I never wrote my third North Shore blog from July. The pictures have
been in my photo blog for quite awhile, but I do still want to put them
up, so here’s my last “How I Spent My Summer Vacation” blog.

One
of the things that we really enjoy when we go up to the North Shore is
swimming. There is a lovely beach area at the Temperance River where it
empties into Lake Superior. The water is warm, and although the beach
is pebbles instead of sand, it’s a large and comfortable area. The kids
always have a good time there. Unfortunately, I did not have a camera
along when we swam there this year, but I did have it when we hiked the
falls area of the river.

These pictures are of an area upriver above the falls that bring the water down to the lake.  It’s quite a climb, as you can see here.  That’s Dan, Andy, and Matt helping Jake and Ryan climb.  Madison must have gone on ahead.  Betsy, Jess, and I took an easier path because we had Will.  At one year old, he has to be carried on hikes.  Did you know that other hikers look at you strangely when you are carrying a baby?

It takes a good half hour or forty-five minutes to climb above the falls, but once you are up there, the water is calm and fairly shallow in most places.  Here’s Dan in the first picture and Ryan, Jake and Andy in the second walking in the river.

Here are all 4 kids getting ready to “get wet.”

Will likes the water.  Everybody else waded across to the other side of the river, but even though it is shallow, it was too deep for Will to wade, so he got left behind with me.  He was a little disappointed because he likes to be with his brother and cousins, but he decided to play happily anyway.

There are some areas of shallow rapids that are fun for the bigger kids.

There are also some nice, flat rocks for those times when you need a little break or just a little sun.

Dan and Andy had to be constantly on the alert, though, because this was just below the area where the kids were swimming:

That’s only the beginning of a long series of rocky and progressively steeper waterfalls that carry the river down to Lake Superior.  It’s lovely to look at,  but you wouldn’t want to slip over it!

That’s our day at the Temperance River.  I highly recommend it if you have a chance to visit the North Shore.

It’s 6:00 AM and I have been awake for 2 hours. I finally decided that it was pointless to lie in bed and I might as well get up and do something. I’m not normally very happy to be up at this hour and I don’t have a lot of focus, so this blog probably will not have focus either. On the other hand, being awake now does give me time to blog, and that time is often difficult for me to find.

We took the pontoon out of the water for the season a week ago. I was very sorry to be putting it away until spring, but the last trip out on it was a very good day. Both our kids and their families went out with us for the last cruise of the summer. Our son-in-law Matt brought his wave runner and gave the kids and any adults who wanted to go rides. He also pulled the kids in our tube. It was the first time we have seen the tube in use. Andy has had it all summer.

We cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the pontoon’s grill for an early supper. Jess brought fruit and Betsy brought cheese and crackers, chips, and cookies to round out the meal. Food always tastes so good when it’s cooked on the grill, and I think cooking on the pontoon is especially nice.

We are storing the boat at a farm close to the marina where we have our slip, so it was not much of a job to move it there. We can’t tow it with our vehicles, so Andy has to tow it for us. We think Jess is a little nervous about that, so it’s good that it wasn’t a long trip. It will make it easier to get it back in the water in the spring, too.

Fall quarter started for me yesterday. Not quite half my students have checked in so far. I am always a little concerned during the first week of classes because many students do not realize that they need to do the class with the other students on a schedule. It’s not an independent study. Some of them always miss the first unit because they check in late, so they start out behind. That’s not a good beginning. The first assignment is due tomorrow.  I am anxious to see how many get it submitted on time.

Other than subbing, my online classes, the after school program, and my GED classes (yes, I am back to my 4 jobs again), we are busy doing a thorough cleaning of our house and trying to get rid of all the things that we store but don’t use.  I am a packrat and tend to keep way too much “stuff” around.  After cleaning out the homes of elderly relatives, I know that I don’t want to leave a lot of worthless clutter for our kids to deal with someday.  Besides that, we may eventually want to sell this house and move closer to our kids.  Thinning things out now will make that process easier if and when we decide to do it.

I have said goodbye to a lot of things that I have had for many years.  Some of them really have no meaning for me anymore, so I wonder why I still had them.  I had scrapbooks with pressed corsages from boyfriends that I barely remember and programs from events that I had totally forgotten.  I also had a lot of things of my mom’s that I don’t use but have not wanted to let go.  I know that I do not need them to remember her, so I am finally going to let someone who will use them have them.  We have donated a couple of carloads of clothes and other items to the store run by our local DAC, and there will be quite a bit more before we are through.  I am also going to take some vintage jewelry to an antique store in a nearby town and see if they would like to buy it.  I will be glad to have my shelves and drawers cleared out and organized.

Well, that’s my early morning ramble.  Now I had better wake Dan up.  He is going to sub in shop class today.  That’s an interesting experience for a retired English teacher!