Tangents

So we’ve been up north for a little over a week now. Here are some ramblings from our time so far…

After finishing up cleaning out our apartment in Loring Park, we made the drive up on Memorial day. It was a nasty day, cold and rainy. But at least we weren’t headed south; the traffic returning to the cities that day was crazy long. Once we arrived we met some of the staff and stayed our first night in the lodge. After getting the tour from our co-workers, we played some cards (which is becoming quite the tradition). However, my (Will) shot at winning on the first night was cut short when two of the other staff we lost on the lake late into the night in sub freezing temps. While the search party didn’t find them, they did make it back just fine.

Our first full day of work, last Tuesday, started with us cleaning out our sweet ‘new’ residence, a retro trailer. While it needed a good spring cleaning it is going to be fun. I’ll post some pix, and besides a leaky roof, it is quaint…a perfect camp home. Then for work, Kirsten got the worse of the two jobs that day as she immediately trained for her position as a lodge desk worker and cook, while I got to take the tour of all of the canoe drop in sites. If you haven’t been to the BWCA, just know that there are a ton of lakes and the gun flint trail consists of a bunch of canoe outfitters and lodges. None, however, are as classy as Clearwater. When we returned from the tour, I started on my job, food outfitting. I’ll be packing the food for all of the groups who are fully outfitted for their trips.

The rest of the first week mainly consisted of learning the tricks of our new trade. From Kirsten’s breakfast making and reservations to my cleaning the cabins and getting all of the gear ready for the summer, it was a lot to learn. Some of the notable instances include: multiple trips to Sven & Ole’s (pizza place in town); seeing bear, moose, loons, and other wild life; getting to know all of the rest of the incredible staff here; learning to play cribbage; grilling way too many hot dogs; smelling like vinegar water from all of the cleaning; groups falling in the 49* lake water; and, of course, some great canoe and hiking journeys.

There will be many more stories to tell so check the blog. Probably weekly updates are most realistic, but I’ll try to recap the week. The lodge has its own blog, so there may be more stories there for you. At any rate, this is a start at updating you about what we are up to.