From Minnesota we headed to Michigan, where my mom and dad were eager to play host for the long Labor Day weekend. As usual, their house in LaSalle was well stocked with great food — thick steaks, smoked pork chops, incredible salads, homemade steak tartare, smoked fish, and tons of wonderful summer garden vegetables. My dad also plays a pretty mean bartender — crafting the Manhattans by which we measure other Manhattans, usually poorly, around the world.

Fortunately, we had help offsetting all of this great eating with a bit of exercise. My brother Pat, sister-in-law Jenny, and nieces Lydia and Molly kept us busy with some really pleasant outdoor adventures. We hiked trails in Toledo’s Wildwood Preserve and Monroe’s Sterling State Park. We also spent an afternoon canoeing a long stretch of the River Raisin up in Dundee. Though I grew up around that river, I can’t think of a time when I ever really got so close to it. For most of our journey, the scenery was lush and green, and I felt like we could just as easily be paddling through Cambodia or someplace as exotic.

While our visits to LaSalle are always great in culinary terms, our timing was ideal this time as we hit the tail end of tomato season. Tomatoes from my dad’s garden are unlike any tomatoes I’ve ever had anywhere else in America – or most of the world. In the 25 years I lived on the east coast I never found tomatoes as meaty and sweet and deep red as those. They are one of the most delicious things in the world, and I think maybe only Michigan dirt can make them this way.

I mentioned in my last post that I exhausted myself playing on the slide with my nephews. Turns out my brother Al had some fancy camera capturing me leaping and sliding so I figured this was a good place to post them. And if it looks as though no one else is moving, this all took maybe one or two seconds from start to finish, so they really didn’t get as very far in that second.

There is nothing like a Minnesota lake to make you feel young again!

From Paris to Minneapolis, pretty much everyone’s fantasy trip, right? I lived there for 10 years, though, and I still love the city. Interestingly, there has been at least one big change since I left nearly 30 years ago – a big boom in downtown living. I actually lived in a downtown high rise in the mid-1980s when it was really unusual. Over the last several years, though, there have been major developments – both new construction and old warehouse renovation – and now there are some 40,000 people living downtown, mostly along the Mississippi River. Very cool.

As I said, I still love Minneapolis and had a great time in a very brief stop: dinner with two old friends one night, lunch with an old college roommate the next day, and dinner with another old friend and his partner that night. Walked around old familiar neighborhoods and marveled at how BIG everything is! Our only regret was that we didn’t have time to see everything I wanted to and everyone we wanted to.

From there we caught a quick flight up to Duluth, where I was born and where I still have plenty of family. (We would have rented a car and driven, but we’re flying out of Duluth, and the car rental agencies pretty much all were going to charge about $1,300 extra to drive it one way. The flight was a lot cheaper.) So we picked up the rental car in Duluth then to drive up to Cook, a tiny town some 90 minutes north of Duluth on Lake Vermillion which, at about 40,000 acres, is the fifth largest lake in Minnesota.

Mark & I spent six days at a lodge there with my parents, four of my five siblings, three of their spouses, three nieces, two nephews, and two great-nephews (my niece’s two kids) in two large cabins. The kids loved fishing, though they weren’t wildly successful, and we all had fun with boats and in the water and all that stuff you do in a Minnesota lake.

Next stop, LaSalle, Michigan!