Vacation + Fantastic News!

If you thought my blog was quiet his past week it was because we were vacationing up at Itasca State Park in the NW part of MN.  My DH and I visited/stayed there twice some thirty five + years ago. We have wanted to go back for a long time.  We stayed at Douglas Lodge cabins when we were there before, this time we had our camper and stayed at Bear Paw Campground-a very nice place right next to Lake Itasca.

However, we wanted to go back to the Douglas Lodge area to see it again, it has changed a lot over the years. We thought we would immediately recognize the cabins we had stayed in, nope, didn't happen.



We did enjoy our time there so much last week, camping, kayaking, biking, hiking, and just driving around.  While kayaking one day near the headwaters of the Mississippi we saw a bald eagle.

DH walking over the Headwaters of the Mississippi. The left is Lake Itasca and the right the Head of the Mississippi.  We waded a ways downstream, even though it was a bit cold.






















These guys were plentiful all week long!  I couldn't resist, just look at his color!














This pair of Trumpeter swans were on nearby Mary Lake.




While kayaking on Ozawindib lake we spotted the largest turtle swimming that I have ever seen(except for sea turtles).  I thought it was a big rock in the shallows and then it moved right toward me,  he had to be the granddaddy!  At about 18" across, big old wrinkly neck and head.  Of course it all happened to fast for a picture.

While taking a hike we ran across several of these precious lady slipper. I have never seen one in person before, so pretty!

 The wilderness drive through Itasca State Park.  A much needed vacation for both of us. And now back to work on Monday morning. 

But first my fantastic news...I sold my first Etsy product-a quilt!!  So we left last Sunday for vaca and we get to camp that evening and I decided to see if the campground WIFI would actually work and I was pleasantly surprised it did!  So I am reading my email and I see Etsy sent me a congrats on my first sale!!  I was so excited that I could barely tell DH what happened, all I could get out was OMG, OMG!  Then I really wanted to do a happy dance, but thought the other campers might have thought I was a bit nutty, LOL  So I did an internal dance that lasted for hours! 

My dilemma was that I didn't have the quilt with me to ship, so after I remembered my Etsy password I sent my customer a note and hoped it would actually send(I've had problems in the past with that). So I fretted about it until I heard back from her and she was so kind and understanding and said no worries, enjoy my vaca and send when I got home.  What a sweetheart. And she only lives an hour from me. Thanks Darci!  So today off it went. This is the one she bought.

It has spurred me on and this week I am going to try to get a couple more listings out there. I need some beautiful sunny, windless days to do a photo shoot. 

I also visited a couple quilt shops up north, I will tell you about them in another post later this week.

Linking with Main Crush Monday, Monday Making, and Linky Tuesday.