This was our lazy morning. We all slept in, and then enjoyed pancakes and sausage for breakfast (that Zup’s Homemade Breakfast Sausage is just fabulous!), with Wild Country Maple Syrup (none better!). We finished a game of UNO that we had started yesterday, and Robert won BIG! Robert and Grandpa played checkers, too. Grandma doesn’t like checkers, for some reason.

Robert and Grandpa found this garter snake by the path to the lake. It was happily sunning itself and didn’t seem to mind that we took lots of pictures, so we did! Grandma took these, and Robert got lots of good snake photos for his book, too! It was fun to seen the snake close up!

We decided that we would take the hike to Kawishiwi Falls today. So we had leftovers for our lunch and gathered up a few snacks to sustain us on a short hike. It was a really hot, bright, sunny day (not the best for photographing a waterfall), but it was the day we had, and we knew that it would be a fun hike. We drove in the car to Ely, and then out on the Fernberg Trail to the trailhead, and began our trek in the woods. It isn’t a difficult trail, and the parts that might be muddy have boardwalk.

The bunchberry flowers were beginning to bloom.

And when you get to the end of the trail, you see Kawishiwi Falls.

This is the photo that Robert was taking of the falls:

After seeing the falls from several vantage points, it was time to head back!

We enjoyed some lovely spring flowers. This is wild (or false) lily of the valley.

This is red baneberry. Robert said it smelled “sweet”.

After our hike we stopped for a few groceries and then went back to the cabin, where we rested up for a little while. Then we played a game of Bananagrams. As usual, Robert won that, too! Grandma came close in the second game, though! We grilled steaks on the campfire for our supper, and then played a round of Mille Bournes before bedtime. Lots of games! Robert always seems to win, too. He likes that.

Besides playing games, when he got antsy or bored, another thing that Robert liked to do was run on the resort road between the cabins. If you look very, very closely you can see him on the road in this picture. Grandpa would go out with him and he would run to the lodge, or run down to a specific place that they had agreed upon, and then run back. It helped get out some of the extra energy. When you are seven, you have lots of extra energy. When you are sixty-seven, sometimes you do not.

It was another really lovely evening to be on the dock.