Post by Sporlo on Jul 20, 2008 13:45:02 GMT
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Entry date: Saturday, July 19th, 10am
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Wednesday, July 16th
I did basically nothing today, as we would be leaving that night. I had a school physical at 11am, and I got a meningitis vaccination. It wasn't required, but suggested, so what the heck, why not. Unfortunately it left my left shoulder pretty sore for 24+ hours. Not painful, but just annoying that I couldn't use the full power of it without it bothering me. The rest of the day was pretty much sitting around. My dad came home early to sleep for 5 hours. He'd drive the whole way through the night, minus 2 hours that my sister drove. I think the most productive thing I did that day was take down the Wii and pack it in a paper bag to bring with.
Amazingly, we left at almost exactly 8pm, our planned time of departure. Since my sister left the gas tank empty, we already had to make our first stop 5 minutes away to get gas. A random amount of time later, and we stopped at a Wendy's to get dinner, and ate it in the car. My sister and I had to eat our salads with spoons, as neither the employees nor any of the family bothered to grab some. While in the car, all I did was listen to my iPod, played a few games on it in the beginning, and messed around in PictoChat with my brother for a little bit. I set the iPod's backlight to the dimmest setting, and I was so surprised at the battery life it gave me. I listened to music until 4am, and then I just gave up because I was so tired. I dozed off a few times though. It was funny because I could tell how long I was napping by counting all the songs that I didn't remember listening to. The first time I fell asleep, I was really annoyed when I woke up, because the first thing I noticed was a huge pool of drool on my mouth and pillow. I hate when I do that. It really only happens when I'm sleeping anyplace other than my bed. And the next thing I noticed was that my left hand was asleep. REALLY asleep. More asleep than any of my other body parts had ever been. I ALMOST had no feeling in it. I can't really describe the feeling. It felt slightly swollen, and when I touched it with my right hand, there was this kind of tingling ripple effect, I don't know. I was surprised though that it didn't hurt at all. Usually you get that kind of strained feeling to things that've fallen asleep, but it took about 2 minutes just to get that feeling to come in, and then it stayed there for plenty longer. That nap was 13 songs long. The rest of our stops were just routine gas stops or to change drivers.
Thursday, July 17th (I don't know exactly where this day break would go, but it's ROUGHLY around this time)
Before we got to Rice Lake (only stop location I remember, specifically because I asked about it), I had been attempting to take pictures of the Moon and Jupiter. Due to the full moon, most of the other stars were invisible, so the only thing near the moon that was visible was Jupiter (only reason I knew it was Jupiter was because I saw it on the news earlier). I had pretty unsuccessful pictures (but not really considering I was in a CAR), but I was amazed when I saw I could actually track the moon with the camera looking through the binoculars. Only for a half second at a time though. But, when we stopped for gas at Rice Lake (I've yet to look that up to see where exactly we were), I propped the binoculars on the roof of the car, and got some pictures of the full moon. They were AWESOME.
Ok, so any other camera with better zoom could easily have gotten that quality pictures, but considering it was a crappy Kodak camera with only 3x optical zoom, I think they're really great. And I felt really proud of myself to have figured out the challenge of getting the right exposure and focus. I used center spot exposure metering and center, not multipatterned, focusing. They were simply easily changeable settings on the camera, and ANYONE could easily have figured that out, but still, I was just excited I got very good quality pictures of the moon for such a low quality camera. (Since I have no way of getting the pictures on the computer, I'll have to wait to add them until I get home.) Since we had plenty of time, we also stopped at a rest stop for a little bit to sleep. It was at a lake with rivers that either went to the Hudson Bay, Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic Ocean. That sounds pretty cool.
I think at roughly 7am we arrived at Orr, an extremely small town (as are ALL the other towns within a HUGE radius) 33 miles from Crane Lake, or about 30 minutes. We always stop there to get groceries and eat breakfast the first morning. Unfortunately, our usual diner was closed! So we had to settle with another one almost next to it. Can't even remember the name. Anyways it was in much worse condition. I clearly remember Walter, apparently a regular who couldn't talk straight, really old, and the waiter/probably-owner knew him. The food sucked, and the bathroom was scary. But I guess what should I expect from a place like this in Orr, of all places. Since I was stupid and tried to stay up as late as possible listening to music, I was extremely tired that morning. I tried sleeping in the car every chance I got, which included while everyone else bought groceries, and mostly the whole way to Crane Lake. I woke up when we got there, and I'm thinking... Whoa. We're here. Weird. Guess I gotta get out of the car. I forgot to mention that earlier in the night, we found out that my uncle had hired a guy to fix our dock and help start up the water pump. Apparently he had found our dock somewhere somehow, and my dad was much happier. Still, we knew it wouldn't be up yet, so for our first trip across the lake to the cabin, we took very little. Lucky me, the first thing I do when I step in the boat is get scraped under my right knee by the small tank thing on the side of the boat that's connected to the gas line. It hasn't been an hour and I'm already bleeding. Our dock consists of a solid walkway, with cribbing so it doesn't move. That's connected to the land. Then there's the floating dock with some make shift steps so you can span the 3 foot height between the two structures. Only the floating dock was "lost", but the solid dock's cribbing was severely damaged, and the outermost pile had completely collapsed, so the outer end was just hanging by it's own logs. (maybe I should include some more pictures later.) We had to ease the boat near that and jump up onto that. I was amazed it held. It was like being on a gigantic diving board.
As always, the weeds had taken over everything. Everywhere a plant COULD grow, it DID. Plus, a huge pine tree had fallen right over our normal walkway to and from the cabin/lake. Luckily with a small detour we made another make shift path that functioned well enough. Everyone was kind of shocked at the state of the cabin. It was a wreck. Dirt/plant remains all over the floor, empty bottles of assorted alcohols scattered around the tables, as well as other random trash. My uncle said he left in a hurry, but I didn't know anyone could make such a mess. So, as we were the first ones to arrive, we got to clean everything! The entire day we just cleaned stuff. I mostly vacuumed, but I was completely exhausted the whole day. Despite my naps I barely got any sleep the night before, and the environment wasn't helping.
Due to floods (apparently 2 weeks ago the water was 2 feet higher than now), the bugs were EXTREMELY bad. They ARE bad now. I had thought to myself I probably doubled my existing bug bites within the first 30 minutes of being at the cabin. And now, I probably have 10 times as many! I literally have bites everywhere. Mostly mosquito bites, but there's plenty of biting flies to go around. And my brother got a tick his first day. We were sitting in the boat, when I saw something on his leg. I couldn't determine what it was, and then I realized, it was a tick! Nasty little things. He had a hard time pulling it off. Yuck. Oh yeah, there's plenty of dock spiders (predictably) around the dock as well. They're huge black/gray spiders that hang around under docks, and they come up if the underside gets wet or sometimes just for fun. The bigger ones may have around 6 inch leg spans, but I think their large round abdomens might be the ominous part of them. It just makes them look bigger and more dangerous. I'm pretty sure they're harmless though. So when you're outside, you're bound to get a few bites if you're not constantly moving. I hate the flies though. They just follow you. I've had them follow me from the dock all the way to the cabin. And bug spray doesn't really help. Maybe the mosquitos are repelled, but the flies just keep on coming. Even in the cabin there's always a couple mosquitos floating around.
