Camping 2025

Another great year of camping, including our first 2-week camping trip. Andy bought a new mattress, and sleeping is much more comfortable. 

Whitewater, May

Hiked Sat and Sun to the top of Coyote Point. On Sunday we had to carry Harriet up the stairs all the way up the hill, which put us really out of breath. Dad was excited about the baby ferns. We ate Friday dinner at the St Charles Moose Lodge, and Sat dinner was porkchops in mushroom gravy.

Fort Ridgely, July

Back at one of our favorite nearby parks. This weekend was HOT. We did a couple of hikes (one with Harriet, the next with her chilling in the camper's AC). We were sweating just sitting. We struggled to put up our new-to-us screen tent and eventually learned we were trying to put it up inside out. One of the neighbors at the camp across the road eventually wandered over to see if he could lend aid. It was pretty ridiculous, really, that two pretty high-functioning adults couldn't put up a tent. We cooked pork chops in our sour cherries and baked potatoes in the coals. The air conditioning cycled on and off all night and it sounded like we were in a rocket. Not very restful. We left Sunday at 9 AM. We're discovering that we like camping better in the shoulder seasons- July, not so much.

Enjoying the blooming prairie

Glacier and Banff, Sep

See post here

Minocqua, Sep

We'd been hearing about Beef-a-Rama in Minocqua from Will and Cara and decided to meet there for a weekend together. We stayed at the nearby Indian Mounds State Forrest campground, which was lovely, with a site right on Tomahawk lake. We did the 5K, enjoyed the booths, samples and beef sandwiches, then went back to the campsite Saturday afternoon, where Cara's parents cooked a great meatloaf dinner over the fire. It was a great weekend.

Before the 5K

Even Harriet enjoyed the festival

Glacier & Banff

Lake Moraine, Banff

We've camped many weekends, but never more than 3 nights. Our ambitious plans for this trip involved driving to Glacier, then Banff, then home, over 12 days and a total of 3,532 miles. 

Our planning needed to account for a number of variables:

• Significant competition and timing for booking campsites, especially at Glacier
• Reservations for Going-to-the-Sun road,  Many Glacier, and in Banff Lake Louise and Lake Moraine
• Planning driving routes that would break up long drives with a few fun stops
• Prioritizing sites and hikes, including all the work that went into making sure we could visit Lakes Moraine and Louise in Banff
• Detailed menu planning and packing so we wouldn't run short of food in the parks
• Planning and packing for cold weather (spoiler alert- it wasn't cold. We packed a variety of cold weather clothing and didn't use it)

We intentionally planned the trip for the 2nd-3rd weeks of Sep, reasoning that the parks wouldn't be quite as busy, but still enjoy pleasant weather. We calculated exactly 6 months earlier from our intended dates and we were online at precisely the right time in the morning to book a campsite in Glacier's Apgar campground. There was more camping availability in Banff, so that wasn't such a nail-biter.

Itinerary

Observations

• We loved the historic lodges and hotels. You don't have to spend thousands to stay there- we enjoyed meals at Lake McDonald Lodge, Many Glacier Lodge, Fairmont Banff Springs, Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise
• Tim Horton's donuts are yummy. Poutine not so much
• While going after Labor Day had advantages (reduced crowd size), it also meant we were out-of-season for things we'd hoped to do, like the gondola, hot springs, and heritage park in Calgary
• Gas stations are sparse in these rural areas- we'd fill up when we were at half-tank so we wouldn't risk running out. We went through gas faster than usual towing the camper

  

  Lewis and Clark Interpretive center, Washburn ND

  
  

  

  Fort Union

  

  Breakfast in bed

  

Hidden Lake, Glacier

Avalanche Lake

Andy and the kids sitting on the same rock, 2009!

Kayaking at Many Glacier

Mighty fine donuts

Andy enjoyed this fried dough, town of Banff

Tunnel Mountain campground

Lake Moraine

Lake Agnes Teahouse- worth the hike

Kootenay National Park

Dinosaur Provincial Park

Espresso break

International Peace Park

Cleaning a Burnt-On Le Creuset

We've had this 7 qt Le Creuset pot for many years, and have had occasional stains/burning. This latest episode is another time Andy assumed that the only temperature on the range is high. If he were a cook for the band Spinal Tab, he would always go to 11. His habit became even more challenging when we switched to an induction range, which can get exceptionally hot. exceptionally fast.

For previous burns/stains I've muddled through and eventually been able to clean it. Once I even did a bleach solution soak, but that was apparently risky because it's quite harsh. Over the years the finish within the pot has become more matte and porous, so I didn't want to potentially damage it further by using bleach again.

This particular stain has been around for a couple of months, and just wouldn't clean up with use and cleaning. While Andy claimed it lent a certain patina, I got fed up and decided to see what I could do.

Burned stains on bottom of pot

My first step was boiling a couple of inches of water with about 1/4 cup baking soda in it. I used a wooden spoon to scrape the burnt spots as it boiled, then let the water sit in the pot overnight. The burned material is so embedded, this didn't really do much.

After boiling and soaking in a baking soda solution

After the soak I used Barkeeper's Friend. This also didn't do a whole lot.

