Everyone Needs an Adventure Buddy

August 13, 2015August 8, 2015Leave a comment

My husband Joe and I just got back from our second trip to Voyageurs National Park by Lake Kabetogama on the Minnesota-Canadian border. We load our big Lund fishing boat, wear our adventure pants, head up north to a resort called Moosehorn, and rent a cabin for a week offishing Walleye. This is our second time to the resort because the owners, Christy and Jerry work really hard to make sure you catch fish and have a great time. We caught some really nice Walleyes, and more importantly, we were able to spend a really nice week together. I caught the biggest Walleye. More on that later.

You can do these types of things whenever you want when you are empty nesters. Joe and I have been on some very fun adventures together since our nest became empty. You can read more about by browsing the Practice Fun Living and Empty Nest Shenanigans pages on this site. We loved raising our kids, but the reality is that those years are about them, as it should be. We spent a lot of time in those years, through all of the different phases from diapers and then school, and all of the activities such as soccer, hockey, dance, plays, band and our wonderful family vacations. It was a hectic time, and with all of the kid activities, we sometimes had to work really hard to stay connected as a couple. We did stay connected; we now have been married for almost 30 years, and we can once again appreciate each other’s company as we are back to having things more about us and what we want to do.

I look back on those family years and even though some of them are a blur, one thing is for sure. I married a really nice guy who took care of us all and would do anything for his family. We recently sold our family home in Blaine, and I was talking to a friend and I told her that none of the light bulbs in that house had ever burned out in 25 years. At first she looked confused and then it dawned on her that of course they had burned out, I just did not have to change them because Joe quietly always replaced them. I don’t even ever remember having to ask him to replace any. He just took care of them. I also had my last car for ten years and during that time it never once ran out of washer fluid. Another thing that he just made sure was always done.

Over the years he has had to do a lot of things for his family. I have come to the conclusion that it is not big spectacular things, but the small things that make a good dad and husband. He has not had to defend his family against an intruder or wrestle a bear or cougar in a National Park so the kids and I would not be mauled, although that would be a good story, but over the years he has had to take care of all of their gadgets that break, whether phones or cars, and schedule and keep track of oil changes on sometimes as many as five different vehicles. He has paid a few parking tickets for our college students—luckily no one has ever done anything serious, and when they were in High School he had to help them with their math and calculus, since he has a PhD and actually easily understood that complicated homework.

Over the years Joe fixed many a broken door, screen, window, dresser drawers and toys. He was there for them when they needed him and he has always been a low maintenance guy. Joe loves watching his Twins baseball and he is so easy going that he seldom complains. As our kids say, he can live off of a handful of peanuts and is happy with that. He mows the lawn, pays the bills, and would drive his family thousands of miles on family vacations. He had to put up with all of the pets our kids wanted over the years and had a real tolerance for all of the noise in our house when the kids were teens and had their friends over for movies, music and games. Those teens ate everything in the house like locusts, and were so loud you needed ear plugs sometimes, but it had to get really bad before he complained.

We did a lot of fun things with those kids over the years, and we had a lot of fun together. The guy has skills other than mowing lawns and fixing broken stuff in the house. When we took a driving vacation around Europe for our 25^th anniversary he bossed it up on the roads, including keeping up with the Germans on the Autobahn, and he caught on quickly to driving without obeying the traffic signs and weaving around the hundreds of motorcycles on the streets of Rome. I had my hands over my eyes more than once. Yes, we got a couple of tickets in Europe for driving down the wrong way in Amsterdam and in Italy, but that was my fault as the navigator and it was well worth it, for the great sites that we saw on that vacation. There was not a scratch on the car and after being in Europe for about two weeks. I knew he had this driving thing down like a local when we went to a German restaurant for pork hock night and he parked our car with two wheels onto the sidewalk, just like the locals.

It is good to have an adventure buddy with balls who is not afraid to try something new, and a guy with some skills who knows how to do everything from fix the computer to catch fish. We have zip lined, snorkeled, and we have sat our butts in the Natural hot springs of the blue lagoon in Iceland. We have visited the cliffs on the Mediterranean at the Cinque Terre in Italy, stayed on a farm in the Alps by Innsbruck Austria, and a castle on the Mosel River in Germany. We have hiked and fished in Hawaii, Alaska and Costa Rica and we hope to have many adventures ahead.

It is good to have the right adventure buddy. We encourage and reassure each other and more importantly we have fun together. If you cannot have fun together, a marriage will not last for 30 years. I have found that you have to find common interests, and the key is that you enjoy being with the other person.