When my dad and the guy finished reattaching the repaired dock, it actually turned out better than it was the year before. Last year, the shore end of the floating dock lost a float on one side, so one end would always be submerged, and the other would be sticking out of the water a ways. At least this year it's flat, but unfortunately it's easily wetted if you just put some sudden weight on it, like stepping onto it. At least the far end doesn't get wet unless you want it to.
Unfortunately, they never got the water pump working, so we had no running lake water. We went to the beach though after we finished cleaning, but only to "shower". Then we came back, had some bratwurst, watched the beginning of 27 Dresses before everyone got tired and we shut it off and went to bed.
Friday, July 18th
Everyone but my mom got up at 7am to over to Nelson's resort. My sister went for a run, while my dad used his laptop, and I used ours (and posted a bit on the forums). He had a coffee and my brother and I had the best hot chocolate EVER. My sister completely forgot that she couldn't take a hot shower at the cabin, so she waited until later that day to take a shower when the guy finally got the water pump working.
We really didn't do a lot today, especially if you compare it to the day before. My dad weed-whacked for about 5 hours, and he said he was really sore after that, but it was worth it though, because the tall weeds are all gone!!! It's AWESOME!! I collected some wood and constructed a nice pyramid in the fire pit for after our seaplane ride later that day. We never had a fire because it was really late and the bugs were HORRIBLE. My brother got out the paddle boat too. It's pretty fun. It seats 2 people with 2 REALLY small seats in the back. We just paddle around randomly. Just before we headed for Nelson's for our seaplane ride, my dad, brother and I washed up in the lake off the dock. And that's when my brother got a leech. So so far he's had a tick and leech. What's next?
Our ride was scheduled for 6:15, but it got delayed a bit. The passengers before us had the dinner service, which is where the pilot would fly to YOUR dock, pick you up, fly around a bit, drop you off at a nearby restaurant of your choice, and then when you were done he'd pick you up again and drop you off at your dock. So we were taking a 1 hour tour while they were eating dinner at Nelson's. I was really looking forward to this. I'd never been in a small plane like this. In fact I've only been on a commercial flight 4 times: there/back, there/back, one trip when I was too young to remember it. We had a nice pilot too, his name was Bud. We climbed in, buckled up, put on our headsets, and taxied down the lake. It was really cool taking off from a lake. The waves were really bumpy, but it was soooo cool when we lifted off the water. It was so smooth. I was just amazed. The first initial feeling of just seeing the ground and water get farther and farther was awesome. That was probably the most spectacular part of the flight, as insignificant as it seems: taking off and the few minutes after.
[the East Bay] 
[Party Island] We flew around the lake a bit, and then we circled around our cabin a few times. That was also very cool. All the cabins looked so tiny. Ours was just a tiny red dot among the huge mass of trees. 
And we saw the area behind our cabin, simply a small yucky marsh. We hiked back there last year (not into it though), and went a ways along the power lines. We could actually follow those back to Nelson's, but that'd take forever. Next we headed east over Dover Lake, another lake we'd been to, not connected to anything else. And we're already in Canada. We flew all around Canada, saw some of the larger lakes. We saw a tiny Indian village that used to be only accessible by water or air. It was amazing how empty the wilderness was back here. There was literally NOTHING. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. 
[infinite wilderness. awesome.] 
[Land of 10,000 Lakes 
] Looking at the horizon all around us there was nothing but trees and water. We flew close enough to see Ely (another town, has lots of resorts). All it was was a white dot for it's water tower, and a bit more whiteness which was the town. I took lots of pictures. Some turned out better than others, and looking back at them, seeing it for real was just a billion times better. Our pilot had a lot to say, and he made it interesting. We didn't get to see any moose though. We at the end we flew by Vermillion river and the Vermillion gorge and falls. We go there every year, and it was really neat to see it from above. 
[coolness] I was sitting in the copilot's seat, and at one point, he let me kind of control the plane a bit. It was really cool. I was surprised at the sensitivity of the wheel. I really didn't do much, just turn a little left or right to get to our next destination, but still, knowing that I was actually controlling it, and he wasn't, was awesome. That also made me think. Especially as sensitive as it was, one small mishap could like... send you spiraling down into the ground in an instant. That knowledge alone would make anyone pay attention to what they were doing. I was barely moving the wheel at all and we'd turn. It was just awesome. I was expecting the landing to be more... I don't know, complex? It was amazing how fast we landed. It was like, we were flying over Crane Lake, Bud's looking around, just making sure no one's in the way, we smoothly glide lower, approach the lake, level out a little bit more, hit the water, slide along the water a bit, and slowly taxi to Nelson's dock. That was it. Nothing more. We just flew in and landed. I expected a little more, not in a sense that I was disappointed, but I was just surprised. We got a picture in front of the plane, paid him, then ate dinner at Nelson's. 
[the plane. I don't know that guy on the left 
] That was really a great night. I had the crab-stuffed walleye with wild rice. Everything we ate was delicious. The chips, the bread, the fish sticks, the meal. Even the water, from a well, tasted better than last year.
We watched Jumper when we got home, but it wasn't that good.
Saturday, July 19th
My dad and sister left to go to Virginia (a larger town 1.5 hours away) to buy groceries and other stuff while I was still sleeping. I woke up, and now I'm typing this. My brother and mom have just been hanging out, and my dad and sister will be back soon. I may start the fire I set up yesterday, as it's going to rain tonight, or I might play Wii. But for now, I'm shutting this computer down, because I've just written way too much. (to be continuted...)
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Entry date: Monday, July 21st, 10:30pm
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So just after I finished typing, my dad and sister got back. We ate lunch, and then I believe I messed around with the fire the rest of the day. Predictably, the weather forecast was off and it didn't rain at all that day, and in fact it turned out to be a VERY nice day. After the first fire went out, my brother piled on some grass clippings from the day before, and then we surrounded it with precut logs from inside for the fireplace. The embers underneath were apparently still hot, because before long smoke started streaming out. It was almost dinner time and we didn't plan on lighting the fire yet. It probably smoked for around an hour before it FINALLY caught fire and we saw the first flames. The steaks for dinner were done a bit after, and we had to leave the fire unattended. I was thinking, you don't really need all those warnings about leaving fires unattended, because they're so cool anyway that you'll only leave it if you have to. Besides, I found with all the bugs, despite burning my eyes all the time in the heat, it's nice to be near the fire with the smoke. Anytime a fly or mosquito was following me, I'd just step into the smoke for a second, and most of the time they'd leave.
