Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minnesota. Show all posts
Friday, January 16, 2009
Ugh! I've neglected this blog long enough!
Every time I come to this blog to look up an old picture or remind myself of some event, I am reminded that the last time I posted it was Halloween and now I'm in the deep freeze of January. Kristin also reminded me that I hadn't posted to this blog in a while. I guess I haven't had much to say lately. Lots of things have been happening, but I just haven't felt like putting things down here. Maybe this year, here in 2009, I will start trying to blog here more so people can keep up with my happenings. I have made loads of friends internationally and I guess I should start showing them more of my life in Minnesota. I'll take some pictures soon so show you what the deep freeze is like. The latest thing people are doing now to show just how cold it is is to freeze a banana outside and then use it to hammer a nail into a board - yes folks, it's THAT cold here!
Monday, October 20, 2008
I need to listen more closely...
...before signing on to races with my sister and brother-in-law. I thought that last Saturday I'd be running a 5k race but when I got to their house and we were getting ready to go, my brother-in-law asked if I was ready to run 5 miles. I said, "No, it's only 3 miles; it's a 5k." b-i-l: "It's five miles, Matt." Okay, so ready or not, I had to do it.
Despite the steep incline around 3/4 a mile into the race and twisting my ankle at the 1 mile marker, I made it through the five miles. I've done five miles before, but not in a long time. Anyway, here's a pic of all of us after finishing the "Run for the Apples" race on Saturday:
Saturday, September 08, 2007
William O'Brien State Park
I finally got to go camping again this weekend and explore a new state park. William O'Brien State Park is located about 10 miles north of Stillwater, Minnesota near Marine on St. Croix, right on the St. Croix River. Now for Michel and other people who speak that wacky form of French peculiar to Canada, down here in the Midwestern United States, we pronounce St. Croix, "Saint Croy." I'm not sure what would happen if I properly pronounced "Croix" to a Minnesotan or Wisconsin cheese head, but I have a feeling it would involve at least one black eye. Kind of like how I can't pronounce karaoke as I did in Japan.
The weather was perfect for camping - after the rain, things cleared up and cooled off. I hate camping in hot weather. The site wasn't as ideal as that in Afton - this was just a drive in site, so I was much closer to my neighbors. Yet it was surrounded by beautiful red pines and had great amenities. Here I am reading Tom Maltman's excellent book on the Dakota conflict while I smoke my pipe:
And here is the morning after a not-so-good night's rest. Some neighbors decided to keep the entire campgrounds up half the night with their boring, but loud conversation, despite an attempt to shut them up.This was followed by a call/response session with some silly sounding birds. Woven through this was a dream that involved a new Pope and me watching Hillary Clinton and Al Gore walk into a church shaking their heads and shuddering in horror. Suffice it to say, I was tired when I woke up at six:
The morning was lovely and foggy, so I went down periodically to take pictures of the St. Croix River as it transformed from invisibility behind a cloak of fog, to it's sparkling wonderful self. Here are four pictures taken of roughly the same area of the river at different times of the morning:
And this one, I just like the over all look of. It was amazing how completely different the river could look in the course of two hours:
Becky, Ken, and Miriam decided to come out and meet me for a hearty camp breakfast, so I walked in this area of the park while waiting:
And here they are:
We had a great breakfast of eggs with shallots, tomatoes and cheese, bacon, toasted french bread, and sumatra coffee. While Ken read the paper, Becky and Miriam and I took a walk. Here's my sis and niece on this huge rock near the river:
After letting the condensation dry off my tent and rain fly, I packed things up and headed out. I made a quick stop at a mini farmers market in Marine on St. Croix (where I bought two huge beets - a current vegetable passion - and two white egg plants. I also looked around in this quaint general store that has been there for decades, judging by the pictures inside:
As I walked back to my car, I noticed this gazebo and a tree beginning to turn:
Yes folks, fall has already begun - I gotta get up to Gooseberry Falls on the north shore pretty soon so I don't miss the peak of the fall leaves.
