Our Dam Cabin

Tonight is the first night in Our Dam Cabin.

This is the view from our deck.

We hope the name won't be a mantra for the days, months, and years ahead. You know. "Our Dam Cabin is so expensive!" or "Our Dam Cabin is so much work!" or "Our Dam Cabin!" That last one just a blanket expletive yelled out in angst.

We call it Our Dam Cabin because number one, it is now officially ours. We spent the morning doing a last walk-through with the owners, trying to figure out why the lower level bathroom had a puddle of water in it. Explaining to Tom-The-Realtor that yes, I brought some tools up with me, but no, I was not handy enough to turn off the water, take the toilet off, put a new wax ring on it, and get it all put back together without something else much worse happened to the plumbing. I didn't mention it, but I had visions of the time I tried to change the hoses on the washing machine, broke the copper tubing and had an impromptu facial shower of boiling water. Luckily I am handy enough to know where the shut-off valve is. No, Tom, I don't think I'll handle that job. Let's call in an expert handyman instead.

We spent the rest of the morning signing papers. "Initial here, here, and here, and sign here and here." "This is an exact copy of the papers we signed earlier, but I always like to have a spare copy just in case." "Shake your hands out and the cramping should go away."

Then, we handed over the big cashier's check and it was done. The Dam Cabin was ours. Now what were we going to do?

We call it Our Dam Cabin because it's ours, but also because it's a cabin on Dam Lake. Dam Lake is about 12 miles East of Aitkin, MN. If you try to find it on Google Maps or Google Earth we are on the Northwest corner of the lake. I can't tell you much about the lake except it was so named because at one time there was a natural rock dam at one end, it's about 48 feet deep in the middle, has some good fishing according to the locals, and it's now our Dam Lake. Well, we live on the Dam Lake anyway.

Tonight we're going to spend the night sleeping on luxurious air mattresses. Tomorrow we're going to drive over to Duluth to visit the UMD campus with Tyler. Then we'll be driving home to pick up more furniture to bring back up to the Dam Cabin. Luckily gas is down to about $2.60 a gallon.

We are excited about being here and the prospects of actually owning our own Dam Cabin!