[volcano fire!] We hadn't planned on it at all, but since the fire was already at its peak, we decided to make s'mores after dinner. That was also probably the best s'more meal of all the years too. I regretted eating so many marshmallows, but it was the perfect fire: very few flames, with lots of hot coals. My favorite cooking method is roasting just the outer layer very lightly, just enough so that you can slide off the crust. I love the crunchy outside with the melted fluff inside, but since it's only a very thin crust, it's very airy when you eat it. Then, you have a slightly smaller marshmallow, and you do the same thing over and over until it's too small to get a crust off it, so you eat the rest. And I've concluded that natural wooden sticks from the woods make much better skewers than the "convenient" metal ones you can buy.
I used the cabin shower for the first time in years. The pressure and temperature control was fine, but the stream sucked. There were like 3-4 thin streams of water. Not ideal for washing.
Movie of the night: World Trade Center. It was ok. I was utterly shocked though at then end when it said that a total of 20 people were pulled out of the debris alive. I was confused as to why they were making such a big deal out of this one guy's rescue from the wreckage. I'm pretty sure that 20 doesn't include people who got out of it themselves, and plus there's all those who successfully evacuated, but I guess it hadn't occurred me how low one's chances of survival from within the building would be. I remember on one TV segment, a guy was saying there was only just a couple floors where you'd likely survive from. If you were too high, you'd just get caught up in the collapse and all the wreckage, but if you were too low, the pressure and height of debris would simply be too great.
Sunday, July 20th
Today we "tackled the tree".
Everyone but my mom got up for the routine trip to Nelson's. My sister ran, we had coffee/hot chocolate, I checked the forums (I really wish my friends would be up earlier. I always check Gmail, but no one's ever on. I also always check the day's forecast, but it's proved to be wrong almost every time). We had an awesome breakfast when we got home: pancakes, canadian bacon, eggs, and OJ. My brother started making the pancakes, but I was bored, so started helping out, and soon, without anyone acknowledging it, I ended up finishing up the last half of them. The only one I ate was a gigantic one I made with the remains of the batter. It was delicious. Super thick and super soft and fluffy. After, everyone got on long pants and tennis shoes (by far the best mosquito repellant I've used). My dad started cutting up the tree that had fallen right across our dock/cabin path. The only chainsaw we have is unfortunately very puny. Because it's electric. But when he swapped out the chain, the sharper one worked wonders compared to before. My brother and I mostly collected and organized the branches. My brother weed-whacked a bit, and my dad let my sister cut a section of the trunk. At sometime around 1-3, the "yard work" was officially done. It was the plan to burn the collected logs (anything with needles was tossed into the abyss of weeds and trees towards shore), but I doubted we'd ever get through it. We started a fire anyway (with difficulty and the help of my sister. But I think I warmed it up for her). The billows (or bellows? The thing that blows air to feed fires) was needed to start almost every fire so far. I can't believe how valuable it is. Finally, it started to cloud up, and we were sure it was going to rain. We covered the branches while the fire was still going. My brother accidentally knocked a brick off the ring onto the tarp, and I burned my pointer and middle fingers trying to pick it up. It was pretty stupid. The idea was to feel both sides to see which one was the hot one facing the fire, and which was the cool side that I could touch to pick up and put it back. Problem was, that required me to touch the hot side if I guessed wrong. So I did. DANG that hurt. I jumped up and down for a second, then replaced the brick with my other hand. Luckily it was an extremely mild burn. It stung for a while, and the skin shrunk a bit, but now my fingers are fine, and the only signs of it is a TINY bit of wrinkliness. We had a large lunch just like breakfast, and during it it finally started raining. But only for about 30 minutes. When it stopped, we swam in the lake for a while. My brother and I'd paddle out maybe 100 yds with the paddle boat and the tube attached to the back, and we'd jump in and take turns paddling around. Some random canoers came to try out our neighbors jumping rock. It's a smooth cliff roughly the height of your standard high-dive at swimming pools. Most of them weren't actually jumping from the highest area though... After we swam, we resumed the slow process of destroying the rest of the branch logs. Amazingly, by the time it got darker, we were almost through the pile. With another break for some of the best seasoned chicken ever, I got excited and added the rest of the wood. Even before dinner, the fire was huge, but with the final addition of wood, it became the largest and hottest fire I've ever made. It was actually very cool. The flames were coming a foot or more out of the brick ring, and since we had saved the largest logs for last (simply because they were at the bottom), the pyramid-like formation was very high as well. I was surprised it didn't collapse like, out of the ring. Inside it all, it was cool to actually have yellow and white coals instead of orange ones. I took the billows and blew straight into the heart of it and it got way hotter. My eyes burned so bad, and looking away didn't cool them down enough, so I had to put my arm over them to absorb some heat. I was afraid my clothes were going to catch fire or something when I'd step next to ring. Despite the spectacular fire, it now no longer repelled bugs as well, to my disappointment and surprise. There was now virtually no smoke at all (in fact just a lot of sparks and heat), just heat. So now the only way to get away from mosquitoes would be to stand right next to the fire to get enough heat to keep them away, and that wasn't very comfortable.
It burned that big for a while, while we watched Garden State. That is one weird movie. The beginning reminded me of Elizabethtown, and I guess was sort of similar, but basically every person in the movie had no emotion. There was barely any interaction between people too. My dad spent $150 on movies, and not many have turned out that good...
Monday (today) is pretty short, but I'm just too tired. Plus I only have 8% battery left. So I'll catch up on this later.
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Entry date: Wednesday, August 20th, 11:30pm
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Sadly, since it's been a month since I last experienced these experiences, I won't be able to give basically any detail.
Monday, July 21st
The main event of today was canoeing to Party Island. The island doesn't really have I name I believe, but that's what everybody calls it. It's a tiny island at the mouth of the East Bay on the lake. Using my GPS, I got some info on the short trip there, and on the island:
We managed to get to a max speed of 4 mph.
From the dock to the island was .68 miles.
It took about 15 minutes any way.
On average, we were going 2.7 mph.
Party Island is about 325 ft long. It seems shorter though.
