My dad, father-in-law and two high school/college buddies came up Friday night to stay at my place in Menomonie, WI. My wife was nice enough to make everyone breakfast Saturday morning. We left town at 9:10 am just after posing for this group photo(plus my son Preston). We took Highway 53 up to Duluth where we stopped at Gander Mountain for fishing licenses and final gear purchases. We ate a quick lunch and headed to Ely, arriving at the outfitters around 3:45. We immediately went through the gear, canoe basics and watched the Leave No Trace video. After that, we headed to Ely for supper, eating at the Ely Steakhouse. We stopped to pose for the web cam first, and my wife snapped our picture for me. After a great meal, we headed back to the bunkhouse to sort through our stuff and widdle it down to make if fit into our 3 personal packs. We didn’t get much sleep between the uncomfortable bunkhouse beds and all the snoring.