We enjoy many things and we can still have fun at things we have been doing for years. We work together on the planning and preparations for our adventures and we have a list of future adventures that we already know we want to try. Last week at Kabetogama, as usual with our fishing adventures, there is a lot of trash talking about who will catch the biggest fish and the first fish. I make him take pictures of every fish I catch, no matter how embarrassingly small it is. I did catch the biggest fish this year and have been rubbing it in since we are back, but he reminds me that he caught the first fish. Most importantly, we enjoy our time together. We go with the flow; we enjoy not only the adventure, but the planning, preparations and getting there and back, and talking about it afterward even when it is trash talking about who caught the biggest fish.

Picking the right adventure buddy for both your vacation adventures as well as your own life adventure is crucial to enjoying your time on this earth. Who would have thought, looking from afar that the quiet guy who gets little recognition when he changes the washer fluid on the cars and changes light bulbs in the house, the guy who is mowing the lawn and paying the bills, going unappreciated and almost unnoticed most of the time, would be the best husband and dad a family could ask for. The kids and I have appreciated the things Joe has done for us, even though we have not expressed it as often as we should.

Appreciate your adventure buddy, your quiet guy who has done his duty for his kids and wife; the guy who asks for little in return, but shows up for everything from changing dirty diapers to hauling the kids stuff to college. It has been a fun ride and we have many more adventures ahead. Life can be fun with the right Adventure Buddy!

Beaver Fever

July 23, 2015July 21, 2015Leave a comment

Yes, Beaver fever is a thing. It is actually a slang name for a Giardia infection, which one gets usually from drinking contaminated water. The water can be contaminated from wild animal feces, and one can get it from drinking water from streams or lakes even in pristine country like Alaska. Before Joe and I went to Alaska on our 20^th Anniversary trip, we had heard about Beaver Fever from my Mom, who was insistent that they had gotten it when in Alaska by eating ice from a Glacier that was brought into a tour boat for the Tourists to taste and touch.

My parent had driven up the Alcan Highway with my younger brother. The rest of us kids were already either in college or in the working world and did not go along, as we had our own lives by then. My parents drove their RV up the Alcan Highway with my mom’s brother and his family who also had kids along so it was perfect for my brother. He was young at the time maybe six or seven years old. My uncle had two boys who were very close to his age and two girls a little older then the boys. It was a perfect group to travel together.

My uncle tells the story that my brother almost got him arrested at the Canadian border. The boys all had Nerf guns to play with and frequently rode together in one of the RV’s. When they went across the Canadian border, a border guard came onto the RV and asked my uncle whether they had any guns they were taking into Canada. He indicated they did not, at which point my young, innocent brother piped up and said “Oh, yes we have guns.” The border guard immediately became interested and when my uncle tried to explain that he is talking about their toys, the guard stopped him cold and told him to be quiet while he talks to the boy. He asked my brother to show him the guns and my brother showed him the colorful stash of Nerf guns, at which the guard had a good laugh. It is one of my favorite stories.

It was these two families traveling together that my Mom insisted had contracted Beaver Fever from eating Glacier ice. Well I had been warned, and we do heed our mother’s warning because most often she has been right, so when my husband and I went to Alaska we were armed with the Beaver Fever warning. We had the trip all planned and part of it was a boat tour of the Kenai Fjords National park. If you have not been there, you have to see this in your lifetime. It is amazingly wild and beautiful. You take a boat out of Seward on the Kenai Peninsula for an entire day trip. During the trip you see whales, sea lions, puffins and birds of all types, and of course you see lots of glaciers and you see the glaciers calving, which is when large chunks of ice fall off. Many ice chunks are so large that the sound is like an explosion and they set off a huge wave when they hit the water. It is a really cool experience. Even the air around the glacier is wet, fresh and cool; even though we were there in July, we wore jackets.

The tour operator took us through the Fjords and along islands and coasts, telling us all about the wildlife we were seeing and the history of the area. We tried our best to get the perfect photos to try to capture the beauty that was before our eyes, but I never seem to get those perfect photos. I have great photos, but for me it is never as good as being there.

