Water Everywhere

We did a Harvest Host overnighter at a tiny vineyard in northern Minnesota called L'Etoile du Nord (it means "Star of the North" in French). For those of you new to Harvest Host, it's an online organization that lists wineries, breweries and cider houses, farms, and a variety of attractions such as museums on their website. Folk sign up for a nominal yearly fee in order to book one-night stays at these locations. There is usually no fee! (The caveat is that most of these offer a parking lot or lawn with no water, electric, or sewer hook-ups.) Instead of paying a typical campsite fee, guests are obliged to buy something from the host, such as wine, beer, handmade crafts, or vegetables, or to purchase a ticket to the host's attraction. It's really a win-win situation for everyone.

For those of you readers new to geography of the Midwest, Minnesota's official state designation is "The Land of 10,000 Lakes." Apparently, many people have done extensive tallying, and there are actually over 15,000 lakes, but I guess legislating the new number would take too much government effort, haha. Anyway, L'Etoile du Nord winery is located in a tiny town called Parker's Prairie, and the 40-acre vineyard and tasting room is located with waterfront access to Lake Irene. This was especially cool for us since Ron's grandma's name is Irene.

L'Etoile du Nord is a husband-and-wife team, with the wife Polly being the winemaker. Polly wasn't available to host the tasting, so her husband Dave took on the duties for us.

Small Tapestry inside L'Etoile du Nord tasting room

As Dave poured samples of their four dry wines (they had many more semi-sweet and sweet wines), he explained that their tasting room is a work in progress. I saw the above tapestry and photographed it for this post. I edited it in ON1 to create a warm, rustic vibe, which I think captures the energy of L'Etoile du Nord.

I was focused on getting dinner prepped, and forgot to get a photo with Dave. As it turns out, he took notice of my Thor's Hammer amulet, and we got to talking about being Norwegian. He had many interesting and funny stories to tell (like a good Norwegian does), and he said it would be cool for me to study Runestones and translate some of this post! I agree, but sadly there is just not enough time to research deeply enough while we are on the road. When we get home, this project is totally on my bucket list, and I'll keep you apprised here on the blog when I get to it. So many projects, so little time!

Back to the tasting room: Ron and I bought a bottle of their chilled "Prairie Star" Minnesota white wine, and headed back to our site to prep and eat dinner. We walked down the dock to view Lake Irene, and I took this photo, which I edited in ON1 to enhance the dreaminess of the view:

Lake Irene in Parker's Prairie, northern Minnesota

The weather was hot and muggy. Ron hooked up the generators to help keep Nilla cool, but after a couple of hours we became weary of the constant on-and-off of the air conditioning, and we decided to shut them down and bear the sticky heat. Sleeping was difficult, as we are all three inured to the typical dry heat of California and areas west of the Continental Divide, but we managed to get some shut-eye and be up and out early for a long day of driving.

Before we departed, I captured this image of a portion of the expansive tree-filled lawn that Dave had meticulously mowed and groomed. I used the same ON1 filter preset as for the lake image, with a few tweaks. It really is a dreamy little patch of Parker's Prairie:

L'Etoile du Nord family yard on Lake Irene, MN, morning, late July

We got up just after six, had espresso, and packed up. Spicy and pulled and our family trio out of the campsite at 8:08am, which is our earliest leave-time since departing California. Not too shabby for a girl who typically sleeps until nine in the morning, especially since we're now on Central Daylight Time, two hours ahead of Cali time! For those of you who are "Time Zone calculating" challenged, it means that we got up at 4am Pacific Daylight Time!😳

We made it to the lake cottage of my sister and her husband in central Wisconsin at 3:45pm. After we got Nilla settled in to her 5-Star suite with food, water, litter box, and fuzzy blankies from the trailer, I cracked the bottle of Rava Brut sparkling wine that I've been keeping on ice for this moment. (Cheers to Karla and Jack for treating Ron and I to a complimentary tasting at Rava earlier in July, when I purchased this bottle of delightful Paso Robles crafted Méthode Champenoise bubbles!🍾🥂)

I finally got to sleep in, and now it's almost lunchtime here in Wisconsin on the Holcombe Flowage, so I'll sign off and see you in the next post! Cheers and lots of love to everyone!