An early rise gave us time for a nice bacon and egg breakfast cooked right in our motel room at Solbakken Resort. These accommodations worked well for us allowing quick access to the Brule entry less than 30 miles away. We had been warned that there may be delays with construction on the Brule Lake road but it seems the work had been completed and it was smooth sailing for us all of the way to the public access where we were soon unloading the truck and trailer to launch onto the relatively calm waters of Brule.

The weather was going to be a major factor in what direction we traveled as we wanted to do our best to avoid Brule's notorious waves. This morning the conditions were just about perfect with just a slight breeze and warm sunshine. We still chose to head toward the eastern end of the lake deciding that the islands on that part of Brule would give us more variety of scenery, afford more wind protection, if needed and give us the option of staying on Vernon to maybe enjoy the fine campsite on it's north shore and to check out the waterfall near the Brule-Vernon portage.

As we went east on Brule the setting was just about like every brochure you see promoting the BWCA--beautiful blue water with bright sun illuminating the rocks and the emerald-green forest that covers the hills along Brule's shore!

Soon, this pleasant paddle brought us to that portage between Brule and Vernon. Rather than haul all of our gear only to find that our desired campsite on Vernon was already taken, we decided to first walk the portage to see if we could spot the open site from the Vernon end of the portage. This turned out to be a wise move because even though we could not see if the site was open or not, the steepness of this portage convinced us that we were not going to enjoy challenging our no-longer-young bodies with a carry of canoes and heavy packs across this goat path. We had met some folks on our way in who had just left site 971 on Brule and they had pronounced it to be quite nice. Since it was still well before noon, we decided to go back there or to some other nearby site and just basecamp for a few days on Brule. Before returning to Brule we did also decide to check out the waterfall near this portage and it was well worth the side trip to see this charming little wilderness cascade.

When we got to our desired site on Brule, we were pleased to see it was still open and once on shore found that we agreed with the previous party's positive assesment. Soon we had everything ashore and had camp set up, celebrating this accomplshment with a delicious ham-sandwich lunch. The rest of the afternoon was just spent relaxing around camp with a little story telling, shore fishing (no luck) and the soaking in of our splendid suroundings. Come evening our traditional fresh steak and potato/carrot/onion supper was also enjoyed even though just a bit of rain had moved in. Our tarp kept us as dry as needed and when the showers had finished we were treated to a stunning rainbow out over Brule. A campfire and sip or two of bourbon before turning in for the night then completed what had been just about a perfect BWCA day. After such a great start we hit our tents eager to find out what additional Boundary Waters pleasures awaited us the next day.