From NYC to the BWCA with hardly a breath between them

As we gear up to head to Florida to visit my parents, it has me thinking of our other vacations this past year.  Last spring we did a crazy thing.  We packed up our boys and flew them to NYC for 5 days over spring break.  And then even crazier, upon return, we quickly unpacked and within a few days were heading up to DuNord, on the edge of the BWCA.  Talk about transitions.

Our trip to NYC was lovely.  Nice weather, nice apartment, great boys.  They were eager to see the sites so we typically left our apartment by 8am and spent the next 10-12 hours wandering the city.  We became expert subway users and logged many hours on foot as well.  We did try to do to much, but we had fun doing it.  And there's oh so much more to do when we return.  Not if, but when.  Highlights for me were the times we all laughed heartily together- peering through dense fog at the top of the Empire State building, getting slap happy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art with Theo, and of course the bus fiasco when I panicked and caused us to really stick out as tourists, although surely we had been busted early and often already.  Really a fabulous trip. 

And then we came home, re-inserted ourselves into hectic life in St. Paul, only to dart out of town again within days so I could attent a board retreat up at DuNord.  It felt crazy to be packing up again, but once we took a deep breath of the north woods air and settled into our rustic cabin by the lake, it all made sense. This is what we needed in order to recalibrate from our hectic urban adventure.  We hiked along misty trails, found evidence of wolf activity, follwed moose prints by the front door of our cabin, and watched the ice begin to break up on the lake.  By the first evening, there was a 2-3 foot perimeter of ice-free water just on the edge of the lake, enough for us to plunge into following a hot hot sauna.  As the steam rose of our bodies in the cold night air, we marveled at our good fortune to be able to experience so many of the great places this old world has to offer us.