Zoe's Aurora: Cabin memories

I have many fond memories of summer trips to "the cabin" as a child - that cabin, belonging to my paternal grandma, was on South Twin Lake, approx 35 miles west of Itas*ca Sta*te Park in northern MN. (Itas*ca boasts the mouth of the Missis*sippi for you geography buffs.) Unfortunately, the cabin was sold after my grandma's death in 1989. Da*ve and I now frequent the cabin that has been in his stepmother's family for 50 years. Interestingly, it is near Be*midji, a town in which my mother first developed her social work skills and where she married my father. (This cabin is also less than 70 miles from the cabin of my childhood.) While we have been going to "the Patrick Cabin" for over 10 years now, my childhood cabin memories have new meaning for me these days as I begin to re-live them through Z.

One memory I have is of bathing in the kitchen sink - my mother tells me that she bathed all of her children in the kitchen sink every night at the cabin amidst a few random comments regarding 'taking a night off.' But she says there was just something special about this ritual, and swears we slept better too. (I'm guessing we had sand, etc in places we shouldn't as well.) I get that now - but with no running water at our island getaway, I prefer skip the kitchen sink (we do have one!) for the old-school washtub. It will be bittersweet come Labor Day when it's Z's last time in the washtub - I'm pretty sure even little Z will be too big for it next year!!!