the not too distant future!