The Biggest Party Powers Lake Has Ever Seen

A week after Lucy’s whirlwind trip Drew and Lucy went for a full week vacation back to Powers Lake. The occasion was the Powers Lake Centennial Celebration. The Class of ‘88 had our 21-year class reunion in conjunction with the big goings-on. There were two parades...

(This is main street Powers Lake.)

(Family watching parade.)

(One odd motor vehicle.)

(The guy in the bucket is my 2nd cousin once removed; his name is Jordan Lucy.)

(This contraption was, I guess, what you would call a motorcycle on steroids. I thought it was picture-worthy because the decal says "Uff-Da.")

...3-on-3 basketball tournament, kids’ games, two street dances, and multiple picnics. Drew was often confused by the interrelationships of most of the townsfolk, where a typical introduction might be, “Drew, meet Bonnie, she is my cousin’s wife and also my brother-in-law’s sister.”

It was fun to catch up with the old classmates* over a beer...

and piece of cake**.

It was great to see all the old gang: Noel, Skig, Snitch, Shanny, Rum, Steph (Fluffy), Oest, Bren, LB, Crow, and Shell-bell. I wish I could have talked with everyone longer.

*Readers unfamiliar with tiny-town USA might be shocked to learn that pictured above with the cakes is the entire graduating class of PLHS 1988 minus four: one who was driving her motorcycle to go camping elsewhere, another who lives only a couple hundred miles away but really didn't want to hang with us, and two foreign exchange students.

**OK, how weird is it that the sequential number in the file name of the picture of the cake above was #88?! Now that is Class of '88 karma! P.S. My neice made the cake.

Back on the farm, Mom put us to work digging rocks out of the ditch,

and tearing out some dead trees in her yard,

which provided fuel for a weenie roast in the backyard.

It is lovely, fresh, and green in ND this time of year. Mom’s house is right in the middle of it all: Mom's backyard fence doubles as the cow pasture fence as seen in the picture above, below are Lucy’s great nieces and nephews posing in the just-flowering canola field 50 feet out the back door of Mom’s house,

here are the cows behind Mom’s driveway flowerbed,

and here is Drew playing in my sister’s kayaks on the lake Mom’s deck overlooks.

Speaking of the deck, how is this for a relaxing morning with some sisters?

Nothing like a week in North Dakota to slow life down and reconnect with family and friends.