This story began last Friday, Engineer’s Day. That was a warm day. After our visit to the locks, we hit up Wicked Sister for a late and rather large lunch. It was there that I photographed the flying monkey’s sign. Returning to the cabin, it seemed that a little chilling was in order. This was not to be, because entering the master bedroom, to check the outside temperature, I noticed that a hatch of gigantic flying ants, each easily an inch long was bubbling out of a corner of the ceiling and spreading throughout the cabin. This event had happened once before, years ago. Then Anne and I had already been up at the cabin for a while, when Bubs and Harry arrived. Anne’s parents were exhausted from their drive north. I think that this year was about the last time that Harry drove to the cabin, without any assistance. While they were driving, we were cleaning the cabin. I had vacuumed their room. So, I was surprised when Anne called out to me that there were ants in their bedroom. Sure enough, they were. Manning the vacuum once more I vanquished these flying monkeys, at least well enough that her parents could lie back down again. Like back then, Friday was a warm day, as was this last Saturday, when the flying ants reappeared for a third time, always in the same corner of the bedroom.

So, because of these ants, it was with some trepidation that we prepared to greet Kate and Jim on Sunday. Kate is a high school classmate of ours and both Kate and Jim are also both MSU alumni too. They couldn’t make this year’s reunion, but Anne invited them to stay with us on this leg of their itinerant travels, between their current home in Colorado and Quebec. They were returning empty handed from Quebec, because the trailer that they had ordered was not ready yet, supply chain issues. We met them at the locks and then invited them to the cabin. After showing them around, we did Cozy for dinner. Fortunately, Sunday was much cooler than either of the two previous days and the flying monkeys never materialized. Both Kate and Anne are quilters, so they had quilting to bond over, in addition to high school. I made eggs and bacon for breakfast and they headed west to Copper Harbor, where they will board a boat to Isle Royal. Eventually their new RV will be built and they’ll head back to Quebec to pick it up and there is a chance that they might swing back around here later this summer.