We’ve been able to knock a few more adventures off our list
of 40, starting with…
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| Our Cabin |
#5. Stay at Tallpine
Lodges. Back in 1996, Jon and I went to Tallpine Lodges at West Hawk Lake, Manitoba (just inside the Ontario border) for
a few days of much needed relaxation. It was a year after Jon’s amputation and
we’d been through a lot, so those days of quiet solitude and reflection
remained a warm memory and we always thought it would be fun to go back.
It only took twenty years, but we made it—and this time, we
could afford to upgrade a little from the cheapest of their 16 cottages! It’s a
couples-only resort with no visitors allowed, so it’s very quiet—especially during
the off season. Our cabin had its own sauna and Jacuzzi tub, electric fireplace
(they still had the real kind when we were there the first time!) and the
grounds have tame deer that wander around being friendly and looking for
handouts. I fell for their gorgeous big eyes and fed them our apples.
It was wonderfully relaxing and we combined it with…
#25. Have an
Unplugged Weekend. We weren’t sure which of us would find this a greater
challenge, Jon (who’s pretty glued to the games on his tablet) or me (who’s
pretty glued to her laptop and Facebook.) We did “cheat” by checking our phones
a couple of times just to make sure the kids didn’t have any emergencies, or at
least that was our excuse. But other than that, we really did stay unplugged and we
didn’t miss our screen time. We watched one movie the old fashioned way (DVD)
and listened to some worship CDs. Mostly, we read and slept. It was also a
perfect time to tackle…
#27. Play a Board
Game. Technically, there is no board in Yahtzee, so maybe this was a cheat.
But Jon’s favorite board games are conquer-the-world-or-at-least-the-economy
games like Monopoly, Risk, and Cash Flow. All of which, I loathe. The ones I
like (you know, the kind that build relationships and create opportunities for
laughter instead of competitive greed) are Apples to Apples and the like. Which
Jon loathes. So we had to find something we can both tolerate. Yahtzee fit the bill.
We each won one round. We each got one Yahtzee. And we got a good start on…
#34. Read a Classic
Aloud Together. It took us a while to select which classic we’d read.
Looking at various online lists and not wanting to get bogged down in 600 pages
of Tolstoy or endless passages of description from Dickens, we settled on Black Beauty. I was surprised, when I
borrowed it from the library, by how thin it was. I figured we’d easily burn
through it over the weekend. But who knew it would be boring? Really. To me,
the most interesting thing about it is noting all the things author Anna Sewell
did in 1877 that writers can’t get away with nowadays. Like sentences that fill
entire paragraphs and paragraphs that fill entire pages. We won’t be checking
this box off just yet, but hopefully before the book is due back.
On the list of kissing locations, we added our cottage and
the top of a hill overlooking West Hawk Lake—it’s the deepest lake in the
province at 115 meters (377 feet). The granite cliffs make for gorgeous
scenery. There are several more places we could have added if we could just
remember to kiss while we’re there.
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| Overlooking the beach at West Hawk Lake, still frozen on April 3 |
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