Baby Fix and Detroit Lake Trolls

 We left the house at 7:15 am after shower, breakfast, and last minute packing.  We thought we would get coffee at the Log Cabin - Nope - closed.  We tried Northern Grounds - nope no hot water.  Both of those were affected by the water main leak.  Next stop Sulu's in Tower - Nope, they weren't open yet.  Finally Caribou Coffee in Virginia was open and we got our lattes. Whew!

We drove to Deer River where we visited Christine & Spencer and their new 3 week old baby, Irwin. Christine is Jeanne's niece.  

Jeanne

Spencer

Christine

Me and Irwin (my baby fix)

Christine, Spencer with Irwin, Jeanne

We visited for about an hour and then we pushed on.  We stopped at a rest stop around noon for a picnic lunch.  We had brought sandwiches. 

We were going to the Detroit Lakes to see the Thomas Dambo Trolls.  There are 5 trolls and 1 golden rabbit.  These trolls were completed June 7, 2024!! 

First stop was Alexa who is brewing an elixir.  She has a book with clues to help find the golden rabbit.

Each of the trolls can be found by following the birdhouses.

Code book

Then on to the next

It was a very dusty trail with a lot of ups and downs.

Barefoot Frida is an outdoorsy type that loves small but fun challenges.  

Trail at the Detroit Mountain Resort. It was a pretty trail but a lot of ups and downs. Jeanne used her cane on this one.  She wished that she had had it on the last one.

Long Lief is a friend of the trees.  He is 36 feet tall,  Thomas Dambo's tallest troll

We needed a sit-down break so we stopped for ice cream at the Day Tripper.

They serve Tillamook ice cream here

They have all kind of gift ideas with the trolls.

The next troll was in Frazee, MN.  It was about 8 miles away.  The trail was nice and not quite so hilly.

Jacob Everear loves to listen. That is why he has such big ears.

The last trail was the easiest trail, it was paved and flat. 

Ronny Funnyface earned his playful name due to his quirky expression and whimsical features.

We then headed to the Holiday Inn.  We had a good deal on this because Jay could use his points when he made the reservation.

We had time to "organize"!! We shifted things around to prepare for our flight tomorrow.  I worked on the blog. We had our last Smirnoff time while we were doing all that.  Mostly we were trying to recover from our 11,321 steps.  

We headed downstairs for dinner.   We split a pork chop dinner.  We each could order a potato.  I ordered baked and Jeanne order mashed.  The chef got confused so he gave us each both!! We had way too much food, but it was quite tasty.  We also could go to the salad bar.  I had a glass of wine.  

Tomorrow we will try to find the golden rabbit.  Jeanne has been trying to figure out the clues but it seems that we are missing some information we need.    So how do we cheat?  

Wednesday work day

 

Morning sunrise

After our usual walk, shower, and breakfast it was a busy day but not too many pictures to show for it.  

I worked on my final draft of my "daily" sheets for our trip. That took up most of the morning.  We took the trash to the trash location.  

Sharon's document on the left and my daily on the right.

There were a lot of little odds and ends to work on with the house since Jay is not here.  He will return after we have left.  Jeanne had a lot of other details to take care of.

We had a great lunch of BLTs.  

Picking the last crop of beans.  I think that she got 15 beans!! 

We had to fit in our last Smirnoff time.  The weather has been perfect.  

Dinner was left-over Thai, peas, and rest of the beans.  

It was a busy day but not many pictures.

Jeanne was busy in the evening with some wooden puzzles.

Tuesday

 

The sunrise was pretty this morning on our walk.

Momma and baby

Pileated Woodpecker

Jeanne had a chance to check off more things on her list of things to do.  After lunch we went into town.  We got to Art and Soul.  It is one of my favorite stores.  One store we went to was one we had tried to go to yesterday but we could not because of a water main breakage that was being worked on.  We ran a few errands as well.

Then it was Smirnoff time, of course.  

This persistent woodpecker, didn't seem to mind us.

I went on a short walk.

Another view of the bean patch.

More trails

We got ready to go to the GEL for an AAUW dinner meeting.  If we got there early there would be time to buy a glass of wine before dinner.  

Argh.  No dinner.  But I guess they decided to just have the meeting anyway, just no supper or wine.  After the meeting we went to Insula for dinner instead.  "Closed due to a water line breakage".  One pipe and the town shuts down.  

As we were driving home we went by the farmer's market.  There was a Thai food cart at the market so we stopped there for dinner. They were almost out of food because more people were stopping there for dinner.  It was very good. But now we have more left-overs.

We had another relaxing evening.  

We have a long list of things we need to do tomorrow.  One thing got taken off tomorrow's list.  We were going to help with the AAUW roadside litter clean up.  But that got changed to Friday.