Thursday We were home for a few days before we were hosting guests. I had invited my parents to come to the Minnesota State Fair this year as they've never been. Due to scheduling conflicts Harvey tagged along with them.  We hadn't been to the fair in years and are county fair stands at heart, but it would be fun with her parents. And extra interesting with Harvey. Friday Unfortunately we were in a heat wave while they were here. I guess the weather in Oregon followed us home. This year we were smart and brought our hiking pack to carry our water bladder. 

While we were at the visitor center I noticed a sign saying Hwy 101 was closed due to a wildfire in Oregon.  I had already figured two different options into the day, so we just had to make a decision on where we wanted to go. We weren't sure if we would stick to the coast or go to the Oregon Caves. With the highway closed we decided on the Oregon Caves. As we moved away from the California coast and drove onto the Oregon border, the temperature kept climbing.  Neither of us had looked at the forecast. We went from waking up to 50 degrees F at the Sue-meg State Park to 109 degrees F when we arrived in Oregon.  We stopped for lunch in Cave Junction with plans to stay near there. As we were driving to our potential campsite we quickly changed our minds and headed for Bandon. For about an hour we'd decided to head toward Crater Lake National Park, but we weren't sure if the temps there were actually cool while we could rely on the Pacific's built-in AC. I don't even th...

Day 1 Minneapolis - San Fransisco  And we're off again. This time on an actual planned vacation. Somehow we managed to all get up and eat breakfast despite a relatively early flight to San Jose.   Travel Theo is so cute.  He didn't remember the last time we took a flight back in 2020 , so we let him sit at the window. He was interested for about 5 seconds. He was more into the movie choices on the back of his seat.  Brooke, Meadow and Theo sat on one side and I got to sit with strangers. Unfair. Meadow coordinating as usual.  We flew into San Jose despite wanting to start our journey in San Francisco. After debating Caltrain, BART or renting a car, we just took an uber. Not cheap for one person, but basically the same price as our other options with the four of us. An hour or so later we arrived at the Hotel Triton in what I guess is simply called Downtown. Fortunately for us our hotel was right at the gateway to Chinatown. Perfect as we were hungry for lunch. I...

And just like that we were on the road again. This time back to Duluth. I was spending the next few days getting drone shots for the Lift Bridge Lodge. Which meant that Brooke and the kids could tag along. As we were staying in Canal Park again, we did what tourists do. Not cool, taggers.   Once I was done for the night we walked over the Lift Bridge to Park Point. The weather was so beautiful, too bad we didn't get here sooner to go swimming. Brooke more or less did go swimming. I remember being young lovers cuddling by the Lift Bridge.