Good morning! 😀
After the BIG Book Journey facelift a few of you commented that the coffee cup was missing, part of my trademark blog icon since pretty much day one. Yes, as I think back, I did talk about COFFEE CUP a lot in the mornings…. 😛
I was going to switch things up a bit but your comments gave me pause; and I was impressed that the little right sidebar cup that had graced the blog all of these years was noticed when I pulled it.
WHICH led to this post.
There is a real COFFEE CUP and I thought today I would share his story – AND before you think how could a story about a coffee cup possibly be interesting Sheila?
Well…. I think it is…
A little Minnesota history for you in the mix too. Mink Lake Camp is what I call a little known secret of Grand Marais Minnesota. It is 14 miles up the famous Gunflint Trail. (f you have kids that ever complain about being cold, I have some books I could recommend you about the Gunflint Trail in the early years before they had electricity that will make them never complain of the cold again! Here’s a hint: icicles hanging off bed frames… TRUE STORY. :shock:)
Anyhoo… this is a wilderness camp. No electricity, everything is by oil lamps, beautiful cabins, and breathtaking SILENCE. Yup, cell phones hold no power this far into the wilderness.
In 2007, friends of ours decided to help restore this old camp and a bunch of us went to help out in June of that year. There was a stream through an overgrown area and after some hard work of clearing, we made a rock trail and places to sit and enjoy this space. It became a garden where we planted wild flowers along the stream, and well… its one of my favorite places in the world.
One day while I was there, raking out the garden spots, creating benches out of fallen logs… my rake clicked on an item deep in the ground – so deep in fact I had to get a shovel to dig out this item.
It was an old blue coffee cup, in perfect condition – not a chip on it and I loved it. It became my camp cup and that was all I drank my coffee out of. Every June from 2207 – 2010, I would go up to the camp to help and dig through the cupboards until I found where I had stashed this cup I had fondly called “Blue”. Last year my friend Sandi who runs the camp said I should bring him (yes it is a him!) home so he did not get broke at camp.
And I did, where now he sits on a book shelf in the reading room with this memory of finding him over 225 miles away in an overgrown campground called Mink Lake.
And today, as I talk about COFFEE CUP, I brought him out and I am having coffee in him this morning. Can a cup make you smile? Sure! Have I had too much caffeine and off my rocker? Perhaps….. 😉 I am thinking of designing a new blog button using him…
Anyway – got to run – I have to get ready for work and I am hoping with enough time I can bike to work this morning… but I need at least 15 minutes to do so… and what a surprise – I am pushing it. 😀
Book Journey 
I love the story of blue! I really like it when objects remind us so much of a wonderful trip, friends, or a story and Blue is something you can use every day to bring back those memories.
I have a lot of things like that Helen… to the naked eye they are nothing… but to me who holds the story…
This is a wonderful post! I felt as if I were reading notes for a short story.
Ha! Thanks Beth, that is sweet…
Love to start my mornings with you, although now MY coffee cup is feeling envious because his story just started out in a Starbucks in Phoenix. LOL
Oh, Poor Mr. Starbucks! LOL…. 😀
Thanks Debbie for listening to my craziness… 😛
Oh, I love “Blue’s story,” and hope you do create a logo from him.
I have a few mugs that have special meaning to me, but I don’t drink coffee out of them. I’m too afraid they might break. One is a mug with my first grandson’s picture on it…beautiful baby picture.
Another is one that three of my grandchildren made for me with their names and birthdates on it.
Then there’s another one that I just love because it’s so quirky…and I bought it at Big Bear Lake when I was visiting my son there in his cabin a few years ago.
See how your story unleashed memories? Now I’m off to take photos of my special mugs, inspired by your story.
And that lake is fabulous!
I will try to do a logo button Laurel… I messed with it a bit this morning but nothing I loved.
Mink Lake looks a whole lot like Ontario. Now I’m homesick.
I could sit on that dock all day with a book Ryan 🙂
Mink Lake looks beautiful! That’s the kind of place I love to visit, but only in the summer.
Coffee cup has a great story and definitely deserves his own button. My coffee cup is from my library. For the centennial celebration they gave away cups to the reading club members.
Sounds like a wonderful cup Leslie! 😀
I have several coffee mugs that are special to me, but one in particular is from Von’s Supermarket in Los Angeles. What? Yup. We bought it in 1984 when we were in LA for the Olympics. We had two but this is the only one left. It reminds me of the fun we had on that trip.
Barbara that sounds like an awesome mug!
I loved the story of the blue mug! Makes you wonder how he got there doesn’t it!! Please make a button with him on it!!!
I have wondered that Staci, I tried to find the actual age of the camp on line but was unable to… I think it goes back to the early 1900s which really adds history to the cup.
I love that coffee image and would love to see it incorporated into the header! 🙂
When I was 7 we moved into a house that had been previously inundated with a big mudslide and had been vacated for several years. So the landlord dug the house out of several feet of solidified mud, and then we went to work. Years later we’d still find things like silverware while digging in the garden.
What an interesting story Alyce! Imagine just finding those treasures… 😀 Ohh and I like the idea of adding it to the header… you have me thinking now.
It’s those unexpected discoveries that I treasure for always. What a lucky thing to have happened to you, though I would have been wondering about the person who used the cup before you and what circumstances brought it to the spot you discovered it in.
Right Ryan…. i love thinking like that? I had been out thre with a shoevel earlier, plus we had a backhoe running through there… however it was not crushed. Then I hit it with the rake and still…. not a chip!
I literally excavated it out of the dirt digging around, sure I was going to pull out half a cup and shocked when it was a whole one!
How fun!! What a great mug!!!! 😀
I collect ’em… and they all have a story. There’s one I keep pens in just so I can keep it close – one of those standard cheap things anyone can have imprinted. It says, “Ha sido una semana muy inusual”. We used to say, spontaneously, but so often it became a “thing”: This has been an unusual week. ‘Cause “usual” just didn’t exist. And it translates horribly in Spanish, which was the point… living in Mexico at the time, so much of our lives just didn’t translate quite comfortably. This unassuming mug has layers of meaning. No one else would ever see it like I do… except the folks who lived it with me and treasure their own copy of the same mug, too!!
Great question!! Thx for sharing!! (Great build-up to the REVEAL, too!!!)
Laura oh my gosh I love that!
I have one from a Murder mystery I was part of that says MURDER ANYONE? LOL, Also a great one from Chicago and one with a moose on it, oddly enough from a shop on the Gunflint Trail.
Favorite post ever!
Ahhh! You are sweet!