The weather was perfect for camping - after the rain, things cleared up and cooled off. I hate camping in hot weather. The site wasn't as ideal as that in Afton - this was just a drive in site, so I was much closer to my neighbors. Yet it was surrounded by beautiful red pines and had great amenities. Here I am reading Tom Maltman's excellent book on the Dakota conflict while I smoke my pipe:
And here is the morning after a not-so-good night's rest. Some neighbors decided to keep the entire campgrounds up half the night with their boring, but loud conversation, despite an attempt to shut them up.This was followed by a call/response session with some silly sounding birds. Woven through this was a dream that involved a new Pope and me watching Hillary Clinton and Al Gore walk into a church shaking their heads and shuddering in horror. Suffice it to say, I was tired when I woke up at six:
The morning was lovely and foggy, so I went down periodically to take pictures of the St. Croix River as it transformed from invisibility behind a cloak of fog, to it's sparkling wonderful self. Here are four pictures taken of roughly the same area of the river at different times of the morning:
And this one, I just like the over all look of. It was amazing how completely different the river could look in the course of two hours:
Becky, Ken, and Miriam decided to come out and meet me for a hearty camp breakfast, so I walked in this area of the park while waiting:
And here they are:
We had a great breakfast of eggs with shallots, tomatoes and cheese, bacon, toasted french bread, and sumatra coffee. While Ken read the paper, Becky and Miriam and I took a walk. Here's my sis and niece on this huge rock near the river:
After letting the condensation dry off my tent and rain fly, I packed things up and headed out. I made a quick stop at a mini farmers market in Marine on St. Croix (where I bought two huge beets - a current vegetable passion - and two white egg plants. I also looked around in this quaint general store that has been there for decades, judging by the pictures inside:
As I walked back to my car, I noticed this gazebo and a tree beginning to turn:
Yes folks, fall has already begun - I gotta get up to Gooseberry Falls on the north shore pretty soon so I don't miss the peak of the fall leaves.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
At the behest...
...of Michel, I am posting this blog to let everyone know that I was on the other side of the Twin Cities when the I35 highway bridge collapsed over the Mississippi river yesterday in Minneapolis.
My family and I are all safe. Nevertheless, it's a sad day here in Minnesota as the recovery mission is underway and families and friends wait.
My family and I are all safe. Nevertheless, it's a sad day here in Minnesota as the recovery mission is underway and families and friends wait.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Camping, communibus locis
I started by titling this blog "camping, et. al." but then looked up the Latin abbreviation to make sure I was using it correctly. I should have remembered it means "and others" or "and elsewhere." I didn't want to resort to etc. either because that's too commonplace. But the point is, when I looked up the meaning of et. al. in Wikipedia it opened a whole page of Latin phrases that I nerdily nerded out on. That's why today's title is "Camping, communibus locis." I am not, however, a tech nerd, so I still can't figure out how to do italics in html on my Mac browser. I do like having foreign or archaic words italicized, so if you do too, just pretend that the phrase above is tilting a little to the right. As for the meaning of the phrase, you'll have to do some nerdly sleuthing on your own, or simply not care what it means and move on.
This is another catch up post to let people know what I have been up to. Last weekend I went canoeing and kayaking on Lake Elmo with my sister Becky, her husband Ken, and my niece Miriam. Here I am taking an obligatory self-portrait:
Here's Ken bringing the kayak that I would be using down to the lakeside. This was my first time kayaking and, as it happens, I turned out to be not so bad at it. I gave my arms a good work out and was able to move fairly quickly.
I also bought a tent last weekend because after traveling around Asia, I thought it would be good to travel around Minnesota and see its parks a bit more than I have. Anyway, it's a Coleman tent as you can see and goes nicely with the Coleman lantern Beck and Ken gave me.
On Wednesday our department at work had an outing. We were all invited to go to a Saints game. The pre-game bbq highlight was watching Jean perform feats of magic:
Just after this picture, Kristin and Jean and I skedaddled into the stadium to get more beer and keep Kristin's buzz going. That's it for the game - we only lasted 2 innings before deciding to go.
On Friday after work I went on my first camping outing of the summer season with Becky, Ken, Miriam, and their dog Sammy. We went to Afton State Park and had to hike in one mile to our site. Here's our little campsite after we got everything set up:
The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory and I cannot think of anything else you need to know before looking at them except that I brought my tripod which explains the fact that the pictures at dusk a) include all of us, b) are not blurry, and c) did not require the use of a flash.
This is another catch up post to let people know what I have been up to. Last weekend I went canoeing and kayaking on Lake Elmo with my sister Becky, her husband Ken, and my niece Miriam. Here I am taking an obligatory self-portrait:
Here's Ken bringing the kayak that I would be using down to the lakeside. This was my first time kayaking and, as it happens, I turned out to be not so bad at it. I gave my arms a good work out and was able to move fairly quickly.
I also bought a tent last weekend because after traveling around Asia, I thought it would be good to travel around Minnesota and see its parks a bit more than I have. Anyway, it's a Coleman tent as you can see and goes nicely with the Coleman lantern Beck and Ken gave me.
On Wednesday our department at work had an outing. We were all invited to go to a Saints game. The pre-game bbq highlight was watching Jean perform feats of magic:
Just after this picture, Kristin and Jean and I skedaddled into the stadium to get more beer and keep Kristin's buzz going. That's it for the game - we only lasted 2 innings before deciding to go.
On Friday after work I went on my first camping outing of the summer season with Becky, Ken, Miriam, and their dog Sammy. We went to Afton State Park and had to hike in one mile to our site. Here's our little campsite after we got everything set up:
The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory and I cannot think of anything else you need to know before looking at them except that I brought my tripod which explains the fact that the pictures at dusk a) include all of us, b) are not blurry, and c) did not require the use of a flash.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
