When I first moved here I was continually hearing stories about "Going to the Cabin." This was something Minnesotans did all the time. Weekends, holidays, vacations. More often than not it was a cabin owned by them and one or two other members of the family a few hours drive time from the city. They had SUVs, boats, jet skis, bikes, canoes, kayaks, grills...anything you can buy at a fancy sporting goods store, they had it. Or I should say still do. As the "Going to the Cabin" activity has not lessened in popularity. I was baffled by this tradition. This is not something that was done very often in the South. I did spend a few weeks in cabins in New Mexico but it was not a weekly activity as it so often is here in the North. And we certainly did not have $100k worth of equipment to take with us to these places. Cabins are monuments for Minnesotans. They pay homage to the outdoors, to nature, to beer. Sacred places of bonding and drinking, of getting away from it all(well, except all the expensive things you are taking with you). A few months ago, I asked my boyfriend, who grew up here and spent half his childhood in cabins, WTH? He didn't really have an answer. Then strangely enough a week after that our neighborhood newspaper published an article about "cabining it" and where it came from. Minnesota has deep Scandanavian roots, the King and Queen of Sweden have been known to visit. Norway, Sweden, The Netherlands or as I jokingly refer to them: the places where white people come from. Spending weekends at cabins is a long held tradition in those countries and as people have grown up from generations of immigrants here in the States it has become a tradition here as well. Well, now I like it too. I've done it about 4 times and loved every visit. This last time a couple of weeks ago I went sledding for the first time and well, that was just ridiculously fun. For me and my friends- it's food, laziness, drinks, games and some sportlike activity(though let's not get too crazy because well, the laziness). I'll leave you with some pictures from Danbury and Siren, Wisconsin as well as a video that will explain it all.