What a long, full day! We woke up very early to say good-bye to Seth and Maddie, who left at around 6:30 a.m. Our other good friends from cabin 3 were also leaving, so Leah and I said good-bye to them as well. We convinced Leah she would have to come fishing to fill the void we knew we'd feel with Seth and Maddie gone, so she went up town with Tom to purchase her fishing license.

We finally headed out around 11:00 a.m. and went to Buck Lake, a small narrow lake on the north side of Cass Lake. We hadn’t tried this area for fishing before, so as usual with any new area, we spent quite a while just looking for the fishing spots. We finally honed in on one spot that seemed to produce lots of nibbles and bites, and eventually a few fish. Although many were too small to keep, we were happy with the variety…Northern Pike, Crappie, Bluegill, Rock Bass and Perch. We ended up only finding 5 keepers (2 bluegill, 1 crappie, 1 perch and 1 rock bass), and decided to call it a day around 2:30.

Mom and Dad K, my sister Beth, her husband Bill, and kids Elise (& friend Rebekah) & Zach arrived at the resort next door (Sah-Kah-Tay) in the early afternoon, so we greeted them when we arrived back home. Even though some of our gang has left, others have now come to fill in the gaps. We’re looking forward to another fun week with all of them!

To get things started, we planned a dinner out with the family at Ruttger’s Birchmont Lodge…something that has become an annual tradition for us. After a nice dinner out on the patio overlooking Lake Bemidji, we said good-bye to Mom and Dad, and the rest of us (all NINE of us) changed into biking clothes and mounted our bikes for a lovely ride around Lake Bemidji. And it was…sort of lovely. The trails past the lake-side homes, through the State Park, and on the Paul Bunyan trail are really nice to ride. But there were a few glitches.

One. We didn’t have enough bikes for everyone. We had borrowed one bike from cousin Tommy, and planned to rent another from Ruttger’s. When we found out it had to be returned by 8:00 p.m. (and it was already 7:15), we knew that wouldn’t work. Luckily, Tom had seen "Nice Ride" rental bikes at the State Park on his ride into Bemidji. So Tom and Chloe drove a couple miles up the road to rent a bike for her while the rest of us rode up to meet them. From there we all joined together and things were going along rather nicely as we cruised along the trail. But then…

Two. The weather became a bit uncooperative. At around the 10-mile point we pulled into the town center area where we had planned to take the traditional pictures of the kids around Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. We did this rather quickly as we could see the storm clouds in the distance and a quick check of the radar on our phones made us realize we better get moving if any of us were going to make it all the way back to our cars.

Chloe, Elise and Rebekah had decided to quit at that point while the rest of us (Bill, Tom, Leah, Zack, Beth & I) wanted to continue on for the last 6 or 7 miles. We found there was a “Nice Ride” bike return four blocks up the street, so we quickly rode over to return Chloe’s rental bike there, thinking how convenient this was for us (but wondering if this was actually Kosher).

The six of us continued on back to Ruttger’s as the rain started. And since the sunset was hidden by a thick layer of clouds, things were getting dark as well. It was a bit nerve-racking, but the rain was light, and the darkness held off until we arrived safely at our destination. Tom continued on to the State Park to get our car and to explain that we had dropped the rental bike off in town. This is when we ran into glitch number…

Three. The State Park officials told him that unfortunately, they had no way of picking up the bike from the other “Nice Ride” location, and we needed to get it back to the spot we had rented it from. Ahhhhh!! Tom picked up Leah and I from Ruttger’s and eventually both cars and all the bikes and bikers made it back to Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, by which time the rain was coming down quite heavily and the sky was bright with huge lightening streaks every few minutes. Tom tried to load up the 4 bikes we had come with, and found they didn’t fit well on our rack, so we sent Chloe to Bill and Beth’s car, and lowered the back seat to put Tommy’s bike inside, more or less in Leah’s lap.

Wet, tired and confused, we still had to figure out how to get the “Nice Ride” bike back to the State Park. After a few minutes of strategizing, we came to the only sane conclusion: we would pick it up and take it back in the morning! (We’re coming to Bemidji for church anyway.) We just hoped they would only charge us for the hour or so the bike was used, and not for the whole day! Either way, it would be worth not having to figure out how to put a 5th bike in or on our car in the middle of a thunderstorm! After much frustration, we all had a good laugh, when Leah said, “at least you’ll have a good story for your blog, Mom!” After all of that, we still had to deal with one more small detail…

Four. A grocery run. Since it was now after 9:30, all the stores except WalMart were closed, so we met up there. I ran in to grab pork chops and a few other things for our Sunday picnic, while Beth and Bill tackled their big grocery run for the week. It was a late night, but we all made it back “home,” safe, sound, well fed, exercised, and prepared to face another exciting week in Minnesota!

A good story for Mom's blog