Well my arms aren't that strong, so paddling even that short distance was a bit tiring for my arms, but one reason was because we were actually trying to go fast. I'm not sure if I would like going many many miles in a canoe like some people do. I don't think it'd be that bad, but being in the small area, not really able to stand up, for many hours... I don't know. Before we got onto the island, we discovered a small beach right next to it on the mainland. We'd never noticed it before, and it was fairly nice. Sand wasn't very rocky, and there was a nice camp ground on the tip of the mouth of the bay. A few more minutes at the beach and we got onto Party Island. We didn't do anything, but it was neat having a better view of the whole lake. I took a bunch of pictures too. My dad and I paddled on the way there, my brother and dad paddled the way back. I can't remember what we did the rest of the day, but I'm seeing I took some pictures of the clouds over the lake later that day because I think I was waiting for it to rain. I'm not sure if it did or not.
Tuesday, July 22nd
Today we went to My Island!
It's a smallish biggish island (can't decide. It all depends on what you compare it to) less than 500 feet from Canada in Namakan Lake. It's in Voyageur's National Park. You live in it, but they've set up countless campsites all around the area of the park. Some are only daysites, some you can camp overnight, and some you can park a house boat at. My Island has 3 sites on it, but the one we use is a day only site, and it's probably the best of the three. Here's some data from my GPS about the trip:
27.8 miles total.
Top speed: 32 mph
Total moving time: 1 hour 9 minutes
Average moving speed: 24 mph
Takes about 26 minutes to get there.
One-way distance is about 13 miles.
Luckily we chose a calm day to venture out. Last year the wind and waves were horrible, today it was warm and calm. The beach is I think the best beach I've ever been to. There's smooth, offwhite, dry sand, and the shallow sand is a tad rocky, but it's not bad at all. However, when you get to about 3 feet deep, the sand gets EXTREMELY smooth, and very black and gold. I know exactly what rock causes the black/gold, because you can them everywhere. You can think of the deeper, black and gold sand as wet flour or powdered sugar. It's THAT smooth. Describing it just isn't enough, it's amazing to feel. Anyway, when we first got there, we dropped off my sister and mom, then the rest of us went boating around the island and surrounding islands. We checked out Your Island and Blind Pig Island, the two to the south of My Island. We saw a bunch of house boats parked on those two. We also discovered for the first time that there was another good beach right around the corner of the bay, still on My Island. It wasn't as good as our site, but still really nice. Then we illegally ventured a couple hundred feet into Canada and drove around a small island. It's so weird to be looking from America across just less than 2,000 feet of water at a Canadian home. There was a big flagpole with a Canadian flag on it.
[Canadians!] After venturing to the west tip of My Island for the first time, I discovered a strange metal spike embedded in the rock. I got some pictures. It said U.S. on one side, and 362 on the other. Very strange. 
The water was the perfect temperature. Cold at first, but you got used to it and it felt good. the beach is also very gradual, so you can go out a ways and still be able to stand. Before we ate lunch, my dad and I were looking at a Voyageur's National Park map while my brother fed a spoiled squirrel. When my brother left, the squirrel stayed and it curiously came within inches of my dad. It chewed on one of our Gatorade bottles, and then it'd creep up the picnic table and sit there staring at my dad. He looked as if he was going to attack or something. My dad just kept shooing it away until we left. Looking at the map, we located where Kettle Falls is. To get there you must go much farther east, then farther north, then west again. We've been wanting to check out Kettle Falls for years but we've never gotten around to it. It's an extra 16++ miles, so we'd need plenty of gas and lots of time. We also stopped by Makooda Lake on the way home. It's landlocked, so you have to walk to it from Sand Point Lake. We only visited for like 1 minute. My mom wanted to get home.
A bit later, we headed over to Crane Lake the town to buy some stuff. I got a sweatshirt. Then we went to Hamburg's Marina where we got the HUGEST ICE CREAM CONES EVER!!! The lady there scooping the ice cream PILED it on like there was no tomorrow. The ice cream above the cone was almost half the total height! It was really good too. I got Black Cherry I think it was called. Delicious. I later noticed in a brochure they said they sell ice cream with "generous portions". You got that right. OVERgenerous portions. It was cheap too! The most amazing ice cream deal in the world. Awesome.
BTW, shortly before this, our boat broke down and we had to order a rental while we DROVE to the two above places.
Wednesday, July 23rd
As far as I can tell from the photos, all we did today was visit Vermillion Falls. It was just me, my dad, and my sister, because my mom decided to stay home. It's only 8-10 miles away from the resort driving. With about 3-4 miles to go, my dad suddenly realizes that the car's on E. We've never had low fuel at Crane Lake! We usually fill up at Orr before we get to Crane, and that lasts the rest of the vacation. Well now we're all freaking out, because we're in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road with ALMOST no fuel. It's been low for a while we guess, so we decide not to take any chances and head back. Heading into town, we discover the smallest and oldest gas station I've ever been to. It's got 1 pump, and only 1 choice: unleaded. So we fill 'er up and head back down the road to Vermillion. Due to the recent rise in water elevation, the falls were much more cool than normal.
It's probably the most aggressive I've ever seen it. The water was no longer rolling down the gorge, it was raging down it. The water was white and yellow/brown, it's natural color, and it looked as if it was 50% air. It looked exactly like a washing machine on drugs. The noise was far louder too. I got some pictures and a short video right as the camera's battery died. Comparing this year's pictures to ones a few years ago, it's amazing to see the difference in the height and intensity of the falls.
I think that was it for today.
I'd like to note though that at some point during these last few days my brother, dad and I fished a bit. We all caught one. I got a crappie, and my brother and dad got either a crappie or walleye. We didn't fish much this year. We usually do a lot more though.
Thursday, July 24th
Cards day! It was really cloudy and rained a bunch, so we just stayed inside, lounged, and played cards. My dad taught us Euchre, but my brother was too lazy to comprehend anything. We also played Between the Sheets, 5-card Stud, and a few others. We used real money from the cabin and my dad's wallet. My brother ended up with most of it playing Between the Sheets because he could actually understand that game.
That night we ate at Voyagaire Lodge, the other good dinner place. I ordered a not-so-tasty meal, but that was my fault. We had a good time talking though. On the way home, we went by a $2 million home on Bear Island on the lake.
Friday, July 25th
The day we left. We spent the morning tidying up the cabin and getting ready to pack up the boat. It was very cloudy early on, and when my sister, dad, and brother took the first boatload of stuff across the lake, it started pouring. Well after they got there. After that however it cleared up and it just got really really windy. SUPER windy. Maybe the windiest I've seen it. And we had that small rental boat that's much lighter that ours. Looks like we're gonna get wet! And we did. The spray was real bad we all wore raincoats. I can't remember anything of significance on the drive home. My brother made us stop and me take a picture of the town sign for Buyck (pronounced Bike) because is has a real child's bicycle mounted above the sign to help people remember how to pronounce it. At 8pm-ish we ate at our usual Perkins restaurant. I was going to get a slice of the most amazingest pie ever, but no, they were out. WTF?
I think we got home at around 12am, 1am or something. We emptied the entire car and piled everything in the garage then we all went to sleep.
