It was a cool night. My feet got cold in my bag. I wondered if I should have brought my 20 degree bag rather than my summer bag. The rain had stopped at 2:00 a.m. The sun was up at 4:30 and I was up an hour later. Jim and I broke camp and packed up. The plan was to head to Trail Center for breakfast. Jim had ever been there.

As we drove down the gravel road leading to the Gunflint Trail, we saw a bull moose. I got a couple pictures though he was kind of far away. My mom has never seen a moose “in the wild” (as she puts it). I told her that this was a good area to cruise in a car to try to spot one. I’ll have to send her a copy of the picture.

We got to Trail Center and learned it didn’t open until 8:00 a.m. Geesh! I did it again. A couple of years ago I assumed the End Of The Trail Cafe opened early to serve BWCA trippers, but learned the morning of our put-in that it didn’t open till 8:00. You would have thought I’d learn to check instead of assuming. We did get to see a silver fox, though.

So, we drove back to Grand Marais to go the South of the Border (SOB) Café. It kind of defeated the purpose of camping at the entry point the night before …. But, oh well, we’re on vacation. It was nice to eavesdrop on the locals, though it was more like forum intended to be heard. It’s part of the experience of SOB. Great place. Ely has Britons -- GM, SOB.

We were back on the Trail driving to out Entry Point about the same time that Trail Center was opening. It started to drizzle. We turn back on to the gravel road leading to East Bearskin and I got the camera ready just in case the moose was back. We saw two bears instead.

I turned to Jim and said, “Shoot, I was hoping for another moose for my mom”. We turned the corner and there was a cow and calf moose! I was able to snap a picture of the cow but the calf was into the bush just ahead of her and eluded my camera.

We paddled away from the entry point at 9:30 into the wind and drizzle. The drizzled soon turned into light rain. The wind was out of the east – kind of unusual.

Our destination is Alder Lake which is a fairly long paddle and then one 52-rod portage away. Once there the plan was to base camp and do day trips after that. We arrived at the lake at 11:30 a.m.

The two campsites on the south shore were occupied. The four on the north shore were open; however, none were very good. The best of the four had a very pesky squirrel. We considered camping there but knew that squirrel would have driven us crazy.

We decided to make the 22 rod portage to Canoe Lake. The first site was taken but the second one was open. It looked just OK from the water. We decide to take it anyway. I’m glad we did. It turned out to be a very nice site.

We arrived at the site about 1:30 and the rain stopped at the same time. We set up camp, stringing the tarp first. Then normal camp stuff – lunch, gathered wood, filled water bottles, putzed around camp, and had vodka lemonade at 6:00 pm.

Dinner was at 7:00 pm. Jim made a great one-pot meal of chicken with noodles. We spent a lot of time under the tarp, though it didn’t rain much after we set up camp. It did get breezier and cooler, though. We had a couple more cocktails and then off to bed.