By Adam Kaplan
Kaplan and Fornear take the National Mall
We are currently in the throes of our winter travel season. From November through late-February, I will travel to more than twenty cities for a grand total of more than six weeks on the road. That feels like a LOT of time. Now don’t get me wrong. The road trips have a great deal going for them. I get to see the entire country display its amazing fall colors as different geographies show their colors at different times during the travel season. I get to visit some of the most interesting and exciting cities across the nation. And, most of all, I get to eat at the “it” restaurant everywhere we go and eat some truly amazing regional delicacies. Whether it be barbecue in Kansas City, or Memphis, or Dallas (yeah….I really like barbecue!), or some of the best authentic southern cooking in Atlanta, or the biggest pastrami sandwich on the planet in New York City, or my favorite Indian restaurant in Washington D.C., there can be little doubt that one of the true perks of the road is the culinary tour-de-force that the country offers up every year.
Having said all of that, as a father of three, I have to admit that prior to the travel season I look ahead with more than a little dread at the prospect of being away from my family for that long. As all parents know, those years when our kids are kids and want us around are fleeting (already one of my brood has flown the coop for college….in other words, radio silence from him! I suppose that is a good thing as he is truly finding his own way….but sheesh….how about a call every now and again huh Josh?!?). When I am on the road, I miss countless soccer games, basketball games, band concerts, and plain old family dinners….not to mention the many additional hours that my other two children have to spend outside tying up all of the yellow ribbons in anticipation of my return after each trip. The travel season certainly is felt by my entire family.
So, at times it can be difficult to get fully motivated for each trip as I am about to embark on it. I mean, how many times can someone look at the exact same photos, watch the exact same video, and tell the exact same jokes? Admittedly, there are times when I am heading to a reunion, concerned about how much fun it is going to be.
And then I arrive at the reunion home…
The genuine warmth and welcoming tone of each family that hosts a reunion never fails to immediately turn my spirits around. The excited faces of the campers and alumni as they arrive at the reunion to get their little taste of Nebagamon in the winter moves me to that exact same level of excitement. That excitement turns each slide from the slideshow into a brand-new image for me. The smiles, laughs, and cheers that the video produces at each showing, turn it into a world premier movie event for me each time. Truth is, being at a winter reunion is as close to being at camp as is possible…and I love little more in the world than being at camp.
I apologize for not sharing too profound of a message in this month’s edition of the Arrowhead. I really just want to let everyone know how much I appreciate the efforts that you all make to attend our winter reunions across the country. And I want to thank everyone for sharing such genuine enthusiasm, warmth, and hospitality with us as we come to your towns. It feels great…and makes it all worthwhile.
I am looking forward to seeing many of you in the coming months. Yellow ribbons are optional…
Happy New Year!
When I left off my article last month I was wondering if the predicted storm was going to boom or bust. Well, though it reached us a day later than predicted, it defiantly boomed. Ironically my use of the term boom was quite apt as this storm started out as a “bombogenesis” or “bomb cyclone” as some more excitable meteorologists call it. According to the national weather service a storm undergoes bombogenesis when the storm’s central barometric pressure drops at least 24 millibars (a millibars is a way of measuring air pressure) in 24 hours. When this particular storm hit the west coast it only took 18 hours for the air pressure to drop the required 24 millibars creating what is described as essentially a winter hurricane over land! And that is exactly what the storm looked like as it was tracked by radar and moved across the country heading for Lake Nebagamon. When it finally reached us it had already dropped feet of snow in the Rockies and left a 20-inch swath of snow across the length of South Dakota. Then it hit Minnesota and turned north, and blasting us for 2 days with pounding 1- and 2-inch-an-hour snow and wind gusts into the 50 mile an hour range. When it finally passed out of our region on December 1st we were left with just over 20 inches of snow on top of the 10 inches we had received just before Thanksgiving Day. Boom, just like that we were thrown into what looked like the end of January, 21 days before the 1st day of meteorological winter! Four foot snow banks suddenly lined all of the roads; many streets in Duluth and Superior had so many buried immovable cars on them that they are still clearing that snow two weeks later! Here at camp we spent a full work day plowing the circle drive behind the Big House and hand digging in to the propane tanks and doorways into the areas we need to have access to throughout the winter months.
The somewhat tarnished silver lining to the storm was that it delivered plenty of snow to kick off the 2019 ski season in the area! The tarnish on that silver though was that the Miracle on Snow, my 1975 Artic Cat Pantera snow mobile that I use to groom the bike trails through out camp into ski trails, can’t handle more than 10 inches or so of snow at a time! What is an avid cross country skier to do? Break out the back country skis and stomp out the trails with leg power, of course!! My investment in the short but very wide back country ski package last winter is paying big dividends this year! Stomping your way through 20-inches-plus of snow is a lot more work and much slower than machine grooming. On the “Miracle” it takes me about an hour to groom the whole five mile CNST (Camp Nebagamon Ski Trail) into skiable tracks. On the BC’s I made it about 1.3 miles in just under an hour on my first outing. My second outing lasted about an hour as well and I added about an additional mile past the tracks of my first outing. On the third trail blazing effort I skied over the first two miles of already laid track and was able to add an additional mile in about one hour and 45 minutes, bring my tracked in length up to about 3.25 miles. All of this may seem like a lot of work but I look at it as productive exercise rather than work and with my upcoming back country ski trip to the Sylvania Wilderness area of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, a non-motorized old growth preserve in the heart of the Ottawa National Forest — it is great preparation. I will be spending five days solo skiing through the huge trees on the ungroomed trails and lakes of the Sylvania wilderness. With our winter break just ahead and all of that deep snow in camp I should be in tip top shape for this year’s winter “Big Trip”.
Both Syd and Lazer Rosenbloom continue to pursue their passion of soccer. Nick Fleisher plays guard for his schools basketball team and was elected class president this fall at his new school. Impressive! Daniel Heller is also playing soccer while Daniel Sabados continues to spend many hours at the climbing gym. Daniel was also in a recent play called “Names That Hurt” written by the students.
4th Grade Campers: Zander Aronoff, Jake Finkelstein, Gabe Fisher, Evan Friedman, Milo Gilman, Ryan Glickman, Elijah Gold, Will Grant, Nathan Massel, Eli More, Max Saul, Sagiv Siegel, Jacob Solomon, Zach Weiskopf
