As I continue my tales from the Land of Sky Blue Waters and Paul Bunyan.
Thursday we awoke with sunshine and some wind, but I wanted to travel to Hackensack Minnesota to see the statue of Lucette. Who is Lucette you ask. Why she is Paul Bunyan’s sweetheart. With the years growing up in Minnesota I had never heard of Lucette. It was only recently I came to hear of the name Lucette. There is a microbrewery in Menomonie Wisconsin named Lucette. On their web page they posted they named their brewery after Lucette in honor the hard working men of the lumber industry that built the Midwest. Interesting but still didn’t lead me to Hackensack. But what did lead me was the day before when we were in Park Rapids I found a story book about Lucette. When I was purchasing the book the clerk told me of the statue in Hackensack. So with that comment it lead me on a journey to meet the sweetheart of Paul Bunyan. Not knowing where to find Lucette, I looked for a city park in the middle of town. As we started going through town on the main drag a I spotted a big yellow sign pointing the way. As I turned the down the street, there she was standing in the middle of the street a couple of blocks away. I parked the car and took a couple of photos and went and visited the chamber of commence office which was next to Lucette. The lady in the office started telling me about Lucette. She told me she was constructed in 1950 as a tourist attraction between Brainerd and Bemidji. Brainerd had Paul Bunyan and Bemidji had Babe the Blue Ox. So the artist constructed Lucette and started the tales of Paul Bunyan’s sweetheart.
We headed back to camp and got our swimsuits on and met up with Becca and Jeremy. It was time to play in the water as we hadn’t yet that week. The week was as nice as it was going to be. We went out in the deeper part of the lake and Jeremy decided to take a loop with his wakeboard. They asked me if I wanted to wakeboard but I declined because the board isn’t set up for my stance. I did say I would surf. They set the boat up for surfing and I jumped in the water and set my feet on the board. I gave the ok and Jeremy hit the power and out of the water lifted standing on the surfboard. If you are able to do the surfing correctly you will ride the wake of the boat. I haven’t found the sweet spot of the wake. so I have to continue holding the rope so I don’t fall off the wake. But there are portions of time when the rope has slack and I am surfing. Then Becca took her turn and we headed back to shore and picked up the tube. I took a trip around the lake being whipped around behind the boat. It is fun to see if you can out duel centrifugal force and most of the time you loss.
Friday, the Fourth of July and our day started with wind. There is a tradition on Lake Belle Taine of doing a boat parade along the south shore. Boats are decorated in Red, White and Blue and so are the mates on board. There are many types of boats in the parade. Pontoons, speed boats and fishing boats. All parading the colors of our Independence. After all the boats gather the boats start slowly parading across the water waving at the people on shore. The people on shore are also wearing the Red, White and Blue and waving back. After the parade we wisked back to the cabin to continue watching the wind blow her lungs out. Dinner that evening was to be beer butt chicken on the grill. As we waited for the chicken to cook we continued in conversation with a main topic of whether the wind was going to let up so the firework would be displayed. We called over to the campgrounds and they stated the fireworks would be displayed at 10 pm. What the campground does is close the causeway from 10-11 pm. and they set the trailer with the fireworks on the causeway and launch the fireworks over the water. We were at the cabin and enjoyed about a 25 minute show then we headed back to our campsite at the campground.
Saturday we broke camp. Our week was over and it was time to go back to our real lives. After we had everything packed we headed off to a lumberjack breakfast. Now that is some serious eating! You get to order your eggs once and as many as you want. If you want two, order two. If you want six, order six. You can have them scrambled of easy-over. You get one order of hash browns and all the meat you want. Just keep eating, there is timber to be harvested! Paul Bunyan set the timber bar really high!
It was a great week even though the wind was blowing keeping us off the water. Laurel and I found land loving activities to investigate to fill our time. Maybe next year the week will be more welcoming to water activities.