FYI: Yesterday, Lisa received a phone call from her boss at Vinculums. She is the Corporate Trainer for this communications company that installs cell phone towers. Vinculums was bought out and merged with an east coast company called QualTek about a year ago. Right now, both companies are struggling to succeed in this era of the Corona virus. Due to their financial difficulties, Vinculums is letting some of their workers go. Turns out that Lisa is one of them. This Friday, tomorrow, will be her last day as a worker. She is now retired and unemployed. I have been hoping for this to happen for quite some time now, so that Lisa could come and go as she pleased. She has been working four hours per day since we left, and she is so diligent that it sometimes impacts our "playing around" schedule. Now she has to go through the adjustments that come with not having a job. I intend to make sure she likes being retired and having the time to do whatever she wants to do.

The trip to Wildwedge RV Park was excellent with no issues encountered. The truck and trailer performed wonderfully and all went well. We met our neighbors, Walt and Charlotte, who are campground hosts. They were off work and heading out for a kayak trip to Clear Lake. We will get a report from them when they return as to the the conditions at Clear Lake, Minnesota.

We met up with Brian and Lorrayne Graham. They are campers whom we met at Red Rock RV Resort near Henry's Lake at West Glacier, Idaho. They also stayed at Beale AFB while we were there. We have become great friends. They were also visiting with some of their friends, Mike and Vicky and Mick and Carla, who were staying at this park too. We had great fun sitting around the campfire in the evening and talking.

Friday, June 26, 2020 - Lisa had to work on her last day with Vinculums. She had to complete an "exit briefing" with the company, so I went for a bike ride on the Paul Bunyan Trail that runs right past our campsite. This trail is completely paved and begins in Brainerd, Minnesota and travels north to Bemidji, Minnesota for a distance of about 120 miles. I decided to ride south to Brainerd, about 22 miles, and then return to the RV park. I had gone about 18 miles when I decided to stop at a bike rental shop along the trail to get a trail map. While there, I met Susan, who is training for the Wisconsin Triathlon. She owns a beautiful blue Felt Aero-Bike. She mentioned that there are some excellent back roads to ride in the area and inquired if I would like to join her. I am glad I did. There were virtually no cars on these back roads and they went alongside many beautiful lakes. The roads were good with virtually no climbing at all. We could really move along at 19 or 20 mph on the average. She asked how far I intended to ride, and I mentioned about 50 miles. I then mentioned that we could go by her family cabin on a lake. They have had the cabin since around 1985. While there, I met her brother Curtis who is an IT specialist. We was working from home due to the Corona virus. Her cabin is very basic, but extremely well suited for the environment on the lake. She has a boat launch too. After getting some water, we hit the road again and Sue navigated me back to the bike path (since I was really lost). I really enjoyed meeting Sue and getting a chance to see some the country away from the bike path. I ended up with a 65 mile ride that had only 600 feet of altitude gain.

Saturday, June 27, 2020 - Lisa and I decided to go to Brainerd to mail her computer, phone, and credit card back to Vinculums, since she is now fully retired. After mailing it out, we continued to Crow Wing State Park to kayak in the Mississippi River. The water was fairly calm with not too much current to begin with. We went upstream for about 1.5 miles and then the current increased. Lisa was having trouble paddling against the current since her right shoulder has been bothering her (we plan for her to get an MRI on it in International Falls). Likely due to me "yanking" her around with all our salsa dancing? We turned around and found a neat island in the river to stop at for lunch. We felt like Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer cruising on Ole Miss. We then kayaked back to the entry point, but cruised past to head for the confluence of the Crow Wing River about a half mile below the park. When we arrived where the Crow Wing empties into the Mississippi, I got out on the shore and immediately sank up to my knee in mud. I almost could not pull my foot out and my sandal wanted to stay down in the muck. I finally got out and boarded my kayak. We found that the current in the Crow Wing River was too swift for us, so we headed back to the start. It was a good idea to return, since Lisa was getting pretty tired at that point. All in all, it was a great day on the river. Not many fish to see, but lots of turtles; some pretty large too.

Sunday, June 28, 2020 - We decided to go for a bicycle ride with Brian and Lorrayne. We road over to the Paul Bunyan Trail and headed north towards Bermidji. After about six miles, we came across a Dairy Queen that we simply could not pass up. After a nice dessert, we again hit the trail. At about the eight mile point we decided to venture off the trail onto some side roads. The shoulder was large and well paved. There was very little traffic. At about the ten mile point, we decided to turn around and retrace our route back to the RV campground. We had a great ride of a little over 20 miles total distance.

Monday, June 29, 2020 - We departed with Brian and Lorrayne for International Falls, Minnesota for a week-long stay.