Except for the rain that's currently pouring down, I've had perfect weather for adventure-having since I've been up in Sandstone. Yesterday, I loaded up my pockets and headed to Banning State Park, which is very near by. I wasn't expecting much, and it's significantly smaller than St. Croix State Park, where Chris and I camped last month. But the terrain was actually much more interesting -- I had a blast!

The land by the Kettle River is clear down to the sandstone bedrock in a lot of places, so there was a ton of climbing to be had instead of just moseying along a cleared forest path. I wore my Vibrams, which are the perfect hiking shoes. You definitely have to watch where you step and be a bit tough about walking over sometimes-rough terrain with only a thin layer of rubber between you and the ground, but it's worth it. I've always been very nervous about going up and down steep paths in regular tennis shoes, but I was much more confident when I was able to feel the shape of the rocks and dirt under my feet.

When I was talking to Chris' parents about camping (which I did for the first time this year), I said that it felt like discovering a part of myself that I had never known about but had always been there. It just makes so much sense to me. I had that feeling yesterday as I was hiking around. If it wouldn't have been a guaranteed broken neck, I would have been running from place to place; it just felt amazing to be physically active, climbing up and over things, with so much nature around me.

Let's hope I feel that way about running around outside later this week -- the Great River Ragnar Relay starts on Friday!

I'd say there's something of a tomato situation at the moment. I drove up to Sandstone today, so I brought all the ripe tomatoes up with me to boil down into a plain sauce (then I can freeze it in muffin pans to make pucks I can thaw individually and season as I want them). I might roast the pear tomatoes or make oven-'sun'-dried tomatoes.

The cats survived the trip up here with very little fuss. I've learned to put them in separate carriers and then face the doors towards each other in the back seat of the car, so they can see one another (reassuring) but won't freak out and start fighting. Usually there's a lot of yowling on the way, but I just sang along to my iPod the entire trip, and they were quiet. Or I had the music up too loud to hear them! (Just kidding -- I didn't.)

Speaking of the iPod, I set it to shuffle through all the songs, and I realized that A) I have a lot of music on there that I don't really want to hear most of the time (and that's of the hand-picked artists/albums I put on there in the first place) and B) there are a LOT of lyrics stored in my head. Like, I couldn't recite most of these songs word for word out of the blue, but start the song playing, and it all comes back. Surely that brain space could be used for remembering foreign languages, no?

I left the cabin today, so I had one last breakfast with the bears (salt and pepper shakers). When I was planning for my not-quite-a-week away at the cabin, I had a few things I wanted to get done while I was there, and I can say that I failed to do pretty much all of them. I didn't even do any drawing. I thought about it, but... nope.

I did play guitar almost every day. My dad has his acoustic up there, and for some reason having a guitar ten feet away is more tempting at the cabin than it is here at home. (There are actually two guitars sitting about six feet away from me right now.) I also wrote -- not much, but a bit. I haven't worked on any writing since my laptop died last summer, and I lost all the first-halves of novels that I've started (I always seem to get bored after the first half). I wasn't avoiding it out of grief or anything, but it was a nuisance to have lost the start of the one story I felt like working on.

I managed to do all the binding on my quilt, so that's finished now. I had done the machine sewing before I left, and I decided at the last minute to bring the quilt with me, which was a good decision. Watching TV in the evenings was perfect for boring sewing by hand. So that's three things I managed to do at the cabin that I hadn't planned on.

And I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in six years, so that's pretty great. And I went to one of the corner cafes in Sandstone and got a 'one cake, one egg' (blueberry and poached, respectively) with coffee for under $4. Oh, AND I found magnetic catches for my kitchen cupboards for 99 cents each at Ace Hardware. I installed them when I got back today (just on the doors whose hinges are broken), so now I don't have any wandering cupboard doors. And I saw a really good moon. And it was pretty (but cold).

So, yeah, I didn't get to any of the stuff I'd planned on doing, but it was still a pretty good stay at the cabin.

Oh boy. I've really been living it up so far this week. Dinner last night: leftover Kraft mac'n'cheese with a veggie dog! Of course, I had a heap of homegrown broccoli on the side, as well as some of the pickle chips I made (which are flipping amazing, by the way -- I will share the recipe when I get back home!), so that helped maintain some of my crunchy granola street cred.

Thanks to a text from my dad, I now know that there IS public radio reception here -- it comes from Duluth instead of the cities, so it's a different number. It also made a big difference to use an actual radio instead of trying to tune in with my phone (connected to iPod speakers through a cord that wasn't really long enough to serve as an antenna). Breakfast might be the most important meal of the day, but it doesn't mean a thing if you haven't got coffee + public radio to help you wake up. In my view.

Yesterday afternoon, Beany and I took a proper walk through the forest -- she was on her lead, of course. I was really surprised how well she did! She stuck to the path that my mom has cut through the woods, stopping every now and then to sniff things (and to jump up on every rock and fallen tree trunk we passed). Any time she seemed determined to wander off the path, I gave her the tiniest tug on the lead and said 'c'mon', and we continued on our way. Better than most dogs I know!

We'd got pretty far when the wind started picking up, and I could see dark clouds rolling in. Beany definitely sensed something too, and she let me pick her up and carry her halfway back to the cabin. I put her down again and we finished walking the rest of the way -- and not even five minutes after we were inside again, it started chucking down rain. I was VERY glad not to be stuck in the middle of the woods with a cat in the rain.

Ahoy! I didn't think I would be posting at all while I'm away, but it turns out that not having a constant connection to the internet leaves a person with loads of time to do other things -- like writing stuff to put on one's internet website. My plan at the moment is to get coffee in the afternoon and use the free wifi to post this.

Being away from home has already given me such a feeling of control over my own time -- strange, since, in theory, I always am in control of how I spend my time. But there's no garden to tend to up here, no errands I 'have' to run, and, again, no internet to steal away my attention. I think the solitude might be a bit crazy-making if I didn't have the cats up here with me, and I'm sorely missing being able to listen to public radio -- but it's okay for the time being.

On the topic of crazy, I went to the thrift store in Hinckley yesterday and bought some plates and dishes, even though my parents already have plenty in the cupboards. But A) I didn't have the perfect bowl for yogurt or ice cream and B) I like my dishes to be white, for photography purposes. I'm a little bit too excited about the oblong, ex-diner plate I found, and the milk glass bowl and Fire King cup are pretty good, too. There are stranger ways to weird, I guess.

I stopped at the grocery store on my way back to the cabin yesterday, for a couple of essentials, and I noticed that they have the cutest donuts ever. They're smaller than ones I usually see, and about as big around as they are tall. Part of a perfect 'retreat' breakfast, along with yogurt and fruit (including frozen raspberries that my mom picked this past weekend).

Yep, so that's all good. Now. . . just three-hundred more submissions to read. . .