Facebook may be a time-waster and addictive social media app, but it does have it's redeeming features. One of them is its ability to unite family members who live nearly 4,000 miles away from each other who just happen to be vacationing on the same chain of lakes! Let me explain. Tom's cousin Nancy and her husband Dave live in Anchorage, Alaska. We see them only occasionally at family reunions (and last year at his Aunt Phyllis's funeral). I noticed a post Nancy had made on Facebook that mentioned some familiar places, like "Brainard" and "Forestedge Winery," both spots we have been to on our previous trips to Cass Lake. I commented on Nancy's post, and discovered they had been in our neck of the woods in Minnesota, and would be returning again over this weekend.

We arranged for them to stop by and visit us after church on Sunday morning, and were even more surprised to find out that they were staying with Nancy's cousin (friends of Tom's from Lafayette) on Kitchi Lake...a small lake just northeast of us and part of the Cass Lake chain of lakes! They were only about 15 minutes away from us.

We had a short, but very fun visit with them. Nancy's cousin Karen and her husband Tom had DeMotte connections, and everyone seemed to know or be related to someone in our group! We exchanged fishing stories and hot spots, and shopping and restaurant favorites in the area. We caught up with Dave and Nancy, who have been camping across several states and visiting friends and family as they go. It was a lovely time that never would have happened without the connections we first made on Facebook!

After saying good-bye to our guests, we hurried to finish grilling our meat for this week's potluck. It has been years since the picnic was rained out, but that's what happened today. We managed to set up the food on our kitchen counter, and added chairs to our family room and porch so everyone could still eat together. It was a different sort of "picnic," but still a good time of food and fellowship!

The afternoon continued to be rainy off and on which limited our ability to do much other than play games and relax in our cabins. At the end of our lovely day we were treated to a rainbow over the lake!

It's a small world