An Old Fashioned Week

Ed and I just returned from spending a week at a cabin on Snowbank Lake in the boundary waters of Minnesota, 1000 miles from Farm Dover and a few miles south of the Canadian border. Just the two of us in a simple cabin on a beautiful lake with a small boat at our disposal.

It was a very old fashioned week. No TV, no cell phone service, no internet. Instead, we had a phone at the parking lot that only connected directly across the bay to the lodge of Wilderness Bay, ice cube trays that needed filling and twisting to release the cubes, a line for drying clothes, a basket for picking wild blueberries – and seven mornings of waking up early (or late); seven days of tooling around the lake, casting leeches and watching the line sink, hoping to feel the tug of a small-mouth bass or a walleye; seven afternoons to nap; seven evenings to fry up the fish we caught and to watch the sun slip down; and seven nights of falling asleep to the sound of loons with their eerie cries out on the lake.

But our old-fashioned adventure began two days before when we made an afternoon stop in Madison, WI and had a snack at where else, but The Old Fashioned, on the capitol square.

I didn't even know what a landjaeger was!

We stopped for the first night at the old fashioned, but charming, Lark Inn in Tomah, WI. 

And the second night, we camped a Gooseberry State Park, MN. 

We stopped along the way for a slice of old-fashioned coconut cream pie.

And pulled off the side of the road when we saw this old fashion smokehouse.
Picked up some smoked trout to take up the cabin.

At the end of a long gravel road, we pulled into the parkling lot and called for a boat ride over to the Wilderness Bay Lodge. 

The only vehicle at the lodge: a 1929 truck. Runs great.

We spent part of an afternoon gathering wild blueberries in an old fashioned basket.

And like an old-fashion gentleman, Ed carried our canoe across multiple portages.

I loved having a clothes line. Thinking I may need one at Farm Dover.

Caught our dinner.

Outside the fish house, showing off the walleye that I caught. The fish cleaning happens inside.

The inside of the fish house featured poloroid photos from by-gone years. 

Ed caught three nice walleye, all in one afternoon.

We caught them. Ed cleaned them. I cooked them. 

And now we are back at Farm Dover. Fortunately, things are a bit old-fashioned around here as well. I like it that way....