We met Dan at our dock at 8:30 this morning with some apprehension because it was misting, windy, overcast and cold. But the weather held up for us ok.
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| Dan & Dan's Boat |
He drove us, in his boat, over to the Cruiser Lake trailhead and dropped us off a little after 9am. We were doused in bug spray but it mattered not – the bugs were epic – likely the single most memorable part of this trip.
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| Getting dropped off at Cruiser Lake Trailhead |
We hiked back to Agnes Lake (beautiful)
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| Agnes Lake |
Then we double backed and hiked to Eks Lake, stopping to eat lots of delicious wild blue berries.
There’s a lot of remote camping out here so it was great when we took a dead-end trail to this:
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| A potty |
We lost and found the trail several times and saw no humans at all. We cut the hiking short because of the bugs and popped out on Eks Bay where Dan was waiting for us. He’s the nicest guy – 63 – as stereo-typically Minnesotan as you can imagine – and he loves vampire books 😊 We got back in the boat and he drove us to Ellworth Rock Gardens, something Jason, the owner of our resort, said we should definitely do. And it was definitely stupid. Some weird guy “carved” statues out of rocks and arranged them with some flowers. The best part of this stop was the wild raspberry bushes!
The most photographed stop in the park was the statue called Meteorite. So we HAD to go see it and it was literally a stack of rocks.
We got back in the boat and Dan took us back to the
resort. We never ate lunch on the trail
because of the bugs so we ate our pepperoni, Ritz, cream cheese lunch in our
cabin and just chilled out – much cooler today than the previous days.
Later in the day we gathered our dirty clothes and drove back to International Falls to do some laundry and eat dinner. The kids had never been in a laundromat before and I hadn’t in a lot of years but shit – detergent - $1.00 per load, 1 load of laundry - $2.50 (we did two) – one giant dryer load - $6.25!!! So, two loads of laundry cost $13.25! I feel like the last time I was at a laundromat it was $0.75 to wash and $0.50 to dry – max!
After we put the clothes in the dryer we left (with some anxiety knowing that if someone were to steal our clothes, we’d be hosed…and naked) and ate dinner at Sammy’s Pizza just down the street. It was good!
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| Sammy's in beautiful International Falls, MN |
Nick got pizza, I got fried fish and fries (ate way too much), Ryan got chicken strips and Grant got poutine and wings – and as is normal for Grant, had tons of food left over.
We went back to the laundromat, folded our clothes and left. Now we’re mostly packed, it’s 9pm and
basically bright as day, and we’re leaving very early tomorrow morning. The kids STILL think we’re getting to Isle
Royale via ferry but we’re actually taking a seaplane and they don’t know about
it. I’ve had to lie to so many strangers
because people keep asking how we’re getting there in front of the kids. It’s basically as expensive to fly from the
coast of Michigan to Isle Royale as it was to fly from Dallas to
Minneapolis. But I’m SO excited because
none of us have ever been on a seaplane before.
So I’m signing off from Voyageurs and will be signing on
tomorrow night after we’ve seen the Last of the Lower 48!!
P.S. Ryan found out
this morning that she got 3s 4s and 5s on her four AP test which makes her a
Distinguished AP Scholar.
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