Reporting From Mt Carmel

Mom told me to blog about what we're doing this week, so here it goes. It's been a typical week up here. The days consist of a morning session where we listen to a speaker, afternoons of free time, and usually some type of activity in the evening. All of these things are optional, so we've been kind of in and out of the camp. The morning speaker's name is Paul Zahl, and he is very good. I won't go into detail about his talks, but in short, though he is an Episcopalian priest, he's very, very Lutheran in his outlook. The kids are having a great time here, as always. We have a bunch of friends who come up here and spend the week, so the kids are on vacation with friends and family. The camp sits on Lake Carlos, which is a fairly large lake. The Alexandria area has not become an overrun tourist town like Brainerd. There are a few resorts and golf courses around here but the lake is essentially devoid of boaters, even on the weekends. TOYH's brother Ross and his wife Anne are up in the area this week also. Anne's parents have a lake home on Carlos, so at least one day a week for the past couple of years, Ross comes over with the boat and we have an impromptu family gathering back at Anne's parents place. We did that on Tuesday afternoon. This year EG and DM were there along with Jon and Clary and their family. The kids went tubing and played on the beach all afternoon yesterday. We ended the day with smores around a beach campfire. Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. We all got together on Monday evening also. We met at a local winery, yes they grow grapes up here on the tundra, to sample some of their goods, and we ended up at a local resort for dinner.

I brought the SS Deathstar up here even though I didn't make the ride from St Joseph to Alex. Not riding on Saturday was a good decision. There were no violent thunderstorms on the way up, but it was rainy and quite windy. It would not have been fun. On Monday I went out for a ride, but had to cut it short because my rear wheel went all wobbly. I limped back to the camp where one of the staff had a repair stand and some tools. There were a lot of very loose spokes, so we tightend them up, but neither of us has the expertise to get the wheel back into true. I took it into the only shop in town and they fixed me up good. It's a very nice shop, and they said there was group ride leaving at 6pm on Thursday. Hmmmmm. I'm going to try and make that one I think. I'm going to get some of the pictures posted over on Picassa so just click on the link on the left side of the page. Ciao.