THE END
Entry date: Saturday, July 19th, 10am
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Wednesday, July 16th
I did basically nothing today, as we would be leaving that night. I had a school physical at 11am, and I got a meningitis vaccination. It wasn't required, but suggested, so what the heck, why not. Unfortunately it left my left shoulder pretty sore for 24+ hours. Not painful, but just annoying that I couldn't use the full power of it without it bothering me. The rest of the day was pretty much sitting around. My dad came home early to sleep for 5 hours. He'd drive the whole way through the night, minus 2 hours that my sister drove. I think the most productive thing I did that day was take down the Wii and pack it in a paper bag to bring with.
Amazingly, we left at almost exactly 8pm, our planned time of departure. Since my sister left the gas tank empty, we already had to make our first stop 5 minutes away to get gas. A random amount of time later, and we stopped at a Wendy's to get dinner, and ate it in the car. My sister and I had to eat our salads with spoons, as neither the employees nor any of the family bothered to grab some. While in the car, all I did was listen to my iPod, played a few games on it in the beginning, and messed around in PictoChat with my brother for a little bit. I set the iPod's backlight to the dimmest setting, and I was so surprised at the battery life it gave me. I listened to music until 4am, and then I just gave up because I was so tired. I dozed off a few times though. It was funny because I could tell how long I was napping by counting all the songs that I didn't remember listening to. The first time I fell asleep, I was really annoyed when I woke up, because the first thing I noticed was a huge pool of drool on my mouth and pillow. I hate when I do that. It really only happens when I'm sleeping anyplace other than my bed. And the next thing I noticed was that my left hand was asleep. REALLY asleep. More asleep than any of my other body parts had ever been. I ALMOST had no feeling in it. I can't really describe the feeling. It felt slightly swollen, and when I touched it with my right hand, there was this kind of tingling ripple effect, I don't know. I was surprised though that it didn't hurt at all. Usually you get that kind of strained feeling to things that've fallen asleep, but it took about 2 minutes just to get that feeling to come in, and then it stayed there for plenty longer. That nap was 13 songs long. The rest of our stops were just routine gas stops or to change drivers.
Thursday, July 17th (I don't know exactly where this day break would go, but it's ROUGHLY around this time)
Before we got to Rice Lake (only stop location I remember, specifically because I asked about it), I had been attempting to take pictures of the Moon and Jupiter. Due to the full moon, most of the other stars were invisible, so the only thing near the moon that was visible was Jupiter (only reason I knew it was Jupiter was because I saw it on the news earlier). I had pretty unsuccessful pictures (but not really considering I was in a CAR), but I was amazed when I saw I could actually track the moon with the camera looking through the binoculars. Only for a half second at a time though. But, when we stopped for gas at Rice Lake (I've yet to look that up to see where exactly we were), I propped the binoculars on the roof of the car, and got some pictures of the full moon. They were AWESOME.
Ok, so any other camera with better zoom could easily have gotten that quality pictures, but considering it was a crappy Kodak camera with only 3x optical zoom, I think they're really great. And I felt really proud of myself to have figured out the challenge of getting the right exposure and focus. I used center spot exposure metering and center, not multipatterned, focusing. They were simply easily changeable settings on the camera, and ANYONE could easily have figured that out, but still, I was just excited I got very good quality pictures of the moon for such a low quality camera. (Since I have no way of getting the pictures on the computer, I'll have to wait to add them until I get home.) Since we had plenty of time, we also stopped at a rest stop for a little bit to sleep. It was at a lake with rivers that either went to the Hudson Bay, Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic Ocean. That sounds pretty cool.I think at roughly 7am we arrived at Orr, an extremely small town (as are ALL the other towns within a HUGE radius) 33 miles from Crane Lake, or about 30 minutes. We always stop there to get groceries and eat breakfast the first morning. Unfortunately, our usual diner was closed! So we had to settle with another one almost next to it. Can't even remember the name. Anyways it was in much worse condition. I clearly remember Walter, apparently a regular who couldn't talk straight, really old, and the waiter/probably-owner knew him. The food sucked, and the bathroom was scary. But I guess what should I expect from a place like this in Orr, of all places. Since I was stupid and tried to stay up as late as possible listening to music, I was extremely tired that morning. I tried sleeping in the car every chance I got, which included while everyone else bought groceries, and mostly the whole way to Crane Lake. I woke up when we got there, and I'm thinking... Whoa. We're here. Weird. Guess I gotta get out of the car. I forgot to mention that earlier in the night, we found out that my uncle had hired a guy to fix our dock and help start up the water pump. Apparently he had found our dock somewhere somehow, and my dad was much happier. Still, we knew it wouldn't be up yet, so for our first trip across the lake to the cabin, we took very little. Lucky me, the first thing I do when I step in the boat is get scraped under my right knee by the small tank thing on the side of the boat that's connected to the gas line. It hasn't been an hour and I'm already bleeding. Our dock consists of a solid walkway, with cribbing so it doesn't move. That's connected to the land. Then there's the floating dock with some make shift steps so you can span the 3 foot height between the two structures. Only the floating dock was "lost", but the solid dock's cribbing was severely damaged, and the outermost pile had completely collapsed, so the outer end was just hanging by it's own logs. (maybe I should include some more pictures later.) We had to ease the boat near that and jump up onto that. I was amazed it held. It was like being on a gigantic diving board.
As always, the weeds had taken over everything. Everywhere a plant COULD grow, it DID. Plus, a huge pine tree had fallen right over our normal walkway to and from the cabin/lake. Luckily with a small detour we made another make shift path that functioned well enough. Everyone was kind of shocked at the state of the cabin. It was a wreck. Dirt/plant remains all over the floor, empty bottles of assorted alcohols scattered around the tables, as well as other random trash. My uncle said he left in a hurry, but I didn't know anyone could make such a mess. So, as we were the first ones to arrive, we got to clean everything! The entire day we just cleaned stuff. I mostly vacuumed, but I was completely exhausted the whole day. Despite my naps I barely got any sleep the night before, and the environment wasn't helping.
Due to floods (apparently 2 weeks ago the water was 2 feet higher than now), the bugs were EXTREMELY bad. They ARE bad now. I had thought to myself I probably doubled my existing bug bites within the first 30 minutes of being at the cabin. And now, I probably have 10 times as many! I literally have bites everywhere. Mostly mosquito bites, but there's plenty of biting flies to go around. And my brother got a tick his first day. We were sitting in the boat, when I saw something on his leg. I couldn't determine what it was, and then I realized, it was a tick! Nasty little things. He had a hard time pulling it off. Yuck. Oh yeah, there's plenty of dock spiders (predictably) around the dock as well. They're huge black/gray spiders that hang around under docks, and they come up if the underside gets wet or sometimes just for fun. The bigger ones may have around 6 inch leg spans, but I think their large round abdomens might be the ominous part of them. It just makes them look bigger and more dangerous. I'm pretty sure they're harmless though. So when you're outside, you're bound to get a few bites if you're not constantly moving. I hate the flies though. They just follow you. I've had them follow me from the dock all the way to the cabin. And bug spray doesn't really help. Maybe the mosquitos are repelled, but the flies just keep on coming. Even in the cabin there's always a couple mosquitos floating around.
