Claire and I woke up at 6 so I got up to see if any moose were around. No such luck. I stayed up to enjoy our last few hours in the b-dub. I tried fishing again but it was too shallow and weedy. I just sat and looked at the map. I walked a bit down the path to the latrine so I could listen to the weather radio and not worry about waking Scott or Claire. It sounded like we might get some rain. Claire and Scott finally started moving around 8:30. It turns out Claire had been reading for a couple hours and then dozed off for a short time. There were a few very light sprinkles but that was it. We finally got packed up and ready to leave around 9:40. By now it was a light sprinkle and another group paddled by on their way out just as we were getting ready for our one and only group shot. We should have gotten ahead of them. We had to wait for them at the short and easy portage to Caribou. They were definitely unprepared and it took them a long time. There were 6 in the group and a couple of them were wearing jeans and no rain gear. By this time the sprinkle had turned into a steady rain. Portaging was busy and the rain didn’t let up. It turned into a steady soaking rain. Claire boinked her head on a tree on a real muddy portion of the portage. We were stepping on logs through the mud and a tree jetted out and caught Claire on the head. She hit it so hard I could hear it and her teeth smacked together. I, of course, completely forgot about it on the 2nd half of my portage and just about cracked my head myself but luckily I saw it just in time. The sites we saw on Caribou were full. It is a very pretty lake. Lizz was also beautiful. Another slow, wet, muddy portage and we were to Poplar. We arrived at Rockwood at 12:10 and the slow group ahead of us (with canoes from Rockwood) was still not there. It was still a steady rain and unpacking was very wet. Finally the slow group came from the north. They had taken the long way around the island. We packed up our wet gear and we were on our way. Lunch at Trail Center was fantastic. We were cold and wet and in need of some non-dehydrated food. Claire and Scott had the bacon cheeseburger and I got the Dale’s jalapeno burger. We finally made our way into Grand Marais around 3. It was still raining so we weren’t ready to set up at the municipal campground yet. We decided to kill some time by heading to the coop since we needed food and didn’t want to set up in the rain. We took our time in the coop and headed to check in and at least check out the site. The rain had amazingly almost stopped by the time we got to the site so we got the tents up. We took showers and it was amazing. The plan was to wait for Amy (Scott’s girlfriend coming up from Duluth) for Sven & Ole’s so we hit up the Gunflint Tavern. Dick Winzer was our bartender. He referred to himself as the original Whiskey Dick. I’m sure he uses the same jokes on everybody but he was pretty entertaining nonetheless. We were expecting Amy around 8 so we headed towards Sven & Ole’s around 7:30ish. We had another great meal of pizza and headed back to the campground. We sat around the fire before finally heading off to bed.

Horseshoe - Caribou - Lizz - Poplar