A Weekend With My Sissy

I finally took the time to download and edit my photos from a couple weekends ago when my sissy and I were in Nisswa, Minnesota in the heart of Minnesota's lake resort area. My sissy had a 1-day Minnesota Dept. of Health nursing seminar on immunizations. So while she was indoors making the most of her registration fee, I got to spend my day enjoying the beauty of the Grandview Lodge -- the host location for this conference.

Here's the little cabin we got to call home for 1 night (with my sissy's "new" car parked out front).

This was such a cute little cabin. We were sad the conference rate only applied to the 1 night's stay (it doubled after that) because this was the view from our living room. I can see this would be a very cool place to spend a long weekend during spring bird migration. You can see over to the right that there's a big deck out front too (coming off a large screened-in porch).

This is another view of the living room. It was a little chilly in here, but we couldn't start the fireplace because one of the glass doors was broken. It was a pretty room to sit in though.

Kitchen/dining area. We figured most people probably didn't spend much time making their own meals, but you sure could if you wanted to because there were dishes, silverware, etc. in the cupboards. I love the knotty pine interior, but wondered whether you might eventually get tired of seeing that golden color all the time?

There were 3 bedrooms in this cabin! My sissy took the big bedroom (which also had its own bathroom.

I took one of the little bedrooms. The other bedroom was about the same size as this one and they both shared the other bathroom.

After breakfast I took a walk around the resort to see if I could spot any birds or wildlife. It was a really nice day and the fall colors were still very much in evidence.

I headed up to the main lodge to check out some trails that were shown on the map. This is the back side of the lodge (facing Gull Lake). I enjoyed my breakfast seated at the table right next to that biggest center window. They had wireless internet access here too.

This is the view of the main lodge building from the back. It's quite a beautiful building and on the National Register of Historic Places. My sissy said it reminded her of the resort from the Dirty Dancing movie. I was impressed with the landscaping. It looked like they tried to incorporate a lot of native Minnesota plants and flowers.

I just turned around on the path from where I took the above picture and snapped this shot of the walkway out to Gull Lake. Wouldn't this be a really gorgeous place for a wedding?

They had an indoor pool and these lounge chairs were all outside the building where the indoor pool was. It was hard for me to imagine how busy this place must be in the middle of summer when lots of families are enjoying their vacation time here.

There was a nice sandy beach all the way along the resort property also. What a pretty view don't you think?

There were also some lakeview cabins down here. These were designed to accomodate 2 separate groups -- 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs.

And this is the view from the front of these cabins. Wow! Pretty even in the fall!

Unfortunately, I really didn't see much for birds or wildlife. I did see this one obliging gray squirrel who sat still long enough for me to capture a photo before scurrying higher up to the other side of the tree to escape the paparazzi.

I also spotted this Great Horned Owl guarding the dock from pesty seagulls.

And one tiny ducky was riding the waves next to one of the other docks in an apparent effort to seek refuge from any duck hunters who might be nearby.

We were fortunate that the weather for this weekend was beautiful and clear for both of the days that we were out and about. Here are some photos of the beautiful blue skies and cloud formations.

Thanks Sissy for inviting me to come along on this trip! I had a great weekend!