Our second week began much like our first. We awoke to a bright, sunshiny day, and the first item on our agenda was fishing. But this week we are renting our boat and Seth and Maddie are our fishing partners. Once we got ourselves settled into the new boat, we headed out to Pike Bay. Things started out a bit slow, but eventually we fell into our groove and ended the morning with 21 total...3 rock bass and 18 perch. Maddie learned two new skills: how to touch and put a minnow on her hook, and how to drive a boat. Seth, who is usually our star fisherman, was frustrated that things were going very slow for him. Hopefully this will change as the week progresses, as we count on him to fill our freezers with fish!

Monday afternoon was spent enjoying our usual past-times, but around 4:45 we headed out with the gang to Bemidji for dinner at Ruttger's to be followed by an attempt at a big family bike ride around the lake. Dinner was great out on the patio, overlooking Lake Bemidji, with a warm breeze and great food to keep us comfortable.

The ride around the lake has gradually become quite a production. Three years ago, Tom and I enjoyed this nice, quiet ride and loved the paved trail through the state park and along the lake. So two years ago, we thought we'd do it again...on July 4th. Unbeknownst to us, the trail was packed with spectators waiting for fireworks. We had to dodge people and wandering toddlers, occasionally getting off and walking our bikes through the thickening crowds. Last year, we remembered to avoid the 4th, and invited our kids and Beth and Bill's gang to join us. What started as a pleasant ride, ended in a frenzied rush to beat the looming thunderstorm and a very confusing process of returning a bike we had rented for Chloe (see last year's blog for the whole story).

THIS year, we were going to avoid all previous problems. No ride on the July 4th. A clear forecast. And we made sure we brought Chloe's bike from home so we wouldn't have to rent one. Despite our best-laid plans, things didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. Trying to organize 11 people, some of whom want to ride 16 miles and others who want to stop at 10, some of whom want to ride bikes and others who want to run to prepare for an upcoming half-marathon, from two different starting points to two different ending points is nothing short of a logistical nightmare. Luckily we have some very logical brains among us (i.e. William, Jared, Bill & Tom) who figured it all out, and we were on our way!

Several of us started from Ruttger's while Beth took a carload and some bikes a mile or so up the road to start at the State Park. By the time we reached them, the bikes were off the rack and a very unfortunate discovery was made...Chloe's bike had a flat tire!! We had no idea how it happened, and had no way of fixing it. Chloe did NOT want to rent a bike again after last year's fiasco, so the only option was for her to skip the ride. She was so disappointed, as were the rest of us for her.

After some discussion, it was decided that Chloe and Elise (who had planned to run rather than ride), would stay around the state park hiking until we returned. It turned out to be an excellent decision, as the girls had a great time enjoying the wildlife and beauty of the lakeside trails, while we all enjoyed our various rides and runs. At the end we all met up at the Paul Bunyan park for our annual photo shoot, and a rewarding treat at Dairy Queen. In the end we all had a great time! We can only imagine what the Bemidji ride has in store for us NEXT year!!

Much ado about biking