Elf door, Dog Walker and Lake Harriet

Recently, I went for a walk with my Loseit friend, Marie, around a lovely lake called Lake Harriet in the equally lovely city of Minneapolis!  I had just finished a beautiful 3 day visit with the Mad-Sister and was headed home, but not before I got a chance to connect for the 3rd time with my buddy.  

Marie and I are both users of the website, Loseit!, and found a kindred spirit in each other.  I have found lots of kindred spirits, but not many of them live a mere 3.5 hours away!  Some of them are like a 15 hour drive, or even a good long plane flight away from me! Sad but true.  But lucky me for having someone so close.  There is actually a rocking awesome pal who lives in TOWN who is also a loseit friend, I don't want Connie to feel left out!  

Anyway, Thursday dawned into a lovely, clear, cool morning, that turned into a lovely, clear, warmish day that was perfect for walking, talking and picture taking.  We met at the Eden Prairie Caribou Coffee and she chauffeured me to Lake Harriet.  There we walked the perimeter of the lake with few small side jaunts to the rose garden and to follow and photograph the dog walker guy!

As we began walking around the lake, it didn't take long for us to come across the dog walker guy, who according to Marie's count, had some 14 dogs!  That was an amazing sight to see.  As some of you know, walking one dog can occasionally be a challenge, let alone 14.  But all of these guys seemed to know what to do and were trotting merrily along the trail.  This guy was not walking slowly, either, as we had to book it to catch up with him.

THEN- astonishingly enough, he puts them all on a sit-stay and they did!  He ran into the little lakeside sandwich shop and got some water for them.  Most of them were laying down, as you can see and they were very attentive to where their buddy had gone.  It was quite impressive.

Just look at all of these guys- Labs, Goldens, an Irish Wolfhound, a Newf, a Pug, Poodle and a few of unknown origins- at least to me!  He went all the way around the lake, the same way we did, he would speed ahead of us and then we would find him stopped somewhere. We were the tortoise and he was the hare (of the dogs)!!!  HAHAHAHA.  Oh....... sorry.

Somewhere along the way, we took a mini side-trip to the cute little Rose Garden near the lake.  It had lots of flowers, roses plus perennials and a couple of formal areas that had fountains and other more dignified sorts of hardscape.  Of course the dignity was softened by the whimsical statuary within the fountains.  Love this little gem of a garden.

Turtle fountain

I found my ideal sundial!

A bit tattered, but beautiful anyway

Little Faun fountain!  Lol

So cute!

Here's to the sun, baby!  Pass the tequila!

Farther along in the lake we found a duck doing duck yoga on one leg, plus the lil babies snoozing on a log.

But the most charming thing of all had to be the elf door.  There is rumored to be an elf who lives in this tree.  Children (and adults) leave the elf notes and small gifts behind the door and every once in a while they elf will answer all of his notes.  This has been going on for maybe 60 years, according to some sources.

Elf door- they say the elf goes to Florida for the winter!  He actually boards up his door!  :)

Some of the notes that children have left.....

Marie and I had a wonderful walk and then topped it off with some yummy and healthy food from the Whole Food Market's deli.  It was a fantastic way to finish off my annual summer trek to see the Mad-seester!  And to connect with a wonderful friend.  Thanks for the memories Marie!  xoxox