Relaxing Weekend On The Range

This weekend Nicole and I stayed "up north". The last 3 weekends we have been on the road to Detroit Lakes and back to Hudson and Springfield, so it was nice to just relax this weekend.

On Friday night we grilled some T-bones and had a bottle of wine and watched Gopher Hockey. They tied 2-2 vs. New Hampshire (Gophers are 4th in the country New Hampshire was 5th so it was a good test for the Gophers).

Saturday morning we woke up to snow (hence the picture), then we went up to the Lodge (we use their fitness center and pool/hot tub). This visit was interesting for 2 reasons. 1, the owners of the townhome we are renting were there, and 2, the owner of the Lodge was also there. I was minding my own business sitting in the hot-tub while Nicole was running on the treadmill. Anyways, this guy comes into the hot-tub and starts talking to me about where I'm from, blah blah blah. Anyways, I find out it is Jim Koch, the owner of The Lodge at Giants' Ridge. We have stayed in one of his units this summer as he was one of our possible choices for renting, but he was too high on his rent. It was a little awkward at first, but then we got to chatting about the ski season up here and how we liked it living up here. I just told him what we thought about living here and he wants me to do some radio advertisement for Giants Ridge. I told him I would do it, so we'll see what develops.

Anyway, the owners of the townhome we are renting were also up for the weekend, staying at the Lodge. They must really like it up here as early November is a very slow time at Giants Ridge. No golf, and no skiing yet. They both told us that the ski hills open around Thanksgiving.

After that we watched the Gopher Football lay an egg to Michigan for their 2nd loss in a row. I have turned "bearish" Gopher Football and expect them to lose the remaining two games of the season to disappoint me yet again.

After the disappointing loss we had some time to kill before Gopher hockey so we drove up to Fortune Bay, a Casino about 30 minutes north of Virginia. They have a great golf course there called the Wilderness and we wanted to see that and their website boasted beautiful views of the golf course and Lake Vermillion from their restaurant. Well, when we got there, the restaurant at the clubhouse was closed (we should have known that) and you couldn't even come close to seeing Lake Vermillion but their website did it's job in getting us there. We ate dinner at the Casino and inhaled lots of 2nd hand smoke and saw a bunch of old-timers wasting their social security. Anyway, they are good for the economy so keep spending old-timers!
Gopher Hockey erupted for a 4-goal 3rd period to beat the Wildcats of New Hampshire on Saturday night.

Sunday morning I opened my truck door and the latch was frozen and it wouldn't fall back into place so I couldn't close the rear driver's side door. I was out working on it (really working on it for me means swearing at it and hitting it with a hammer) and one of the maintenance guys at the Villas was shoveling our walk and he asked if I needed some help. I said yes and he proceeded to fix it inside of 1 minute. A crisp $10 bill and Gene Potter (or Leo as his friends call him) (don't ask me) was a happy camper, and so was I as who knows how much it would have cost me at the dealership to fix it, and how was I going to get there with the door hanging open! We went to the Lodge again for another workout and ran into the townhome owners again (literally, there were 6 people up here all weekend) so the odds of running into them is pretty good.

We watched the Vikes win a close one and rested most of the day.
It was a boring but relaxing weekend on the Range. We hope you all had a great weekend!