Morning, the sun is already bright and outside life has sprung. Here on this Saturday morning all is quiet. My coffee is made and my rummaging didn’t wake a soul, all because it’s ‘non-stop’ from morning till night. Yup, our ‘guests’ flew in like clockwork on Tuesday.

”Northern Comfort ROCKS” ~ although Derek and Kellen haven’t explicitly so stated, I know that deep down that’s exactly how they feel – Dirk

Their Arrival – Airlines and their subsidiaries really do try when it comes to providing service to little places like Pellston and Chippewa International in Kinross, Michigan. Both will get you close to the area of Northern Ontario we happen to be in.

Too many years ago I had a one day business trip into Green Bay, WI while we were vacationing as a family at ‘our’ lake. Short story, I expected to be back at the cabin around 11pm and arrived after 6am the next day. This is after I was allowed to stay at the Chippewa airport by myself (waiting for a taxi) and then to close the place up and lock the front door when it finally showed up. That was the first of several experiences at this place.

A year ago Marcia and I had our ‘first-flight-of-the-day’ out of Chippewa cancelled (there are just three per day); and ended up driving the hour and a half to Pellston to fly out of that airport. Then had a lengthy phone conversation which escalated to another layer of managers to have the return portion also redirected to Pellston since our car would now be parked there. That was a concept that was oh so difficult for them to comprehend.

Tuesday I drove the two hours from Northern Comfort to the same little Chippewa Airport only to then discover that the flight was delayed by an hour. You must realize that there isn’t even a restaurant in Kinross. Just two ‘institutions’ make up the place. Kinross Correctional which is one of Michigan’s largest and most secure facilities – miles and miles of fencing with circles of Razor Wire stretched along the top; and one little airport. It was a long hour.

Kirstin, Derek, and Kellen – did make it and we all are thrilled. Well, thrilled might not precisely be the word I should be using. See, we still have the Tent Caterpillars (billions and billions of the little beasties). But, their short little lives are quickly coming to an end, aided by Mother Nature and people.

Kellen has perfected ‘flicking’ these critters off of the screening. To help understand, it’s a variant on the game of Corn Hole.

But, for the rest we’re all thrilled to be here. The other morning at 6:30am Marcia and I were busily making certain that the fishing gear was operational. By seven pm Kellen was busily diving to retrieve a snagged lure, followed by diving to retrieve Derek’s only pair of eyeglasses – success on both fronts.

Mere days and all the kayaking skills have returned. Kirstin and I did a loop as did Kirstin and Kellen. Derek and I went to the back of the cove to photograph a new Beaver lodge and spotted a Great Blue Heron. Yup, we’ve not really sat still much.

The other evening the plan was to watch a sitcom on DVD. Something ‘magical’ occurred and the TV informed us that there was a HTMCP error (basically informing us that we were using bootleg DVD copies). This meant that every three or so seconds we saw only ‘snow’ on screen followed quickly by a shot of the show with the error message plastered on it. By the way, that whole misery also meant that there was no audio.

Yesterday morning before the sun came up I was trying to affect a ‘reset to factory specifications’ of our simple little set-up. I have no clue as to what I did since the whole business is much like playing chess; an infinite number of possibilities. Then it started working – SUCCESS!

We’ve also been around the lake on our Pontoon – the Sweetwater – and have now trained two new Captains, two new Pilots, two new Navigators, and one new Cartographer. It was a lovely, beautiful, and relaxing late afternoon pastime.

Last evening there was no wind and we had a great campfire complete with S’mores. Just letting you know that camp Northern Comfort is not just run by a pair of buffoons. We love it!

PS. The fact that the kids – teenage years and teenage behaviors – sleep till around 12:30, Marcia and I being septuagenarians find this helpful.

PPS. During ‘down’ times, the adults are casually working on a jig-saw puzzle from an outfit called; Impossible Puzzles. It’s beginning to drive us wacky.

Animal Life – driving back from the airport Kirstin asked if I’d seen any large animal life this season, I told her “no” other than a couple of White Tail Deer. Not more than two minutes later a momma Bear and her two small cubs crossed the road a few hundred feet in front of us. We all cheered.

In our fire pit a snake normally spotted in the veggie garden was seen busily eating a Toad. It was quite a mouthful!

A little black Mink, a resident on our property, insists showing off its hunting prowess.

The large Dragon Flies are busily establishing territory along the water line. They love ‘bugs’ and so are classified as being members of the white hat team.

And Kirstin, with her fancy camera rig, has gotten our resident Tree Swallows and Hummingbirds to start posing for her.

Finis – We finally got to some details from Tonga. It appears that Adrianne, Tevita, Vai, and Vili are having a fine time.

Last weekend, Paul, Donn, and I dove to the little burg of Bruce Mines (pop. 400) to their annual Cruisin’ Cars show. Amazingly they assembled over 50 cars for the show.

Congratulations to George and Sandy on their Fiftieth. It all happened not quite in a blink of an eye, but that’s close.

Make it a great week everybody, we’ve already begun to do just that here at Northern Comfort.

Cheers.
Dirk