When my dad and the guy finished reattaching the repaired dock, it actually turned out better than it was the year before. Last year, the shore end of the floating dock lost a float on one side, so one end would always be submerged, and the other would be sticking out of the water a ways. At least this year it's flat, but unfortunately it's easily wetted if you just put some sudden weight on it, like stepping onto it. At least the far end doesn't get wet unless you want it to.
Unfortunately, they never got the water pump working, so we had no running lake water. We went to the beach though after we finished cleaning, but only to "shower". Then we came back, had some bratwurst, watched the beginning of 27 Dresses before everyone got tired and we shut it off and went to bed.
Friday, July 18th
Everyone but my mom got up at 7am to over to Nelson's resort. My sister went for a run, while my dad used his laptop, and I used ours (and posted a bit on the forums). He had a coffee and my brother and I had the best hot chocolate EVER. My sister completely forgot that she couldn't take a hot shower at the cabin, so she waited until later that day to take a shower when the guy finally got the water pump working.
We really didn't do a lot today, especially if you compare it to the day before. My dad weed-whacked for about 5 hours, and he said he was really sore after that, but it was worth it though, because the tall weeds are all gone!!! It's AWESOME!! I collected some wood and constructed a nice pyramid in the fire pit for after our seaplane ride later that day. We never had a fire because it was really late and the bugs were HORRIBLE. My brother got out the paddle boat too. It's pretty fun. It seats 2 people with 2 REALLY small seats in the back. We just paddle around randomly. Just before we headed for Nelson's for our seaplane ride, my dad, brother and I washed up in the lake off the dock. And that's when my brother got a leech. So so far he's had a tick and leech. What's next?
Our ride was scheduled for 6:15, but it got delayed a bit. The passengers before us had the dinner service, which is where the pilot would fly to YOUR dock, pick you up, fly around a bit, drop you off at a nearby restaurant of your choice, and then when you were done he'd pick you up again and drop you off at your dock. So we were taking a 1 hour tour while they were eating dinner at Nelson's. I was really looking forward to this. I'd never been in a small plane like this. In fact I've only been on a commercial flight 4 times: there/back, there/back, one trip when I was too young to remember it. We had a nice pilot too, his name was Bud. We climbed in, buckled up, put on our headsets, and taxied down the lake. It was really cool taking off from a lake. The waves were really bumpy, but it was soooo cool when we lifted off the water. It was so smooth. I was just amazed. The first initial feeling of just seeing the ground and water get farther and farther was awesome. That was probably the most spectacular part of the flight, as insignificant as it seems: taking off and the few minutes after.
[the East Bay] 
[Party Island] We flew around the lake a bit, and then we circled around our cabin a few times. That was also very cool. All the cabins looked so tiny. Ours was just a tiny red dot among the huge mass of trees. 
And we saw the area behind our cabin, simply a small yucky marsh. We hiked back there last year (not into it though), and went a ways along the power lines. We could actually follow those back to Nelson's, but that'd take forever. Next we headed east over Dover Lake, another lake we'd been to, not connected to anything else. And we're already in Canada. We flew all around Canada, saw some of the larger lakes. We saw a tiny Indian village that used to be only accessible by water or air. It was amazing how empty the wilderness was back here. There was literally NOTHING. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. 
[infinite wilderness. awesome.] 
[Land of 10,000 Lakes ] Looking at the horizon all around us there was nothing but trees and water. We flew close enough to see Ely (another town, has lots of resorts). All it was was a white dot for it's water tower, and a bit more whiteness which was the town. I took lots of pictures. Some turned out better than others, and looking back at them, seeing it for real was just a billion times better. Our pilot had a lot to say, and he made it interesting. We didn't get to see any moose though. We at the end we flew by Vermillion river and the Vermillion gorge and falls. We go there every year, and it was really neat to see it from above. 
[coolness] I was sitting in the copilot's seat, and at one point, he let me kind of control the plane a bit. It was really cool. I was surprised at the sensitivity of the wheel. I really didn't do much, just turn a little left or right to get to our next destination, but still, knowing that I was actually controlling it, and he wasn't, was awesome. That also made me think. Especially as sensitive as it was, one small mishap could like... send you spiraling down into the ground in an instant. That knowledge alone would make anyone pay attention to what they were doing. I was barely moving the wheel at all and we'd turn. It was just awesome. I was expecting the landing to be more... I don't know, complex? It was amazing how fast we landed. It was like, we were flying over Crane Lake, Bud's looking around, just making sure no one's in the way, we smoothly glide lower, approach the lake, level out a little bit more, hit the water, slide along the water a bit, and slowly taxi to Nelson's dock. That was it. Nothing more. We just flew in and landed. I expected a little more, not in a sense that I was disappointed, but I was just surprised. We got a picture in front of the plane, paid him, then ate dinner at Nelson's. 
[the plane. I don't know that guy on the left ] That was really a great night. I had the crab-stuffed walleye with wild rice. Everything we ate was delicious. The chips, the bread, the fish sticks, the meal. Even the water, from a well, tasted better than last year.We watched Jumper when we got home, but it wasn't that good.
Saturday, July 19th
My dad and sister left to go to Virginia (a larger town 1.5 hours away) to buy groceries and other stuff while I was still sleeping. I woke up, and now I'm typing this. My brother and mom have just been hanging out, and my dad and sister will be back soon. I may start the fire I set up yesterday, as it's going to rain tonight, or I might play Wii. But for now, I'm shutting this computer down, because I've just written way too much. (to be continuted...)
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Entry date: Monday, July 21st, 10:30pm
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So just after I finished typing, my dad and sister got back. We ate lunch, and then I believe I messed around with the fire the rest of the day. Predictably, the weather forecast was off and it didn't rain at all that day, and in fact it turned out to be a VERY nice day. After the first fire went out, my brother piled on some grass clippings from the day before, and then we surrounded it with precut logs from inside for the fireplace. The embers underneath were apparently still hot, because before long smoke started streaming out. It was almost dinner time and we didn't plan on lighting the fire yet. It probably smoked for around an hour before it FINALLY caught fire and we saw the first flames. The steaks for dinner were done a bit after, and we had to leave the fire unattended. I was thinking, you don't really need all those warnings about leaving fires unattended, because they're so cool anyway that you'll only leave it if you have to. Besides, I found with all the bugs, despite burning my eyes all the time in the heat, it's nice to be near the fire with the smoke. Anytime a fly or mosquito was following me, I'd just step into the smoke for a second, and most of the time they'd leave.
