Month: August 2026

The appointment with the cardio PA (I had mentioned I thought it was an NP last post) went really well. I just cannot say enough good things about Mayo! She had an entire hour allocated to the appointment, something unheard of in today’s medicine. She explained the next steps (yearly TAVR appointments), answered all our questions including what was the anatomic reasons the pacemaker was needed after the initial discharge, and generally reassured us. I think Kevin has decided to continue his cardio follow ups in Rochester rather than find a cardiologist locally, and I thought it was a very good idea too. It turns out she was the person assigned as triage when his ECGs first were sent to Mayo, and she said she immediately got the senior folks. I guess it was really, really bad! She said she had worked in EDs for 20 years and a few years in the Mayo cardiology department, and his PR delay numbers were the worst she had ever seen! Medical things are NOT what you want to be remembered for LOL! But he is still recovering well. He walked 4 miles today (two separate 2 mile trips), and his blood pressure, pulse ox, and heart rate are all good. Here is the cool X-ray taken this time. You can see the pacemaker, the valve mesh, and the pacemaker leads.

We left Rochester and headed to Twin Harbors. It was an easy ride except for a mess of construction in Duluth, but Duluth always has construction! Our campsite was boarding x a spot in a parking lot next to the small fairgrounds buildings, but we did have a 15 amp electrical connection to keep things charged. The forecast had called for rain, but we sure didn’t have much which was a good thing.

The Silver Creek International Ukulele Carnival was enjoyable for me, not so much for Kevin. Lots of nice people, but he was very disappointed in the beginning class instructor. He was very much in the “you can’t do anything until you know all of this stuff” mentality, and that is pretty unusual. Most instructors are getting students playing simple songs after the first 2 chords! I was very challenged in my classes, mostly because I had trouble translating the GCEA tuning instruction to my DGBE tuning. In the group of maybe 300 ukes, there were only 5-6 other baritones! I still learned some new stuff, and I came back with sore hands and back! I am definitely not used to playing that much! I also learned I didn’t practice the mass ukulele pieces at a fast enough tempo – lesson learned. Three hundred ukuleles playing together did sound pretty cool though.

There were some excellent performers, but I forgot to get pictures of most of them. I did of this duo on Friday night, because how often do you see a ukulele and an accordion together? They were really good though. The carnival began Thursday afternoon and lasted until Sunday morning when it ended with a gospel strum.

Sunday morning we headed back south through Duluth again and into Wisconsin, continuing south. Our campground in Shell Lake is gorgeous! I didn’t have high expectations for a campground specifically for UTVs, but our site looks more like a USFS or NPS site than anything else. Excellent separation between sites with lots of trees and understory hiding other campers. Our site (#6) is a 60’+ site with full hook ups. We looked at the municipal campground by the lake, and it is very crowded. We also visited a private campground nearby, the Red Barn Park. It was also very crowded though it was loaded with activities for kids including a lovely sand swimming hole. We much prefer where we are.

We only put out the firepit when we are enjoying the outdoors, and we are definitely doing that here. Lots of birds, insects make a loud hum, and little critters running through the leaf litter adds up to a great location.

Tomorrow we are heading back in the truck to Iowa. Kevin has some hearing aids at Costco. Hoping they let him hear his ukulele better! He says a number of chords sound the same because he can’t hear the higher pitches. Kind of hard to learn that way!