We overslept this morning - I don’t think that the alarm on the watch even went off. I woke up about 5:30ish. It had rained in the night but must not have been too hard as it didn’t wake me up. We took down camp and were on the water by 6:30. Was pretty easy paddling though my arms sure tire out quickly. The sky was heavy and dark with rain clouds. There was a mist hanging over the cliff on the south side of McFarland. It was almost eerie looking - like out of Jurassic Park. The only difference is there’s several cabins along the North Shore - some even for sale. There are just too many too close together for my taste.

We made it to the portage and walked the canoe through the stream - probably could have just paddled it but being fully loaded were afraid of scraping the bottom. We took a few photos and went on our merry way! Just as we started, it started to rain but the sun was peeking through and we were treated to a rainbow. I didn’t dig the camera out as it was buried in the day pack. There are so many loons and they call to each other so frequently. Still no moose or bear.

We paddled all along Pine to about the midway point. Our campsite has a nice smooth bedrock outcropping. Under the water it is very slippery. We pulled up in a rougher part near shore to have a safer unload. As we are unloading, it started raining - again - and luckily after we got the tent set up - right after. Em stayed in the tent and got the bedding set up while I shivered under the rain shelter. I got so warm paddling that I only had shorts on and my feet were cold and very, very wet. I don’t like wet boots; I’ll have to get something else for that next time.

Once the rain slowed down, Emily emerged from the tent and I went in - dirty feet and all.

1:41 pm - Just woke up from a nice snooze - about an hour or so long. It has rained again and is now dripping from the trees. I had hoped the sun would come out and the wind pick up so that things wounded out a bit. The day is still early so we’ll see.

Our campsite is nestled in a grove of cedars and is very green and peaceful. The loons are abundant and I hear the other birds and red squirrels. Somewhere in the distance, though, I hear “human” noise - some kind of heavy machinery. Perhaps there’s logging or road work going somewhere. I’ll have to look at the map when I get out of the tent. I know we saw logging being done but that was way over by Chester Lake on the Otter Lake/Esther Lake intersection. I can’t imagine we’d hear that all the way over here.

I had hoped that we’d go further than we did today, however, I couldn’t paddle any longer. Besides, if we hadn’t stopped when we did, we’d have been paddling in that downpour that lasted so long. I’m glad we stopped - it will feel good to have a fire tonight though there isn’t much for wood around. We’re really going to have to work to find any. If we can’t, then so be it. I have the stove that we can warm stuff up on. I know that Em wants to go a lot further and do a lot more exploring than I had planned. We’ll have to see. She wants to take a completely different route than I left with Mark. I told her lets just wait and see what the weather does and how we’re feeling. She has so much energy - wish I could keep up like that. We’re going to shoot for hiking to Johnson Falls tomorrow. The first two campsites we paddled by as options today were occupied. My fear is that we’ll head out and not find a vacant site. I almost wouldn’t mind base camping and day tripping, though I know Em’s not going to want to do that.

Using the latrine for the first time was quite the experience! Baring my ass for all the world to see, sitting on the “throne” all the while mosquitoes are feasting on my nether regions - a place that mosquitoes shouldn’t have access to! However, the view is marvelous. The outhouse at McFarland campground was just plain nasty - I'd prefer going in the woods this way over that thing.

Some lovely person(s) put their two trash bags under our canoe at McFarland. Nice. Earlier in the day there were some loud obnoxious people that drove in and back out again. I think it was them. There’s no dumpster available so we just left it - I wasn’t going to store that in the van and let it ferment while we were gone. Yuck. On a positive note, someone had left us a nice pile of kindling there and we used it and made some more to pay it forward.

There some sort of dead water thing floating in both Pine and McFarland. I think they look like little freshwater shrimp. Emily wondered if they’re baby crayfish. Either way they’re gross.

Yep, there’s logging going on somewhere. The wind and rain have stopped and I can hear it. That’s such a shame - unless they’re clearing blow down areas though I would think they’d have been done with that years ago. Oh well, it is what it is.

7:30 pm Time to get ready for bed. Even with having napped this afternoon I’m pooped! We didn’t do much - sat around, tried to get a fire going but everything was just too wet- wouldn’t even start up the “cheating way” (as Em calls it) using lighter fluid.

She went on a trail through the site and hollered “Trail Find!” Someone had dumped a mini Weber grill and a bunch of candy wrappers back there. I don’t call that “leave no trace.” Good grief - some people. We’ll clean up the wrappers but I’m not packing out that grill - we have enough to carry as it is.

We have a little red squirrel in our camp that isn’t scared of us in the least - we’ve named him Sylvester. There are several loons on the lake and I just heard a big frog start croaking.

We got the food pack up in the bear hang - that took a while and was pretty humorous - us trying to throw that rope over the high branch. But we did it - It’s all good.

For supper we made chicken tacos. Had pouched chicken, tortilla, cheese and salsa. They were pretty darn tasty. We never did have lunch - I ate kind of crappy today. I’ll have to try to make it a point to eat better tomorrow.

The wind has died down some though I can still hear some of it whooshing through the pines. It hasn’t rained for a while and the sun even came out - we enjoyed the sunset. It’s still a bit cloudy though there are big patches of blue sky. The clouds don’t look as full and heavy as they did earlier. It would be nice if it wouldn’t rain anymore.

We are going to try to be up by 5am tomorrow and want to try for the campsite on Little Caribou Lake then go over to Johnson Falls. We’ll just have to see how it goes and looks in the morning - everything here is take it as it is.

We have “neighbors” almost directly across form us. I thought I heard the bang of aluminum earlier today. They had a smoke signal going - not sure if they were actually able to get a fire going but they sure were able to make smoke.

I knew it would be peaceful and pretty, but I couldn’t really picture it in my mind until now. The green is such a vibrant green - photos can’t capture that color. Because of the clouds the water is such a slate gray. The wind whispers through the pines along the shore and the gentle lapping of the water on the beach is so soothing. Natures own calming fountain.

We looked n the map and there appears to be a road or trail leading to Stump lake - we think that may be where the machinery sounds were coming from - that lake is only about two miles away and the sound really carries here.

Both of us are covered in black fly and mosquito bites. The black flies were bad at McFarland. I don’t think they’re too bad here. The mosquitoes aren’t any worse than they are when we camp at Savanna. Of course they seem all the more vicious when they have a nice bare target sitting there. That’s gotta be the worst. Skeeter bites on the ass. We both look like a couple of red-neck hillbillies with greasy hair, walking around scratching our asses!

Hopefully we’ll have calm, dry weather in the morning when it’s time to pack up and leave - that’s what I’ll pray for