[volcano fire!] We hadn't planned on it at all, but since the fire was already at its peak, we decided to make s'mores after dinner. That was also probably the best s'more meal of all the years too. I regretted eating so many marshmallows, but it was the perfect fire: very few flames, with lots of hot coals. My favorite cooking method is roasting just the outer layer very lightly, just enough so that you can slide off the crust. I love the crunchy outside with the melted fluff inside, but since it's only a very thin crust, it's very airy when you eat it. Then, you have a slightly smaller marshmallow, and you do the same thing over and over until it's too small to get a crust off it, so you eat the rest. And I've concluded that natural wooden sticks from the woods make much better skewers than the "convenient" metal ones you can buy.I used the cabin shower for the first time in years. The pressure and temperature control was fine, but the stream sucked. There were like 3-4 thin streams of water. Not ideal for washing.
Movie of the night: World Trade Center. It was ok. I was utterly shocked though at then end when it said that a total of 20 people were pulled out of the debris alive. I was confused as to why they were making such a big deal out of this one guy's rescue from the wreckage. I'm pretty sure that 20 doesn't include people who got out of it themselves, and plus there's all those who successfully evacuated, but I guess it hadn't occurred me how low one's chances of survival from within the building would be. I remember on one TV segment, a guy was saying there was only just a couple floors where you'd likely survive from. If you were too high, you'd just get caught up in the collapse and all the wreckage, but if you were too low, the pressure and height of debris would simply be too great.
Sunday, July 20th
Today we "tackled the tree".
Everyone but my mom got up for the routine trip to Nelson's. My sister ran, we had coffee/hot chocolate, I checked the forums (I really wish my friends would be up earlier. I always check Gmail, but no one's ever on. I also always check the day's forecast, but it's proved to be wrong almost every time). We had an awesome breakfast when we got home: pancakes, canadian bacon, eggs, and OJ. My brother started making the pancakes, but I was bored, so started helping out, and soon, without anyone acknowledging it, I ended up finishing up the last half of them. The only one I ate was a gigantic one I made with the remains of the batter. It was delicious. Super thick and super soft and fluffy. After, everyone got on long pants and tennis shoes (by far the best mosquito repellant I've used). My dad started cutting up the tree that had fallen right across our dock/cabin path. The only chainsaw we have is unfortunately very puny. Because it's electric. But when he swapped out the chain, the sharper one worked wonders compared to before. My brother and I mostly collected and organized the branches. My brother weed-whacked a bit, and my dad let my sister cut a section of the trunk. At sometime around 1-3, the "yard work" was officially done. It was the plan to burn the collected logs (anything with needles was tossed into the abyss of weeds and trees towards shore), but I doubted we'd ever get through it. We started a fire anyway (with difficulty and the help of my sister. But I think I warmed it up for her). The billows (or bellows? The thing that blows air to feed fires) was needed to start almost every fire so far. I can't believe how valuable it is. Finally, it started to cloud up, and we were sure it was going to rain. We covered the branches while the fire was still going. My brother accidentally knocked a brick off the ring onto the tarp, and I burned my pointer and middle fingers trying to pick it up. It was pretty stupid. The idea was to feel both sides to see which one was the hot one facing the fire, and which was the cool side that I could touch to pick up and put it back. Problem was, that required me to touch the hot side if I guessed wrong. So I did. DANG that hurt. I jumped up and down for a second, then replaced the brick with my other hand. Luckily it was an extremely mild burn. It stung for a while, and the skin shrunk a bit, but now my fingers are fine, and the only signs of it is a TINY bit of wrinkliness. We had a large lunch just like breakfast, and during it it finally started raining. But only for about 30 minutes. When it stopped, we swam in the lake for a while. My brother and I'd paddle out maybe 100 yds with the paddle boat and the tube attached to the back, and we'd jump in and take turns paddling around. Some random canoers came to try out our neighbors jumping rock. It's a smooth cliff roughly the height of your standard high-dive at swimming pools. Most of them weren't actually jumping from the highest area though... After we swam, we resumed the slow process of destroying the rest of the branch logs. Amazingly, by the time it got darker, we were almost through the pile. With another break for some of the best seasoned chicken ever, I got excited and added the rest of the wood. Even before dinner, the fire was huge, but with the final addition of wood, it became the largest and hottest fire I've ever made. It was actually very cool. The flames were coming a foot or more out of the brick ring, and since we had saved the largest logs for last (simply because they were at the bottom), the pyramid-like formation was very high as well. I was surprised it didn't collapse like, out of the ring. Inside it all, it was cool to actually have yellow and white coals instead of orange ones. I took the billows and blew straight into the heart of it and it got way hotter. My eyes burned so bad, and looking away didn't cool them down enough, so I had to put my arm over them to absorb some heat. I was afraid my clothes were going to catch fire or something when I'd step next to ring. Despite the spectacular fire, it now no longer repelled bugs as well, to my disappointment and surprise. There was now virtually no smoke at all (in fact just a lot of sparks and heat), just heat. So now the only way to get away from mosquitoes would be to stand right next to the fire to get enough heat to keep them away, and that wasn't very comfortable.
It burned that big for a while, while we watched Garden State. That is one weird movie. The beginning reminded me of Elizabethtown, and I guess was sort of similar, but basically every person in the movie had no emotion. There was barely any interaction between people too. My dad spent $150 on movies, and not many have turned out that good...
Monday (today) is pretty short, but I'm just too tired. Plus I only have 8% battery left. So I'll catch up on this later.
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Entry date: Wednesday, August 20th, 11:30pm
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Sadly, since it's been a month since I last experienced these experiences, I won't be able to give basically any detail.
Monday, July 21st
The main event of today was canoeing to Party Island. The island doesn't really have I name I believe, but that's what everybody calls it. It's a tiny island at the mouth of the East Bay on the lake. Using my GPS, I got some info on the short trip there, and on the island:
We managed to get to a max speed of 4 mph.
From the dock to the island was .68 miles.
It took about 15 minutes any way.
On average, we were going 2.7 mph.
Party Island is about 325 ft long. It seems shorter though.
Well my arms aren't that strong, so paddling even that short distance was a bit tiring for my arms, but one reason was because we were actually trying to go fast. I'm not sure if I would like going many many miles in a canoe like some people do. I don't think it'd be that bad, but being in the small area, not really able to stand up, for many hours... I don't know. Before we got onto the island, we discovered a small beach right next to it on the mainland. We'd never noticed it before, and it was fairly nice. Sand wasn't very rocky, and there was a nice camp ground on the tip of the mouth of the bay. A few more minutes at the beach and we got onto Party Island. We didn't do anything, but it was neat having a better view of the whole lake. I took a bunch of pictures too. My dad and I paddled on the way there, my brother and dad paddled the way back. I can't remember what we did the rest of the day, but I'm seeing I took some pictures of the clouds over the lake later that day because I think I was waiting for it to rain. I'm not sure if it did or not.
