Thursday, June 28, 2012 Once outside I take water and heat it until it is almost hotter than I can stand, and pour it on my hand, arm, and ankles to kill the itch! (it is the only way I have found to totally kill the itch for several hours) I dose up with Ivy Dry that Kim has brought and realize I can not stand another night like that!
I start breaking down the rods and reels for travel. I take down the tarp and pack all of the things I could pack before waking Kim at 5:30 and telling her we are leaving! She stuffs the bags, and rolls the pads, and gets everything in the tent ready before she comes out for coffee and breakfast. By 7:30 we are leaving our cove and campsite...
The first 5 miles to Beatty Portage was quartering into a southwest wind, it takes us 1.5 hours to get there. I still had my leeches left over from fishing so I give them to the portage keeper's son ( who really liked my Bait King leech keeper, but he was not getting it!) They tell us the wind is supposed to blow hard that afternoon out of the west, which was good for us! But until it changed we had another 5 miles to paddle into a SSW cross wind to LIS River!
We reach the beaver dam below Devil's Cascade and decide to try and paddle through the wider breech in it! I tell Kim to paddle hard, and we accelerate and get almost through it before the rapid shallow water makes it difficult to paddle and keep our momentum. So we had to back out and then we tried a smaller breech to the right of the large one. Same problem, with more rocks! Now with a bunch of energy expended we paddle over to the left side and pull over. Much easier and smarter! On the way out I let Kim carry the much lighter food pack instead of the heavier main pack and single portage. Once across Devil's Cascade she had time to take some good pictures!

We finish the final 5 miles or so with the west wind blowing hard at our backs, blowing us easily against the current of the Little Indian Souix River. It takes us a little under 7 hours to get out, so we are back at the truck by 1:30. Once there we open the 4 doors, start loading things up, and take our time! Then when we try to start the truck... it doesn't start! Battery is dead! Kim walks out to the main road, saying a little prayer on the way, and in less than 5 minutes she stops two guys from Illinois who come give us a jump and we are on our way to Ely!

Once at VNorth it is hot showers and cold beverages! Then to DQ for burgers, fries and a cold root beer for me (for some reason the foam on the LIS river below the rapids made me want rootbeer?) The after topping off the fuel at Cloquet and stopping for milkshakes at Gordy's we drove to Owatonna and got a hotel room for the night! Needless to say Kim paid the mosquitoes back for biting us in the BWCA on that drive! The next morning there was not a square half inch of my windshield that did not have bug guts on it! 

One final funny story! As we crossed Beatty Portage, the portage operator was working outside and had a headnet on for protection from the deer flies. once we were across, Kim ask me, "do you have any headnets"? I say yes, the same one I bought 7 years ago for you and have been carrying with me every trip you come on in case you wanted one... She puts it on, and when we finish the trip she wonders how she ever lived without it!! Here's a picture of the her in the headnet with deer fly patch on her hat! (thanks Adam for the patches)