Last Days of Summer and then hello Fall Colors!
New HughesNet Satellite Installation
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The last part of the summer has been very busy. Labor Day Weekend was nice and cool for the most part with sun mixed in with a few clouds. The perfect kind of weather for people to get out there and explore the trails or go for a boat ride and swim before that water gets too cold. We had a big family reunion party here last month. The 3rd Annual Al Clothier Family Reunion brought in 65 people from all across the country and filled up most of the resort. They played games, had BBQ’s and even took a polar bear plunge into the freezing Lake Superior….brrrrr! Bethel University Cross Country Coach James Timp brought his student athletes back up here for about the 10th summer in a row. The women stay here at the resort in the motel and a few cabins, while the men stay down the road at a vacation house. They train almost the whole time they are here with long runs down Highway 61 and grueling runs up the Gunflint Trail’s steep grade from Grand Marais. Coach said one of the girls from last summer that stayed here went on to become a national champion!
As you can see in the picture, we had a new satellite installed up on the roof of the main lodge. This new satellite is from HughesNet and has much faster and reliable upload and download speeds. We were constantly exceeding our upload and download limits with our old satellite internet provider. When that occurred, they would shut us down to 10% of our normal bandwith for sometimes up to one week. It is very hard to run a business that way and very frustrating for our guests and staff who want to use the internet. We are quite happy with the performance of the new dish.
As some of you may have seen or heard about on our Facebook page, we had a little juvenile black bear around the resort recently for a few days. He was first spotted getting into the dumpster at the restaurant one morning where Michael got this nice picture. Then the bear was up on the roof of the restaurant before getting into the garbage across the highway. The bear had a very busy day of mischief because later in the afternoon a guest in cabin 8 was warming something up in the microwave. She heard something around the cabin and thought it was just maintenance. Then she hears some scratching at the window and looks out…sure enough that bear was up on his hind legs sniffing food and looking right into the cabin! The startled bear retreated back into the woods and up the hill where it was spotted again by the owner’s house. It was not seen again after that, so we can say he is safely back in the forest where it belongs! We are really looking forward to autumn and all the magical colors coming in just a few short weeks. It should be a great fall color season since we have had decent rain this summer and some cool nights recently to already trigger some leaf change up away from the lake. Hope to see you all sometime this autumn!