The North Nest

There was five people in my family just one year ago, although not together, we were a family. There is my mom Diane, my dad Terry, my sister Mikaela, my brother Cole, and me Seth. My birth parents are divorced, this made trips and vacations less fun. Then, my dad remarried about a year ago to Wendy. She has 5 kids. Their names, in order of age include: Faith, Josiah, Emily, Felicia, and Micaiah. Wendy and her kids are very adventurous. I was really excited for them to become part of our family for this very reason. Ever since we combined families we have gone on many more rips than either family had gone on separate.

The first trip we went on was to the Minnesota North Shore. All nine of us went, we stayed in two cabins that were only a few yards apart. The cabins were quite nice, they were made out of polished logs except the roof, which was shingled. They were very similar to a house but just miniaturized like most cabins. The cabin was very close to Lake Superior, about 10-15 yards away. Due to this, the sound of the waves put me to sleep every night like a lullaby. The next morning we set off to do some hiking. There was a lot of places to hike. We first hiked up a popular river called Gooseberry, this river was very pretty and had a beautiful waterfall. The trail was only about a quarter mile to the big falls, but if you wanted to go to two separate smaller falls you had to hike a couple more miles. Luckily most of us brought our sandals because we could go in the shallower water and walk around instead of on the trail. I have always loved jumping on rocks and playing in the water. After we hiked back we decided to hit a couple more waterfalls before heading back to the cabins. These two waterfalls weren’t super excited but they were worth the shorter hikes. When we got back to the cabin, we had lunch and played in the lake. Lake superior is very cold and we could only stay in it for about ten to fifteen seconds. My dad told us that people have died from hypothermia while falling in the water. We didn’t do much for the rest of the night

The next day we went on a lot of hikes, most had waterfalls, but some were rivers with lots of rocks to jump on. There is one river that will always be my favorite, called Beaver River. It has a ton of rocks and huge boulders in the river that you can jump around on. Whenever we go we spend hours here just going upstream on the river and losing track of time. We spend half a day on Beaver River every time. We went back to the cabin after Beaver River. The next day, we spent some more time on the beach of Superior and just played, dared each other to swim in the water, built sand castles, built rock towers, and then we went back home. This trip was a very exciting one, it was our first trip as a big family which made it more fun in my opinion. I was a little nervous to see how it played out at first, because I didn’t know what they liked to do and if the things we do would seem weird to them. Turns out we are all quite similar and enjoy the same things when on vacation.

Bounding To The Boundary Waters

Before my dad met my step-mom we went on many trips to the Boundary Waters. The Boundary Waters is the area in northern minnesota where the majority of Minnesota’s lakes are. Whenever we went to the boundary waters, I always go with my dad, my sister, and my brother. Before my parents divorced they went together a lot and they say they had a blast every time. I can tell they must have because whenever we go we have such a great time.

Since our families combined, the number of trips per year has increased. Most of these trips that we go on have been to the Boundary Waters. Normally we don’t have all nine of us going, usually just five of us, which include my dad, my step-mom, my brother, and my step-brother. The others are in college and work a job or two so they are too busy and can’t come with us. I don’t really mind only having a few of us going, it makes it easier to portage and find camping spots.

One trip will always stand out from the rest. It was the summer of 2015 and we hadn’t gone on many trips to the Boundary Waters with our new family members yet. We had decided to do our first tenting trip together. Tenting is when you don’t have a camper, motorhome, or any other means of indoor living, all you have is tents. When you portage you are carrying packs with tents and all your supplies needed for survival because you will be staying for many days. This type of camping is my personal favorite, it makes for easier travel and you can go much deeper into the Boundary Waters. We would always bring a canoe and our fishing poles because we all love to go fishing. We have a secret spot on a lake called T-Lake. Whenever we paddle by this spot whoever has their line out is bound to catch a fish. It’s almost like magic because it is so consistent. T-Lake is also our favorite because it is so clear you can see at least 5 feet down into the water. The lake is very calm and the silence alone is enough to make someone fall in love with the lake. Although a great lake we also went to our favorite island again.

In the Boundary Waters there many lakes with small islands in the middle that you can camp at. Our personal favorite is an island we call Clam Island. We call it this because there are hundreds of clams on the shore of a campsite. We don’t eat them but it is fun to see how hard it is to open their shells. The view is absolutely breathe taking. Whenever we go to this island we see quite a bit of wildlife. When we went this year we saw two baby moose not but 20 feet away from us! This sight was truly incredible and it made that trip our favorite. A few years before we saw a wolf on the opposite shore, it was just standing there watching us for at least 5 minutes. Another wild animal we saw when we went with our step-family was the funniest otter ever. We were eating breakfast one morning and all of the sudden an otter just hobbled up onto a rock mere feet away from where we were sitting. It then quickly hobbled back into the water, but not 2 minutes later it did the same thing again! At this point we were all paying great attention to where it was going and coming from, but it seemed it wasn’t doing anything but “pacing” back and forth. The otter did this about 5 times before getting bored and swimming off.

After the big tenting trip, we started to head home. This trip was one of the greatest trips ever and it was with our new big family. On the way home we decided to stop at Rocky Rococo’s Pizza. If you haven’t been to this pizzeria you are missing out on great pizza. I highly recommend going here. Their pizza’s dough is perfectly cooked and their sauces and toppings are to die for. After we ate we drove home and unpacked everything. Life went on as usual and we all really missed the view of the pine trees and lakes, the taste of wild blueberries, and the smell of the cooking fish we had just caught. The only thing we didn’t miss was sleeping on the hard, uncomfortable ground every night.