Remember watching the weather channel and the guy/girl showing the coldest spot in the US somewhere up in northern Minnesota at about -40 degrees?
Yea, well that’s where we are. 😉 And yes it is pretty cold. Put it this way. There is a glass “screen” outside door. When we open that door there is a 1/8″ of ice on the inside of the glass – and your hand will stick to the door handle. Chilly.
Mo loves it. We still have to go out 5-6 times a day with him. It takes us longer to dress and undress than we stay out! Usually it is the hands and feet that drive us in. Even with heated gloves!
The snow is amazing. Since it never gets above 20 or so (rarely), the snow is light and fluffy and fairly deep. Especially out on the lake where it piles up in the winds. (We don’t go out when it is windy if we can help it for obvious reasons!)
Ely Minnesota is a cool little town. We get what we need from there in the way of groceries, auto mechanics and stuff like that. There is the old main street theater that has two shows running for $5. We are heading in this afternoon to see ‘West Side Story’ for Shelly. I really appreciate having 4 wheel drive!
Every other Thursday I play music for three hours at the local coffee shop from 4-7. My kind of hours!
We are trying to take advantage of local type outdoors activities. Ryan came up over the holidays and we went dog sledding (lot’s of work! Need more dogs!) and cross country skiing (also lot’s of work!) And cold. But a good time was had by all including the really smelly dog teams! Wildlife is everywhere. Big deer herds come through the yard and out across the lake. We have a Bald Eagle hanging around who is amazing to watch.
We are on the southern edge of the Boundary Water Canoe Area separating/joining the Minnesota/Canada border. It is an amazing place. All of these lakes (we are right on Garden Lake) are available by canoe and apparently you can go for hundreds of miles. This has been a tourist area for a long time. Right down the road is a short 1 mile hike to a set of falls where the lumbermen used to float the logs to the mill. It’s a good hike for the dog.
People keep asking us why in the world we would spend winter in the coldest part of the country. Around here they completely understand when I tell them this is last place the maniacs trying to take over America are going to come!
We just thought an update was due. Plans for the spring have not yet begun to be made as we wait out the maniacs!