I woke up around 7:30. I went and sat by the water and made 2 cups of coffee with Bailey’s. I watched a loon and its baby swim just out from the site. The mama dove and called the youngster over to eat what she had caught. Scott woke up and joined me a little later. We watched an osprey strategically dive bomb for some fish. Then Claire got up and we all sat down by the lake for awhile. We were all excited for biscuits and gravy this morning and it was awesome. It was our best breakfast of the trip for sure. The couple from the site to the west paddled by sometime in the mid morning.

Scott moved his tent back off the right side behind the fire pit to a little less of a slope. It was a little tight for his 2+ but manageable. He decided to move because the tent pads were on a bit of a slope. This was the ONLY downfall to the site. He was sliding downhill last night when he would sleep on his side. Claire and I didn’t seem to notice it really but Scott was on a bit more of a slope than us.

Scott decided to go for a swim. Claire got half way in and I slid in a little later. It was chilly but it felt nice. We made the rest of the creamy wild rice soup for lunch. Scott finally seemed to be getting sick of summer sausage and cheese.

We all took a nap around 3:00-4:30ish. Claire read for awhile in the hammock and then fell asleep. Scott and I slept in the tents. The weather was beautiful but a little on the cool side. After we woke up we took the canoe to check out the bay behind camp. The wind was basically still now and there were no clouds in the sky. It was gorgeous. We picked up some firewood on the opposite side of the bay across from camp. It was amazing out so we decided to paddle to the south side of Winchell. From our campsite it had looked like a really steep hill with trees. When we got to the other side we saw that it wasn’t nearly as steep as it had looked. The smell of cedar and pine was amazing though. It was the most perfect time to be on the water. We slowly paddled back while taking it all in.

We made Mountain House again because it was easy and not half bad last night. This time it was lasagna and chili mac with beef. Both were delicious. The loons started calling before dark. The weather was still unbelievable. One loon flew from east to west and back east again calling and looking for its mate. It took longer than we had hoped but we finally heard the call back. After dark the loons started calling like I had been hoping they would. The fire tonight burned much better with the dry wood we found across the bay but that also made us burn through it more quickly. The loons stopped but the stars were out in full force. We could see several satellites and the space station. The milky way was impossible to miss and we saw a couple shooting stars. It was getting chilly and we wanted to get an earlier start so we headed off to bed around 10:30. The loons just finished another round of calls. Hopefully they will be going all night.

Winchell