Brenda Leigh and her hubby Jim had a new sauna built at their Brimley home and have been chomping at the bit to fire it up and get toasty, but there has been delay after delay, stopping that from happening. The last piece of the puzzle to get it going, was their sauna stove, which they purchased right here in the Keweenaw and had it shipped to them recently. Once it arrived, Brenda said she knew they didn't have enough basalt stones for the stove, so off to the shores of Lake Superior she headed to fill up her buckets one more time. Freezing cold and wet fingers later, the stove was filled with plenty of sauna rocks and was ready to fire up!

The bottom photo is the first light of morning that Brenda took after one of the recent storms they had on the eastern end of the U.P. She called it the "Calm after the Big Blow". I thought it would be a good way to start the first Monday of 2016. It sure is a beauty!

Great pictures, as always, Brenda!!!

That is a neat looking sauna. How was the first sauna in it? I hope it met your expectations. Of course there is no such thing as a bad sauna, some are just better than others.

Nice looking sauna.

I wonder if there are any "Smoke Saunas"
anywhere in the UP. They can still be found in
Finland but are more a novelty now. I've only
had one and that was enough.

A wood fire heats up and smokes up everything.
Right before you enter they open vents to let
all the smoke out. You need the cold dip in the
lake afterward to rinse off all the soot if
nothing else.

Oh dear, hope those rocks didn't weigh more than 25 pounds, or Brenda could suffer the fate of the man with the 93 pound Petoskey stone!!

AWESOME!

Lovely U.P. scenery around the sauna.

I could use a good sauna right about now. :-)
Love the pics!

Time for a little fun with words: "Ne ovat kiuaskivet!"

But how about trying a "translation" of an English slang term in the phrase:

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Quote:

"(Taking a/going to) Sauna 'rocks'!"?

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Quote:

"Sauna rokata!"(?) "Sauna keinuttaa!"(?)

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Quote:

'Saunominen rocks!" or even more simply "Sauna rocks!"

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It doesn't bore me, FR. I wish I had learned to speak more than a
few words and phrases of Finnish as a child.

I remember visiting these same Lake Superior shores south of Paradise to get sauna rocks for our new sauna back in the '60's.

Later on, after we would take our sauna Saturday night, we would let the neighbors come over and take a turn. Dad taught me to say one of my few Finnish phrases-- I would call up the neighbors and say, "Sauna on tyhjä!" They would say "Kiitos!"