As we toured around, the boat staff served drinks and food and kept everyone entertained. So there we were on the double-decker boat tour, and as we watched a glacier calve and heard the sounds and felt the waves, even on our huge boat, the staff pulled in a large chunk of the glacier ice with enormous tongs and put it up on a buffet like table, and started using a pick to make it into smaller pieces and made glacier margaritas with the crystal blue ice and lemonade for the kids. So there was a dilemma! Who does not like margaritas and even more importantly, who would not like a margarita made with Glacier ice from the Kenai Fjords? But what about the Beaver Fever we had been warned about? So the choice becomes either, go for it and drink the coolest margaritas ever, made of glacier ice and served in the fresh air of the Kenai Fjords and risk the Beaver Fever induced vomiting and diarrhea, or skip the experience and watch as others lined up to sip the cold fresh lime juice and orangey triple Sec, with Silver Tequila that I could see them pouring, by the half gallon full into the large covered pitchers that were then being shaken vigorously over the uneven chunks of glacier ice. I got in line still knowing I could get out of line if I decided against it at the last minute. As I waited my turn, I rationalized and developed my arguments of why this would be ok. First my mom could be wrong. After all they were traveling with a bunch of kids. They could have picked up anything. Second, if this Beaver Fever was from Glacier ice would these boat tours serve the margaritas? They take groups out in boats ever day during the tourist season. Wouldn’t their passengers all be complaining about getting sick afterwards? And if such a thing did exist, I am a nurse and probably have pills for that in my travel bag which looks like a pharmacy.

By the time I was halfway through my rationalizations, it was my turn and I took the chilled margarita and the first sip was amazing. It was more orange flavor than lime and by far, the best margarita I had ever had. It was not blended and yet it was so icy cold, it almost gave you an ice cream headache. It was smooth and refreshing, because the orange was overpowering the lime by a little and it did not have the severe bite. Of course it did not hurt that we were drinking them on the deck of a boat, in one of the most beautiful and wild places on earth while watching the whales swim around the numerous lush green forested islands.

Sometimes you just have to take a chance and jump in with both feet, even though you know there is risk. We did not get sick at all and I am guessing that if any Beaver Fever parasites existed in the glacial ice, the Silver Tequila was enough to kill them. Of course this would be an entirely different story if we had become sick, but it still would be a story. Sometimes you just have to trust and take a chance that all will be OK. There is very little that we do when we are exploring the world that is risk free, but the opportunity to get out of our comfort zone and experience new things is exciting and a big part of why we want to see those most beautiful and sometimes exotic places. Travel well, jump in with both feet, taste the food, drink the margaritas and know that exploration takes some bravery and some risk, but it is well worth the experiences and the stories.

Cool Change

May 21, 2015May 21, 20151 Comment

Many people may not know this about me, but I sing in my car on the way to and from work, and back and forth to Court, and pretty much any time I am in the car. If my employees knew this, they would have made me a soothing playlist long ago, to set the mood on the way to work, before I hit the doors. I should not admit this, but normally I am a pretty type A personality at work. It is just the type of work that I do, with lots of deadlines and demands. We are a very productive bunch. Being a litigation attorney is not a relaxing, stress-less job, so setting the mood with music would help.

I have always liked music. Back in the 1970’s I had one of those round plastic radios that you could carry around and also hang on your bike. I got it for Christmas and I still have it. The signal was so bad back when I listened to the greatest hits sent via the air waves from Little Falls to our farm in Buckman. Even though the signal was terrible and scratchy at best, I listened to it all of the time. Luckily the quality and choices for music has improved significantly. I can put whatever I want on my iPod and play it in the car and on our boat or wherever. I listen to some of those same songs that I first heard on my little red round Panasonic.

Even though I am from a very musical family, I was not born with that talent. My parents were good about giving us a variety of experiences and seeing what we liked, whether it was sports or music or theater. My older sister Kathy was very talented on the piano and the guitar, and she had the coveted honor of being asked to play in church, so my parents maybe thought I had talent too. Kathy was very good and still sings in her own church choir and plays the piano.

I took three years of piano lessons when I was young, and I think after three years of piano taught by the Catholic school Nun, who played the organ in church, she politely broke it to my parents that maybe their money would be better spent elsewhere then on lessons for me. I was totally fine with that because, after all, I was such a tomboy that I did not want to stay in the house long enough to do any practicing. I would rather bottle feed a calf in the pasture or play with the dogs and cats than learn piano. Despite my lack of talent, I loved to listen to music and I still do.

Sometimes I select the music by my mood and other times I select the music to change my mood. Now, I listen to everything from 1970’s music, to pop, rap and piano music by George Winston. No matter what I listen to, it does affect my mood. I have the theme from Miami Vice on my iPod and, I will admit that listening to it on the boat while we are driving fast brings me right back to that opening scene from the show. Those guys were so cool in their Hawaiian shirts, driving a super cool boat, super fast on the Miami shores with the wind in their hair. Also, who cannot listen to Phillip Phillips’ song Home and not be put in a calm and loving mood, and on the other hand NEVER listen to Led Zeppelin’s song called, Rock and Roll while driving. You will speed and you will get a ticket! I dare you to try.

