7/6 /15: Yes, it's July. I just picked the first real handful of raspberries from my yard while watering the vegetable garden. Yesterday was low 70s, today high 80s, mild so far after an early and hot start to summer.
I appreciated the fact that MN still funds its state parks, instead of selling them out like Walkerland, when we camped in Cascade Falls st pk over the 4th weekend. The trails are very steep, with many tall stairs and ascents or descents where your feet have purchase only because of tree roots. This makes for great views, though, and adrenalin rushes if you tie yourself to hardy dogs.
Reststops were, as usual, a good reminder of the less evolved attitudes towards gender diversity out there, but nothing too bad. People at the campground were friendly enough: MN nice has its good side.
Up North had more diversity than I remember. (It's been awhile, and I only went once.) I'm inclined to spend more time up there, at least in the woods.
I was reading The Howling Miller, by Aarto Paasilinna, which takes place in the woods in Lappland during the 1950s. The miller, an outsider, restores the old grain,and saw mill in town, but he likes to howl like a wolf at night. He makes friends and enemies, and this plays out as it can in small towns.
Satiric and moving at the same time, the novel really moves along and manages to come up with some real surprises as plot twists. I already love Nordic style humor and the pace and style of folk tales, but the political subtext and philosophical side were a plus. It was translated from a French translation of the Finnish original, but read very well.
More later... (delayed by technical difficulties, i.e., human error.)
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