YESTERDAY, a beautiful autumn day, Kathy needed a little pick-me-up. A little beauty. A bit of perfection. So we headed for St. Cloud’s glorious Munsinger Gardens and Clemens Rose Gardens. They did not disappoint. Sometimes we almost felt as if we were strolling through a series of Monet paintings—but even better—for there were the lovely scents of roses and alyssum
OF A WARM summer evening, Simon the elder cat takes his ease on the deck—overlooking bonsais and petunias and even allowing me to rest for a spell in my grandad’s Adirondack chair. While the Buddha sits in the light of understanding among sheltering trees, and ponders the infinities.
AT THE CHURCH O THE ISLAND, a morning thunderstorm sweeps across the lake. Garden-variety, nothing serious, but just enough booming and cracking and rain-falling to make a nice soundtrack for a Sunday morning. After my many, many thunderstorms in a canoe or a tent or just a poncho, it still feels quite luxurious to sit under a roof, with a
WOULD YOU LIKE to hear a great story? Full of fate, adventure, and happy serendipity? Okay, go grab a cup of coffee, I’ll wait… There. Ready? So it’s 1987, and after years of guiding in the Boundary Waters-Quetico region, I’m leading my first big expedition—520 miles on northern Saskatchewan’s Churchill River. We are paddling this route to retrace Sigurd Olson’s
FOLLOWING A GRAND sunset on the shore of Gitchi-gami, our Road Scholars awoke to a drizzly morn. The drive to Ely remained foggy and misty, and with arrival at Sigurd Olson’s Listening Point the thunderstorms and torrential rains began to roll through with a vengeance. But we enjoyed the old cabin and the writing shack, with stories and mandolin music
A BEAUTIFUL DAY to start our June Road Scholar North Woods trip. Heading out with rain in the morning, we drove out of the bad weather and by the time we reached Gooseberry Falls the skies had cleared (mostly) allowing a grand view of the falls and a lovely hike out to the tip of Shovel Point in Tettegouche State
EVEN ON A COOL, gray and cloudy Sunday morning, a slow stroll around the Church O’ The Island is rewarding. The view from high atop Moonlight Ledge is outstanding, while down the cliff-face pale pink corydalis flaunts its pink and yellow blossoms. White-throated sparrows and yellow warblers sing their hymns. Near Jackpine Point the blueflag iris shows its colors, and
I AM GOOD at games. Mostly. As long as they don’t involve math. Which actually eliminates a lot of games. In any case, our wonderful friend Alanna is visiting us on Fawn Island, and teaching me how to play Cribbage. Which in my mind is an excellent game to play while sitting on a screen porch overlooking a lake. But
ON THE WATERFRONT, there are favorite sights and sounds and smells and feelings. Reminders and remembrances. A stout old chain that moors the dock is a relic from logging days a century ago. Floating ‘spacer’ logs are the remnants of once-tall white pines. A gangplank I constructed 25 years ago with Bryan’s help when he was just a boy, facilitating
IN THE GORGEOUS Bluff Country-Driftless Area, gazing across the Mississippi Valley at the cloud and sun mosaic of the Minnesota hills, we find ourselves in Wisconsin. Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge is spectacular, for scenery, wildlife, and particularly birds—from double crested cormorants to great egrets, bald eagles to red-tailed hawks to barred owls to gray catbirds to red-headed woodpeckers, all of