Everyone knows what kind of mood Barry White songs put you in. (Insert sexy growling noise), but no matter what your favorite jam, songs are poetry and the lyrics and beat affect our soul.

When our kids were young and we went on multiple driving vacations we referred to the song Born to be Wild as the vacation song and played it often and loud. The kids loved it with the windows rolled down and singing that crazy song and it made everyone in the mood for an adventure. There are many times like that in my life that we developed a “theme song.” When we went hiking in the deserts of Utah, our song was Hotel California by the Eagles. Of course it starts with “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair.”

Interestingly last year when Joe and I were in Costa Rica and decided to move forward with a sale of our family home and find a place on the lake now that we were empty nesters, we had the song by Little River Band called Cool Changes in our heads. We had lived in our family home and raised our kids for 25 years. As the song goes, “Now that my life is so prearranged, I know that it’s time for a cool change.” We love that song and it has been our theme song to make this exciting and yet terrifying change to a new home on the lake, just the two of us. We are aways from retirement yet but we have always loved the water and decided that there was no reason to wait. We couldlive on the lake and still work to retirement.

I played Cool Changes when I needed some bravery as we signed things to put our home up for sale and to buy our new one. I needed it while I emptied closets full of toys and childhood memories, and we all made decisions on what to move and what to store or donate. After all it is not easy leaving a place that has been your home for 25 years. Our home held so many happy family memories and good times.

We had three acres in the woods of Blaine on the edge of a large preserve, so while we technically lived in the city it felt like the woods. It was home for us in every sense of that warm and comforting word. By the time the day arrived where we moved our possessions out, we were so ready for our Cool Change that there were no tears. We know that while it was our home for so many years, we always know that home is where we are and where our kids and family come to relax, talk, play, laugh, consult, cry, rest, eat, drink and be LOVED.

Now that we are all moved in and settled in ourroutines, we love the lake life and each time Little River Band’s Cool Change comes on the playlist, I am grateful that we had the bravery to give something new a try. It is always easier to keep things the same, but it is good for the soul to change things up. We had a dream of living on the water and we made that happen. As the song says, We May Never Pass this Way Again. Chase your dreams.

The Fishing Connection

May 7, 2015May 21, 2015Leave a comment

I have always loved fishing. One of my first dates with my husband of 28 years was fishing in a small lake that was stocked with Bass. It was like fishing in a barrel. I thought the guy was the best fisherman I had ever met. He told me years later that the lake was a private lake stocked with tons of Bass for non motorized fishing by the owner of the company he was working for at the time. He had special permission to fish it that day. He was clearly trying to impress me and it worked. We have been fishing together for 28 years and now that we are empty nesters we take our boat to Kabatogama for a week of big fishing adventures once a year. So far we have not become lost in the wilderness, which is a real possibility up there, and we have some gorgeous pictures and some very fond memories of driving our boat to the historic Kettle Falls Hotel. It is a fun way to spend time together.

Everyone in the family, including my parents who are now in their Eighties, take part in the fishing opener each year. Our family scrambles around for months before fishing opener, deciding where we are going and guessing about the weather. The anticipation and planning are all part of the fun. We don’t all go to the same place every year, but some of us get together depending on who is available. No matter where everyone is fishing, we all have our cell phones and we send pictures back and forth of our catches. We call it the brag line.

I remember one opener that we spent with my parents and my kids at my brother John’s lake home near St. Cloud. The weather that year was less than ideal, with rain, sleet and snow. We dressed as we would for ice fishing, but we never caught so many fish. We had multiple boats on the water, and my kids and I were on my brother’s pontoon, which we fondly call the party barge. I think it is one of the biggest pontoons that they make and it even has a bathroom on board. It is perfect for taking the kids along. My brother has always had the patience of a saint, so he hung in there with my kids who managed to take turns repeatedly tangling their lines.

Despite the tangled lines and bathroom breaks, we all caught fish that year. My brother barely got his line in the water when one of us would be yelling that we had a fish on and he had to get the net. It was a hell of a fishing opener. When we got back to shore, and before any staking of the fish, there had to be group pictures holding our catches and also comparing to see who caught the biggest or the longest, or the smallest. We have a lot of fish pictures, because we take pictures of them no matter the size or the kind.

