boundary waters canoe trip, part 3

tuesday, august 15th...we set out for little saganaga lake (little sag, for short) from maqua and paddled around to look at various potential campsites, to check out some of burn area left by this summer's forest fire (see will's blog for more about that), and to find the site where the decker boys had stayed with their dad on some of their first BWCA expeditions. that campsite has been closed since the fire, but we decided to make a quick stop there for lunch, keeping close to the canoes just in case any forest service folks stopped by. our stay on little sag was marked by a lot of fly-overs by small aircraft (otherwise forbidden in the boundary waters) that were ostensibly doing surveillance of the fire remains, and also a wonderfully cloudless sky with a ton of stars (some shooting). here's the view. it wasn't the prettiest site, but the look out over the lake was lovely...
hiding out from the sun's hot rays under the tarp.

wednesday, august 16th...from little sag, we set out for mesaba lake where we spent our last night out on the water. after setting up, i found this butterfly flitting around. thinking i had a limited window of opportunity to snap its photo, i grabbed the camera and stealthily snuck over to it. i was so pleased when it landed on sandy's shoe--she's taken an interest in identifying butterflies and will bought her a field guide for their anniversary. we later discovered, with the book's help, that this is a mourning cloak. i kept snapping photos and it was more or less staying put. it hung around our site for a good long while and when sandy came over, she was able to coax it off of her shoe and onto her finger, where we got an even better look. she suspected that it might be dying and, therefore less wary of us and eager to fly away. it was a beautiful creature and i felt lucky that it was letting us check it out so intently, up close.
lucy found a good hiding spot under one of the makeshift benches around the fire grate.
making dinner as the sun set over mesaba.

thursday, august 17th...the day started out rainy. we ate breakfast under the tarp and donned our rain gear, but shortly after we started paddling, the rain stopped and the clouds parted. by the time we paddled across alton lake, a nice headwind had whipped up, which made the waters choppy and the paddle a bit more taxing. on our final portage from alton to sawbill we stopped for a snack--the remaining skittles, peanut m&ms, fruit leather and granola bars. from there, it was a quick trip to the outfitters, where we met up with betsy, pete and henry.

on thursday night, we all stayed in a suite at thomsonite beach resort, right on lake superior. we enjoyed nice and much needed warm showers, and relaxed with some cold beer that afternoon.

we went to dinner at the naniboujou restaurant (see betsy's blog for some pics of the impressive dining room) and i was happy to see henry wear the madras pants i couldn't help picking up for him at the gap outlet. if a 21-month old wants to play golf or pretend he's actually 65, he needs the appropriate clothes, right? i've learned that this is henry's 'someone's taking a picture of me!' face...

(more to come on our stay at kemo lake before returning to the twin cities...)

boundary waters canoe trip, part 2

monday, august 14th...we spent the morning paddling and portaging to maqua (bear) lake and got this great campsite--a good swimming spot, plenty of breeze (okay, it was a little gusty at times and keeping the tarp down to secure the ropes was a little challenging) to keep the bugs away, and a beautiful view. if you squint, you can see will and sandy checking things out...

later in the afternoon, will told us that he had scoped out the trail to this cool rock face around the corner from the campsite. we woke rob up from a dead sleep (will, please post that photo to your blog) to join us on a quick hike to see it before sunset.

tuesday, august 15th...another lovely morning. nice camera work by rob--note the mist and the sun filtering through the tree.


the site's rock was a great place to sit and read (or knit, in my case), dry out our swimsuits and dewy tent rainflies, spy on some frogs, check out the loons taking off and landing on the lake, and plot the day's quick trip to little saganaga lake...
(stay tuned for another installation...)

boundary waters canoe trip

saturday, august 12th...packing up for our bwca trip at will and sandy's house. when we started out, our food pack was heav-y with gorp and skittles and tang and such.

will and lucy do some kind of happy hit-the-road dance...

...before she was relegated to her spot in the way-back for the car trip.

sunday, august 13th...we arrived at sawbill after dark on saturday and camped out on an old logging road. it rained overnight and it was pretty wet and gloomy as we got all of our gear together.

our first night was spent on malburg lake. while paddling around the campsite, we encountered an otter who stuck his neck up and made a funny, defensive puffing noise at us. sadly, it was still raining when he appeared, so no pics. the tarp allowed us to enjoy a dry spaghetti dinner.

monday, august 14th...sunshine! we woke up to a cloudless sky...

...wrung out our wet clothes and let everything dry out a bit before packing up and getting back on the water.
lucy helps out with the breakfast dish washing.
checking out our route to maqua lake on the map...

(to be continued...)

i heart surprises

we have another mystery flower in the backyard! in the same spot there used to be this floppy, unmanageable greenery that came with the house and wouldn't go away. one day it just kind of disappeared and now this lovely bloom has taken its place. can any of you gardening aficionados out there identify it?
a second wonderful surprise this week--sarah sent me this monkey necklace (he's swinging from the chain!) as a congratulations-on-finishing-your-dissertation present (i never knew my neck was so freckle-y).
surprise #3--football season is right around the corner and rob brought home a cornfed herky t-shirt for me. i'll wear it to the chick flick matinees i go to when he and will are at the games. go hawks!

camp woodpecker

i fear that at some point last week, i got hopelessly behind here and could no longer pretend that i would really catch up. so now, here's a fast-forward to this past weekend at camp woodpecker, aka our annual summer sojourn to the fallon family's cabin on lake wisconsin. as always, there was a lot of laughter, great food and drink, lively game playing, frolicking in the lake, trashy magazine reading (which hollywood "it" girls ar partying too hard? just ask me!), lazing on the hammock and porch swings, and a smattering of ghost story telling around the fire (with s'mores, of course).
boomer, julie's golden retriever pup, has gotten so big, though he's not yet in total control of his limbs. we got to see a lot of adorable flopping around. he's a natural swimmer (unlike oscar, who graduated from guppy to minnow with some time in the shallow end of the lake, but is still very wary when there's no ground under his feet) and spent a lot of time in the water.

amy, jeff, julie and kelly hang out on the pier.
some intense, cut-throat yahtzee! rob is hamming it up a bit here (big shock, i know). by this point, he and chris were using the big casino dice and jeff had his glow-in-the-dark D&D dice out. julie and i prefer the traditional, came-in-the-box dice and red plastic tumbler that makes way more noise than necessary.


this summer's camp also happened to coincide with kelly's 30th birthday, and we enjoyed some cake before taking off on sunday. she's a gracious hostess, makes a mean mojito and always makes us feel at home at the cabin.