After Barkeeper's Friend

Now with some research, I was going to try a step I never had. Apparently "yellow cap" oven cleaner (like EZ Off) contains lye, which can treat burnt on areas, like the enameled surface of an oven, without damaging them. I sprayed the bottom of the pot with the cleaner then put the lid on and left it for 12 hours (I did this in the garage but the fumes were still noxious- hold your breath and wear eye protection). Then I washed it and did another round of Barkeeper's Friend. I was pretty happy with these results, and given the relative porosity of the finish, I think this is as good as we're going to get. It will be much more pleasant to use. 

After soak with oven cleaner

I quietly stored the pot away in the cabinet with a post-it note on the bottom for Andy: "You better think about it..."

Shared Garden 2025

We were grateful we laid down tarps last fall, because we didn't have to weed the beds. We added some compost we'd bought at Costco and turned the dirt in each bed. We also installed a much better fence for both the rabbits and the deer. Andy was pounding stakes. We reinstalled the drip hose that worked well for us last year. 

The fence still doesn't stop the squirrels

Refinishing a Cedar Chest

Finished!

This project had two inspirations- one is a need to store our outdoor furniture cushions at the stuga when not in use. The second is an attempt to mimic the vibe of a rosemaled chest similar to the one at the Snyder Crow Wing cabin.

Top of trunk at Snyder cabin

Front of trunk

I purchased a Lane cedar trunk for $30 on Facebook marketplace in early Feb. It was badly painted with black latex paint. I looked up the serial number on the bottom and learned it was made in 1988 (37 years old), and thus just missed the cutoff date for the Lane chest lock recalls (i.e. it has a lock release inside in case someone gets trapped). An online description describes it as having wheatfield decorations in front, in a medium oak finish, with deep storage dimensions of 5.8 cubic feet. It was missing the key (I bought one on Ebay for $9.53) and a replacement for a missing spring lid support ($7.50).

As purchased

Someone had spilled paint or something on the lid, and then just painted over it. Gross.

First step was to take off the hardware and try to cut off the little decorative doo-dads on the bottom. I asked Cara to try her little hand-held jigsaw, but the wood proved too thick and tough. Once we'd started, though, I was committed, so I ended up cutting them off with a handsaw (pretty inaccurate and working up a big sweat) and cleaning the inevitable rough edges with my Dremel sanding drum attachment. 

Used my dressmaking curve tool to get a smooth cut line to remove the decorative scroll

Now it was time to strip the black paint. I'll summarize this to say it basically took an entire weekend of multiple coats of stripper and serious scraping elbow grease. The latex paint was like glue to get off. It was not fun. 

In between multiple efforts to remove the paint

Another view of the horrible stripping job in case I forget too soon

After stripping and scraping and stripping and scraping and using a lot of mineral spirits, I was left with a surface that no longer had paint, but had areas of old varnish that would not come off. It was time to start sanding, but this is a veneer, so I knew I needed to do it carefully. I did a combination of hand and electric sanding with small grit. 

Before sanding

After sanding, vacuuming and wiping with mineral spirits

After a coat of pre-stain wood conditioner

The pre-stain wood conditioner gave it a darker color right away, and then I followed up with 2 applications of oil based red chestnut stain, applying it with a rag.

Two coats of stain

I then made the rookie mistake of applying a coat of oil-based polyurethane, apparently too quickly after the stain. I'm used to working with water-based products (and it's not like I'm some big expert with those, either). The poly WOULD NOT DRY. I had a fan blowing on it for days. It didn't help that the  weather has been unseasonably cool and damp. Over a week later, in desperation, I wiped it all down with mineral spirits to remove excess poly, then stuck the whole thing in the sun on one of our few dry days. After, it was improved, but still tacky in places so I decided to stick it in the back of the garage for at least 30 days to cure.

After 6 weeks, I had time to take the next step, which was stenciling a design with acrylic paint. I found some rosemaling-style stencils online, and I would have bought them, but they were the wrong dimensions for this project. Instead, I opted to make my own stencils so I could get them just the right size. I cast my laptop to the TV, and played with the size of the images until I got them in the dimensions I wanted. Then I taped roll paper over the TV and carefully (so as not to damage the TV screen) traced the designs onto paper.

I then traced the paper designs onto clear mylar sheets with a Sharpie and cut the stencils using an $18 hot knife tool, which was time-consuming but much better then the stencil cutting I've done with an Exacto knife.

I carefully centered the stencils on the chest, taped them, and painted. I used the Jo Sonja acrylic paints I had on hand from my rosemaling projects. 

After painting with stencil

I went over each color 2-3 times (with dry time in between) then peeled up the stencils, lightly sanded the ridges that built up in places on the paint edges, and did a final touch up by hand. Then it was on to top coating, this time I didn't want to risk the oil polyurethane and went with satin water-based instead, 3 coats over the stenciled areas and one coat over the rest to even the sheen. I reinstalled the hardware, including adding the second spring lift where a previous one had obviously been.

Finally finished!

We secured the chest very carefully in our trailer for the transport to the stuga and got it there safely.