I remember another year where my mom and dad, and my husband Joe and I were in the same boat on the opener. The fish were not biting at all that year, but we had beautiful weather and we had a lot of good conversation. As we talked and trolled around the lake in the sunshine, my mom went to cast her line out and accidentally threw her entire rod over board. We all saw it, but it took a minute to register what she had done and to take any action. By the time we got the dip net to try to retrieve it, we were all laughing so hard; it had sunk like a rock, so there was no hope. It took my mom a while to laugh about it. She was in shock and kept saying she just didn’t know how that happened. The more she tried to explain it, the funnier it got. We still talk about it to this day and tease her about throwing her rod away, just because the fish were not biting.

Many people talk about fishing stories, but it is because of the crazy things that happen in boats while fishing. You cannot make this stuff up. We were fishing Green Lake with my parents just a few years ago and my Dad caught a really large Northern. We put it into the live well, even though it barely fit. The live well aerator stopped running, because the fish was up against it. My dad went to open the live well to fix the aerator and that Northern jumped clean out of the live well in the back of the boat and into the lake. It was gone. That is one that if I had not seen it myself, I would have said they were making it up. I wish I would have had a camera in hand. The look on my dad’s face was worth a thousand words. I have never seen him so stunned. We were all speechless for a second and than started laughing and said it was good he jumped out because he was clearly part dolphin anyway.

We have so many fond memories of fishing excursions. One thing has become clear over the years. Fishing has little to do with the actual fish that we catch. One year my sister in law and I both caught carp and proudly took photos of those ugly things. Fishing has more to do with spending time with parents, grandparents and kids, in the sunshine or the sleet, on the water and more importantly together. Those moments with others which leave us with a lifetime of memories of happy moments and funny stories and time spent with family. Fishing has been one of those things that helped bring us all together in a shared life. It brought Joe and me together so long ago, as a couple and it brought us close to our kids over the years and our kids with their grandparents and uncles and aunts. The fishing connection is one of family and fun and most importantly time spent together. It cannot be overrated.

Adventure is in the Genes

May 6, 2015May 6, 2015Leave a comment

I came to the conclusion that we all get our spirit of adventure in an honest way. My parents, who are now in their eighties and have been married for over 60 years, were putting on their adventure pants long before REI invented them. They were married in their early twenties and started off their life together with a three week driving adventure to Yellowstone, the Canadian Rockies, and Colorado. They made a big loop, taking their time and traveling in a mint green Buick. They have awesome pictures to remember the event and I have attached some of them.

They looked so Fifties, with my Mom’s rolled up jeans and Dad looked like James Dean. Extremely handsome and more importantly, they were both fun and adventurous. My Mom always said that they each gained 20 lbs (exaggeration also runs in the family) from eating so many potato chips and malts while on vacation.

They have never shied away from adventure and in fact embraced the unknown and unexpected when traveling. Mom and Dad have been to every state and most of them more than once over the years. They have been to China, Japan and rented an RV and took a driving trip around Australia. They took a cruise through the Panama Canal and drove the road to Hana in Hawaii. Even though they were farmers from Pierz, their world was very large. They are still active getting together with friends and going fishing and traveling with their RV. They just don’t go as far anymore.

Their lust to see the world goes way back. In 1947, Dad and his only brother and parents traveled out West through the mountains in a 1942 Plymouth. He did most of the driving, his brother read the maps and did the navigation, and his parents sat in the back seat – even though he was only 16 years old at the time and the mountain roads were gravel and narrow. You could not have paid me enough to sit in the back seat of a car while any of my 16 year olds had control of the car on Mountain roads. My grandparents had complete confidence in my dad and his abilities, and he lived up to their expectations.

He bragged when we were young that he got his driver’s license from the Postmaster in town when he was 12. The only test was the Postmaster asking him, if he could drive and he said “yes” and so he was given a license.

My grandparents also traveled a lot. When I was growing up they took driving vacations every year and sometimes flew to their destinations. They went to Florida and brought us back a letter holder that had flamingos on it and sea shells. My parents still have that letter holder. They also brought us a sea shell that they taught us to hold to our ear to hear the Ocean. I still have that sea shell.

My grandparents and parents gave us a gift. They showed us that travel is fun, that the world is a big and beautiful place and they taught us not to fear the unknown, but to embrace it. They taught us to use our time on this earth wisely and to never waste an opportunity to enjoy our time off. As simple as the lesson seems, so many struggle and worry about work more than it deserves. The work will get done. We are not here to work our lives away. Time is your most valuable commodity. Take control of your time and seize the moment to enjoy your life!

Fun Living

Stories by Joan Quade

Tag: boats