It’s about 2 Am and we’ve been home fro about 2 hours. It was a really good vacation.. relaxing and fun.. good time with family. Last night we closed the week by all going to eat at the funky bar in the resort we were staying in.. We couldn’t get seated until about 9:30… Gabe passed the time waiting by perfecting his Ollie’s on the wall outside.

As we went into the restaurant, Shaun showed me she’d hidden a SamStone.. under a stuffed wild cat just outside the bar.

Dinner was fun and chaotic.. here’s my folks and sybs.. (and Jake)

And here are the long suffering ‘outlaws’.. they put up with alot !

We went home and packed most of our stuff.. then Gabe, Max and Iwent down to do one more fire of the spud cannon come fishing pole.. We did a little fire experiment with glow sticks.. messy .. but cool

Gabedid the steel wool spin thing.. Looks cool in time lapse.

Then we coverd one o the golf balls we found in glow stick go, loaded it behind a potato with a tuft of steel wool attached . and launched out into lake superior. The film doesn’t do it justice at all. It was really spectacular.

This morning we woke up early to finish packing.. max and I zoomed down to the lake to do a quick divein.. We hadn’t seen anyone in the lake all week.. I guessed because of the 40 degree temperature.. Shawnand Betsy came down to watch..

In we went..

..

Then it was back to the cabin to move out.. I found soem cool tuff as I was cleaning.. Liek this clayhead that one of the cousins or syblings must have made while we were making SamStones.

Our last act was to place a SamStone. We’d been thinking that if Sam were here he’d be climbing on the rafters.. So Gabe colimbed up.. shimmied across the rafters and placed a SamStone on the crosspiece.

Then it was time to say good bye.. bye-Bye jake and mary

Bye-bye granpa and grandma ..

Sigh.. it was sad to leave.. but I was ready to go home.

We ran into Billy, ben and Betsy in th airport even though they’d leve about 40 minutes earlier than we did.. They’d had to change their flight.. so we hung out with them a little.. Itwas nice getting to say goobye to them again..

The trip home was long but uneventful.. a 2 hour drive, three flights and some long layovers made it nearly 15 hours door to door ..

There was a beautiful sunset as we left detroit..

Max and Rose met us at the airport.. . It sounded like they had a fun a peaceful stay at the house.. They loved the dogs and the dogs loved them . we drdve them home then came back to the house… which was spottless ! It was so great having them watch the place.

We all spent some time in the back yard watching the meteors. Thepersieds peakss tomorrow night.. and we saw a bunch of bright shooting stars tonight. Each one makes methink of Sam..

Right now, Max, Nicholos and Nick’s freind Wyndham are playing guitar and singing.. it’ now 2:15.. I better get ome sleep . More tomorrow.. Man it’s good to be home ! Gnite all.. Gnite Sam.
-me

Busy day.. I’ll talk about tonight tomorrow in the interest of time.. I need to get some sleep tonight. Lemme see.. where did I leave off yesterday ? Oh yeah.. we were gathering at my folks cabin for my father’s famous ‘bachelor’s spaghetti’ . It’s a family ritual whenever we get together. It’s so cute watching my dad cook

One of his secrets is to through the spagetti at the fridge to see if it’s ready to eat. If it sticks.. it’s done…

Looks like it needs a few more minutes.

Billy and Max provided the music while we prepped dinner.. This is Billy’s new carbon fiber guitar.. it’s waterproof !

We all sat outside to eat… either on the deck..

.. or more civilized.

Afterwards we all sat and watched the “shout it Out” movie that max was in. It was very cool watching it again and letting the relatives see it. Max looks good in there.

We closed the night by taking the potato gun down to the beach and and attaching some puffed out steel wool to the potatoes before firing. it’s a very, very cool effect.as the steel wool burns behind the launched spud. . a little dangerous but cool

This morning Diane and I took a walk through the trails on the resort… It’s very pretty where the Poplar river hits the lake.. You can see an old generator house.

We saw (and ate) tons of raspberries

Man.. they are delicious !

Soon after we got home from that walk Brother in law John came buy and asked if i was up for a rub.. We ran the 3.5 mile trail that we did a frew days ago while Diane walked it briskly. I was a great run.. and fun to get out with Jon and Diane .

Once we were home freom that, Dinae started packing up the SamStones we made here.. we need to ship them back to Jen for fireing..

