Last night in Pengilly

The last night before the Michigan family went back to the east, Unky Herb made the trip to Swan Lake. He made it in time to spend some minutes by the fire and to sample a s'more before the deluge arrived complete with both Lightening and his loud buddy, Thunder.  Paula Bunyan had left for the big city and missed his arrival.

We're back in the saintly city and a new week is in view.

Paula Bunyan

Who knew that the Prairie Princess was really Paula Bunyan in disguise?

Paula posing before splitting another log for the fire.

From the shores of Swan Lake where the loons are singing in the dark.

Best Father's Day/Solstice Ever

It was Father's Day and the solstice all wrapped up in the same day. Adam and Kelsey took me to the Arboretum in Chanhassen for a nature walk and to visit the place where Adam and Ying were married in August of last year. NCW came along, of course, and we had a nice time viewing the flowers, the herbs and the trees. It was warm and sunny and it made for good photography. I, for some inexplicable reason, left my camera at home so am relying on Adam's photography skills. Mad skills indeed.

Kelsey wanted to see some prairie. There is prairie at the Arboretum. We walked in the prairie and I'll be checking myself for ticks later on tonight. We had some photo opportunities. One below.

Another shot at the Arboretum taken by today's photographer, taken near one of the statues that the park has installed.

Then we went to dinner at the Grand Szechuan restaurant for tasty Chinese vittles. Ying joined us there and helped enliven the dinner group. We ate and drank well and then went back to Adam's to celebrate the day with cards and good wishes. It was a great Father's Day - the longest daytime of the year.

The Author Dennis Herschbach

It's Saturday and a pretty nice one at that. We're well into June and the weather is pretty darn nice. I played tennis in a significant wind this morning, but played well enough even with the breeze to enjoy the experience. The interesting event of the day for me was the book signing at the Once Upon a Crime book store in Minneapolis. NCW and I discovered that one of our classmates, Dennis Herschbach, has been writing a series of crime books set on the North Shore of Lake Superior. He's already at book four in the series, so I guess it's going pretty well. I haven't read any of them ... yet ... but plan to now. We decided to go to the book signing and see if we knew any of his fans. Dennis was there and was glad to see us. Carolyn (nee) Booth and Libby (nee) Nordstrom were there, too. We chatted a bit and caught up with some news of the class of 1961.  It was good to talk to Dennis again. We saw him about a month ago at Bill Hachey's funeral, a sad event, and this was much more pleasant. I told him that I hadn't read any of the books, but that I had a lot of time and would like to give his books a try. He autographed the four books in the series and I brought them home to read. I'm starting "Convergence at Two Harbors" this afternoon.

Dennis with NCW at the Once Upon a Crime book store in Minneapolis near Lyndale. (Traffic on Lyndale sucks.)

The books in the series and in order left to right:

Grand Old Day is tomorrow so we in this part of the Saintly City will be staying home and ignoring the outside visitors.