Cabin O' Pines: Orr Minnesota

My favorite week so far! I told Jenny that this place was my ideal location for a vacation. Trees, pines, aspens, birches, birds, cool weather, all outdoor stuff. It was great. 

They even had an old restored sauna! It was really cool. Jenny and I enjoyed a couple sessions. 

 

Check out that biceps vein! I'm really proud of both of us for pushing hard in our workouts while being on the road. 

Voyageurs National Park was a really beautiful place. 

We all really enjoyed this 3-4 mile hike. Beautiful trees, lookouts and amazing cool weather. 

In this same area below, we also discovered wild blueberries. They very much reminded me of my dad's blueberry pies because they were very small. I looked up Wyman's blueberries and found that they were wild blueberries, just like the ones we were picking and eating. 

We took a boat tour at the Rainy Lake Visitor's Center at Voyageurs. It was great to experience, seeing that almost all of the national park is only accessible by boat. 

As we were getting on board, the captain told me to bring the kids up to the captain's deck and he'd show them around his quarters. They loved it. Emmett returned several times to update the captain on his thoughts on life. 

One of the days we rented a pontoon boat and spent the day on Pelican Lake (the lake we were staying at). 

There's just something about sunsets on water. 

The kids are constantly playing with other kids they meet. At one point (pictured below) they spent 4 hours playing a board game with some other kids. Claire later told me that the other kids argued and fought a lot (and the dad got mad at him). She said she was glad she wasn't in that family (even though we have our fair share of those types of experiences). It made me smile.

There was a restaurant and boardwalk through a marsh close by our site so we had our first date! We had walleye, salad and fries. The marsh was a beautiful experience. I told Jenny "I don't think I've ever seen cattails, lily pads, and pine trees in the same scenery. Now that we get less dates together, we cherish the time a bit more. 

Overall thoughts: I find myself settling into this lifestyle and enjoying it a little more each week. I was initially worried about finding a rhythm, feeling productive, etc. I'm loving things. There are still moments that are difficult, and there are days I just find myself ornery and I don't really have a reason why. 

I continue to feel less rushed with just about anything. It really is beautiful to have the opportunity to experience life in this way. 

In the past, I have felt the need to read Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday, basically daily. It helped me to re-center, focus on mindfulness and what's important now. I haven't read it hardly at all so far. I find myself overall just feeling a lot of peace throughout each day. 

Whitewater State Park (SE Minnesota)

 So, we are about a month into our trip so far. I wanted to share a few observations/insights. 

• Patience: I have learned to be more patient. When you're living in a small space with a good size family, you have to learn to be patient with each other, and with yourself. Fortunately, we've been homeschooling for 3 years now so we've had a good amount of practice. It would be significantly more difficult going cold turkey, had we not done that. 

I've learned this the hard way. The more I'm in a hurry, the more frustrating things get. I think this applies to everything, dentistry too. The more you run behind, the more you feel stressed and try to hurry and make up time, and then it can cause you issues that then cost you even more time. 

I've learned even more so what things are and aren't a big deal. It's almost NEVER a big deal. We allow ourselves to get stressed out about small things.

• Adapt: You have to learn to adapt to different situations. When you're living somewhere different each week, you have to be able to adapt. You won't have the same gym, the same grocery stores, same environment, etc. It's great practice for being patient and learning to adapt. 

Our first few places we stayed had full hookups (electricity, water supply, sewer drainage). This is great because we don't have to budget ANYTHING (as far as those things are involved). We can do laundry as much as we want. Take showers twice a day, keep it super cold in the RV, etc. 

We just got to Whitewater State Park in SE Minnesota. I asked my wife a couple times if we were going to have full hookups so I could prepare if we didn't. She said she was sure we did. Well, we arrived, and only have electricity. So we had to debate what we were going to do. Ended figuring out that we could make it work. I had never filled the tank for dry camping (what you use if you don't have water supply) so I figured out how to do that, moved to our site, and we made our plans for how we'd make it work. 

Well, then the water pump didn't work, so we didn't have ANY water. We then developed another plan. We would only use the bathrooms and showers at the campground, would carry water to our RV once a day to heat it up and do our dishes. We made it work. 

Then I found the part broken on the pump and got it working again. So now we're back to having water. 

Anyway, point is, that might sound like a miserable experience, but I look at it as an investment. We are learning to overcome obstacles together as a family. We are adapting to our situation and conquering what's put in front of us. As challenging (and annoying and frustrating) as it is at times, it builds confidence.

I felt this feeling a bit when I went skydiving last year. I thought, "I conquered my biggest fear! I have nothing left in my way!"

• Money: It's really interesting to me that so far we've spent anywhere from $600 to $4,000 in a week. I personally, have probably felt the most peace and happiness during the $600 week. I am a man of fairly simple taste. But it's another great reminder to me that the most valuable thing money can bring is freedom of your time, rather than things that money can buy. 

Some sidenotes on the last couple weeks:

The kids made friends with this woman. She has been living out of tents and trailers for the last 15 years of her life. She was so kind and sweet, and great at enjoying the moment. Her and the kids enjoyed each other so much that we made plans to meet up with her in North Carolina in October. 

Each of the kids have been journaling. They haven't shared much with me personally yet at this point, but I'm hoping that they use this as a tool to work through emotions they have, and record their experiences.

This is the Mississippi River (after a lot of stairs on a hike)! One thing that has been amazing to me is that there are amazing, beautiful places everywhere we go. It's a bit of a lesson for me that you really don't need to travel to see beauty. I think the fun of travel is experiencing new things, but even that can be done at home. 

Chimney Rock at Whitewater.

I discovered Black Raspberries! They are so good! First time I had one I thought it tasted like candy (mabye it's because I'm a few months into a cut right now). They are similar to raspberries but a little more tart. 

We found a great spot along the road in the campground that was full of them!

Planning to have them with vanilla ice cream tonight!