By about 1, all the kids were awake . Our plan today was to go to the Alpine slide on Lutsen Moutnain and take the gondola to the resturant on top.. DMy mom and the billy’s kids went ahead of us. I got there in time to see my mom finish her first run

The ride closed for a bit just as we got there.. so we milled aroud the store a bit.. max tried on some new fashion..

Gabe is always styling..

We decided to go up the gondola’s first.. there were 4 to a car..

The guy who was loading the cars was pretty funny. he kept trying to get in our pictures..

The ride up was very peaceful.. e had fun by making funny noises when we passed the other cars goign the opposite direction..

Betsy and Berto went up with Diane and me.

The view a the top was nice.. and just like any other point around here.. lots of trees.. not many mountains. and thie realllllly big lake.

They had a nice resturant up there.. real food, and a cool water wall fountain.

Whihc now has a SamStone in it.

Everyone got a bite to eat at the resturant..

They didn’ thave anything Vegan.. bt they gave me a big tray of pickles for free.. they were yummy !

Chris checked out the surroundings while we ate.

Then came a tough and important moment. We decided since we were all together up thererthat it would be a good time to take a picture… something we haven’t done since Sam’s passing.. I’d been thinking of this moment since we started planning the trip.. We got everyone together then asked a nice man passing buy t snap a shot with each of our 6 cameras.. I noticed half way through that little billy was holding a SamStone. Man.. I could feel Sam so there and so not there.. I really got chocked up

I as so choked up that i went away a bit to be by myself. little Ellery came over and asked ‘what are you doing ‘? I told here was crying because I missed Sam so much . She thought about it a little then said Sam is in our hearts.. it was cute and touching..

Then it was tiem to head back down the hill.. we loaded back into the gondolas and headed back down.

Diane got this shot of Billy and me in the gondola car.

We got to the bottom then headed straight over to the Alpine slide.. up we went again.. Max and Gabe were ahead of Billy and me,

Here’s Billy ready to go..

Down I went.. it as a hoot !.. assoon as I got down, we baught another round of tickerts and went up for another ride. There go Billy and Ben below us..

Betsy and Diane were in front.

On their cars and ready to go !

..

Time to head home.. look how betsy towers over Diane and my mom.

The final project of the day was to finish the new invention.. the ‘Fish and Chips 5000 Fishing Cannon. ” The idea was to mount a fisnhing reel on a spud cannon.. then use a launced potato to carry a fishing lure way out into the ater. Last night Max worked to attach the fishing point ferrules and reel to the spud gun..

Then he added the all important logo !

Here’s the finished weapon.

This afternoon we did the real testing (no pun intended)

We went down to a deserted part of the lakeshore..

The first shot worked p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y !

Here’s an action shot of Max firing

And here’s gabe taking a shot

We eventually lost the lure and that was it for our first test.. The design worked perfectly.. A pretty fun idea.. no ?

Last job at the beach was for Max to clean the fish he caught the other day..

We talked bout respecting the fish who gaves it’s lfe for our food.. Max put the fishes head and tail on a little barge decorated with flowers and launched it into the lake.. It was cool and wierd… and nice.

This eveing we had a nice dinenr with everyone to do a late celibration of my folks 50th anniversary.. . It was a wonderful and sad evening. I’ll write about that tomorrow. Right now.. i’m going to go outand look for moremetoirs.. remember the Persied meteor showerr beaaks ealry next week !

Happy meteor hunting folks.. Sam.. send us some shooting stars. We love you !
-me

Ok… so .. one of the amazing things about this place is that they have TV.. not just TV but cable tv.. That may not seem like much to most of you.. but I’ve lived 30 years without a TV hooked up to the outside world. Now I realize why it’s so easy to get sucked into this thin and watch it for hours. Last night the boys and I sat up late watcching adult swim on cartoon network. Eventually Aqua Teen Hunger Force came on.. It was always one of Sam’s favorites.. In fact this was the original show..

Sam always identified with Meatwad..

On this show .. Meatwad would always say “Can I go swimmin'”.. and the other guys woudl tell him no.. Sam could do this line just like Meatwad.. it was one of our catch phrases.. now when I’m travelign by myself and talking to Sam.. I always say “Can I go swimmin'” in that same voice.., and here it was on TV..

TV is great..

We woke not so early today.. Diane and I did a great 3.5 run on a hiking trail nearby.. we put anther Samstone out there on an overlook of Lake Superier..

The housholds were waking up just as we got back. Uncle Billy came in with his broken Macbook.. the video settings were busted.. so everthing lookedlike pretty quilts.. not very usefull.. but oh-so-pretty.