Tuesday, July 22nd
Today we went to My Island!
It's a smallish biggish island (can't decide. It all depends on what you compare it to) less than 500 feet from Canada in Namakan Lake. It's in Voyageur's National Park. You live in it, but they've set up countless campsites all around the area of the park. Some are only daysites, some you can camp overnight, and some you can park a house boat at. My Island has 3 sites on it, but the one we use is a day only site, and it's probably the best of the three. Here's some data from my GPS about the trip:27.8 miles total.
Top speed: 32 mph
Total moving time: 1 hour 9 minutes
Average moving speed: 24 mph
Takes about 26 minutes to get there.
One-way distance is about 13 miles.
Luckily we chose a calm day to venture out. Last year the wind and waves were horrible, today it was warm and calm. The beach is I think the best beach I've ever been to. There's smooth, offwhite, dry sand, and the shallow sand is a tad rocky, but it's not bad at all. However, when you get to about 3 feet deep, the sand gets EXTREMELY smooth, and very black and gold. I know exactly what rock causes the black/gold, because you can them everywhere. You can think of the deeper, black and gold sand as wet flour or powdered sugar. It's THAT smooth. Describing it just isn't enough, it's amazing to feel. Anyway, when we first got there, we dropped off my sister and mom, then the rest of us went boating around the island and surrounding islands. We checked out Your Island and Blind Pig Island, the two to the south of My Island. We saw a bunch of house boats parked on those two. We also discovered for the first time that there was another good beach right around the corner of the bay, still on My Island. It wasn't as good as our site, but still really nice. Then we illegally ventured a couple hundred feet into Canada and drove around a small island. It's so weird to be looking from America across just less than 2,000 feet of water at a Canadian home. There was a big flagpole with a Canadian flag on it.
[Canadians!] After venturing to the west tip of My Island for the first time, I discovered a strange metal spike embedded in the rock. I got some pictures. It said U.S. on one side, and 362 on the other. Very strange. 
The water was the perfect temperature. Cold at first, but you got used to it and it felt good. the beach is also very gradual, so you can go out a ways and still be able to stand. Before we ate lunch, my dad and I were looking at a Voyageur's National Park map while my brother fed a spoiled squirrel. When my brother left, the squirrel stayed and it curiously came within inches of my dad. It chewed on one of our Gatorade bottles, and then it'd creep up the picnic table and sit there staring at my dad. He looked as if he was going to attack or something. My dad just kept shooing it away until we left. Looking at the map, we located where Kettle Falls is. To get there you must go much farther east, then farther north, then west again. We've been wanting to check out Kettle Falls for years but we've never gotten around to it. It's an extra 16++ miles, so we'd need plenty of gas and lots of time. We also stopped by Makooda Lake on the way home. It's landlocked, so you have to walk to it from Sand Point Lake. We only visited for like 1 minute. My mom wanted to get home.A bit later, we headed over to Crane Lake the town to buy some stuff. I got a sweatshirt. Then we went to Hamburg's Marina where we got the HUGEST ICE CREAM CONES EVER!!! The lady there scooping the ice cream PILED it on like there was no tomorrow. The ice cream above the cone was almost half the total height! It was really good too. I got Black Cherry I think it was called. Delicious. I later noticed in a brochure they said they sell ice cream with "generous portions". You got that right. OVERgenerous portions. It was cheap too! The most amazing ice cream deal in the world. Awesome.
BTW, shortly before this, our boat broke down and we had to order a rental while we DROVE to the two above places.
Wednesday, July 23rd
As far as I can tell from the photos, all we did today was visit Vermillion Falls. It was just me, my dad, and my sister, because my mom decided to stay home. It's only 8-10 miles away from the resort driving. With about 3-4 miles to go, my dad suddenly realizes that the car's on E. We've never had low fuel at Crane Lake! We usually fill up at Orr before we get to Crane, and that lasts the rest of the vacation. Well now we're all freaking out, because we're in the middle of nowhere on a gravel road with ALMOST no fuel. It's been low for a while we guess, so we decide not to take any chances and head back. Heading into town, we discover the smallest and oldest gas station I've ever been to. It's got 1 pump, and only 1 choice: unleaded. So we fill 'er up and head back down the road to Vermillion. Due to the recent rise in water elevation, the falls were much more cool than normal.
It's probably the most aggressive I've ever seen it. The water was no longer rolling down the gorge, it was raging down it. The water was white and yellow/brown, it's natural color, and it looked as if it was 50% air. It looked exactly like a washing machine on drugs. The noise was far louder too. I got some pictures and a short video right as the camera's battery died. Comparing this year's pictures to ones a few years ago, it's amazing to see the difference in the height and intensity of the falls.I think that was it for today.
I'd like to note though that at some point during these last few days my brother, dad and I fished a bit. We all caught one. I got a crappie, and my brother and dad got either a crappie or walleye. We didn't fish much this year. We usually do a lot more though.
Thursday, July 24th
Cards day! It was really cloudy and rained a bunch, so we just stayed inside, lounged, and played cards. My dad taught us Euchre, but my brother was too lazy to comprehend anything. We also played Between the Sheets, 5-card Stud, and a few others. We used real money from the cabin and my dad's wallet. My brother ended up with most of it playing Between the Sheets because he could actually understand that game.
That night we ate at Voyagaire Lodge, the other good dinner place. I ordered a not-so-tasty meal, but that was my fault. We had a good time talking though. On the way home, we went by a $2 million home on Bear Island on the lake.
Friday, July 25th
The day we left. We spent the morning tidying up the cabin and getting ready to pack up the boat. It was very cloudy early on, and when my sister, dad, and brother took the first boatload of stuff across the lake, it started pouring. Well after they got there. After that however it cleared up and it just got really really windy. SUPER windy. Maybe the windiest I've seen it. And we had that small rental boat that's much lighter that ours. Looks like we're gonna get wet! And we did. The spray was real bad we all wore raincoats. I can't remember anything of significance on the drive home. My brother made us stop and me take a picture of the town sign for Buyck (pronounced Bike) because is has a real child's bicycle mounted above the sign to help people remember how to pronounce it. At 8pm-ish we ate at our usual Perkins restaurant. I was going to get a slice of the most amazingest pie ever, but no, they were out. WTF?
I think we got home at around 12am, 1am or something. We emptied the entire car and piled everything in the garage then we all went to sleep.
THE END
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