The get-away

We decided to take a few days away from the cities in celebration of our 39th wedding anniversary. Since it was Stake Conference and the fact it did not start until 2:00PM, we decided to leave Sunday morning. A second purpose was to check out the true gas mileage of the RAV4. We stopped at the Pine City branch for 10:00AM church and then continued on to Duluth. A co-worker of Judy's offered her house to us and we took her up on it. The house was on the point on the other side of the lift bridge. We took a thousand pictures and will post them later. Wait! It was foggy (visibility was 100 yards at times), drizzly or rainy the whole time so not one picture was taken.

The next morning, we took off for Bayfield, WI. It is a small tourist town of 600 regular residents. There are some big houses overlooking the lake and lots of tall masted sailboats. Since it was after tourist season, not much was open. But if we waited around for the next season, we could have taken a large sailboat ride. We did stop at a Scandinavian shop that had lot of very expensive nice looking stuff. I was looking at a Norwegian sweater and all the sweaters were made in CHINA. Even Norway is outsourcing to China. Did not get one. I will wait for a trip overseas. I looked at Dansko clogs - too expensive for plastic souls with stapled on patten leather, leather or vinyl tops (I can do a lot with $125). We managed to find "Maggies Lunch and Dinner" open for a quick lunch. That was the community gathering place because it seemed like half the town was there. It was decorated with pink flamingos. We walked out on the pier and then headed back to Duluth.

Mileage results on the RAV: 23.5 MPH the first half of the way up to Duluth. Then I saw that the console gear shift was knocked out of overdrive (easy to do). After putting it back into overdrive, mileage went up to 25.4 MPH. That was at 75 MPH. Then on the trip to Bayfield, at only 60MPH and on a new, very smooth road we got an average of 28.6MPG. That was great on a car advertised to get 26MPG with a V6 with 4WD. That included slowing down for towns. On the way home the first 1/2 at 75MPH we only got 23.4MPG so I dropped it down to the speed limit of 70 MPH and the mileage jumped to 26.5 MPG. But that was after all the bad roads north of the 35W/35E split and the hills south of Duluth. So I guess the best mileage was at 60 but still above the rated mileage at 70 on smooth roads. Still not as good as the car I gave up - the Talon. Brett says he is getting between 33 and 34 MPG. Okay, now for the truth. The above numbers were from the fuel computer in the car. The actual miles driven divided by the gallons used tell a different story: to Duluth only 23.5; to Bayfield and back 26.6 and back home 23.5. So what good is the on-board fuel computer? It is good for trends only.

Trick and Treating in Oakdale

We gathered at Kirstin's house on Halloween evening to go trick or treating with the kids. Tana made Gigi's costume. She is Boo from Monsters Inc.
Lorelei was a sweet ballerina bunny, even sweeter afterwards with all the candy.
They are anxious to get out into the neighborhood. You can see Lorelei climbing out the door.
Pirate Joe is not afraid to take a bite out of a skeleton.
Marching along.
Liam was the Smiling Batman, with the mask in hand. Not sure what Logan's fascination with sticking out the tongue is, but every time I snapped a picture it was sticking out. He was the "Bad" Spiderman.
This was across the street. If a decoration said Halloween on it, these guys had it, including barking skeleton dogs and motions activated crawling slugs, to mummies and flying bats. And don't forget the fog bubble machine - when the bubbles broke it released the fog.

All night long Liam would say "Trick or Treat; Smell my feet; Give me something good to eat". He loved saying that. He was so proud of himself.
Then there was this little "Yip-yip" dog with a costume. They laughed and laughed at him; not that he did anything to laugh about. It was just jumping up and down at them.
My bag is getting kind of heavy.
Mom had to help Boo with the candy collection because of the sleeves, and besides, the hat did not stay on.
Then it was full circle when Kirstin came to the door.
Good times for all.