We’ve had a couple of Crows looking in on ous since we’ve been here… This guy sits on the birdhouse of our patio and Caws’ .. He’s HUGE..

Late midmorning Gabe. Max and i went with Billy down to fish..

Gabe caught a tree in our front yard.. and it was a big one ! We were going to take it hoem to eat.. but we decided to release it.

We went up the street to get soem fishing tackle and found the locals prefered bait.. Ewwwwww..

We went down to where the polr river flows into Lake Superior and started fishing.. Well to be truthfull.. I had nothing to do with it. I just followed along to be companionable.. I can’t stand fishhooks.. so I just kinda hung back

Hey. we got one !

Gabe set up on one sire of the nouth of the river.. and Max was on the other..

About30 seconds in, Max got a bite..a pretty big one.. !

Uncle Billy came running with the net.

It was a trout .. about 20 inches long !

Billy headed up the river to fish… we stayed where we were…

I sat back and stared at the clouds.. I took too many pictures.. but here’s two .. I think it looks liek the tail of a shark… I’ll spare you the other 100

Max caught the bottom of the lake..

It was a beutiful day.. and a beautiful palce..

Ooops… tangle..

We headed up the river to look for other places.. There was this cool old building that used to be a hydro power station for the resort.

Just outside, Max got his second bite.. this one aout 8 inches long..

The boys then inched there way under the overpass for the road.. about 12 inches of les over a huge casm.. eeeeeekk

Gabe got to the other side and waved back at me through an acient pipe that was still there ..

Around 5 we headed into Grand Marais abotu 20 miles aways.. Lots of good stickers up there..

First stop was the hardware store.. we’re lookign for mischief to make.. the plungers looked attractive.. but in the end we opted for spud gun makings..

Then one more stop at the grocery store.. We ran into the guys we met there the other day.. their all from macedonia.. just working here for the summer.. They’ve had a good time.. but they say it’s pretty quiet around here..

I was pround because I remembter my 10 words of Serbo Croat.. zva ivo molim “two beers please” .. kako ste ? “how you doing ?” hfala “thanks” molim “please”, dovijenia “bye”.

We gave them a SamSone to take home..

We headed back into town to look for food. We found an old Firetruck for sale.. if Erin from Mexicali is reading this.. please take a look and let us know if your Dad might be interested.. He collects old firetrucks.

We found a small diner with no veggie food.. but it was fun..

Here’s ‘Tissy

And ‘Berto

And Jake

We saw the sunset across the harbor.. then headed home

I found an add for this place.. but it’s too far away to go see.. gotta love the add, thouhg.

I loved this sign.. you know you’re in a small town here.. Hope it’s nothing serious.

Here’s Max having fn with fishing line.. ick

We saw this great invention parked in front of the bike shop..

We got home around 9:30.. I emptied my pockets and found this cool duck head rock Ifound when we were fishing,.

Diane had managed to paint all the SamStones.. and they were spread aout to dry.. nice and sad..

Now we’re just sitting around listing to Max and Billy play guitar.. It’s wonderful to hear..

OK.. that’s it for today.. now to sleep.. more tomorrow.. Nite all. Nite Sam.. we all miss you more than words..
-jc

Very quiet day on vacation here in Lutsen. Diane and I got out for a run this morning on a trail in the woods.The trail circled the top of a mountian.. more of a hill really. it had beauiful views of .. well there are just miles and miles of trails surrounded by miles and miles of miles and miles. Pretty and empty.. Diane and I decided to explore the road the trail was on.. it was 5 miles of nothing with a trail at the end..

We came back to the cains and picked up some relatives and went out on another hike.. (hiking rates big here on the list of things to do)

This place was called ‘The Gorge’ .. just like home.. it was really pretty.

The trail followed a small river that has cut a steep gorge..

We had an easy walk along the gorge…

Berto checks out the 40 foot drop.

My dad found a spooky place on a cliff to leave a SamStone.. it was a perfect place .. the knd of place that Sam would have climbed out on..

It was fun having Jake and Ellery with us…. they were good hikers.

We stopped to stick our toes in the creek.. I fell instantly asleep on the beach.

‘Berto really got into the water…

My folks are great hikers…

We got back around 4L30.. Billy had taken gabe, betsy and chris out fishing.. They showed up around 7PM with a fish !

That was about everything… no… wait.. this bug just flew on Gabe’s neck and bit him.. No joke.. they’re both OK.. (Gabe and the bug)

OK.. that’s it.. not sure what’s up for tomorrow. You’ll read about it here.. nite folks.. nite sam
-me