Friday, August 14, 2009

I sleep in a bit this morning. No hurry getting up since I am not moving today. I heat some water for my jumbo French press mug and enjoy morning coffee. I have a hot breakfast of oatmeal and brown sugar. This is the only proper breakfast I had on the trip, all the other days wanted to get moving early so I could travel when it was cool and calm.

After cleaning up from breakfast I decide wash a change of clothes which I would put on later after cleaning up with some wipes. I went back to the aspen and cut off some more wood for the evening fire. Other than going out for a paddle near camp and getting some water I pretty much just hung around camp trying to say cool. I did take a swim in the afternoon.

A little after 2:00 I am in camp digging in my thwart bag and I hear a noise outside camp. I look up and there are two deer about 30 yards away, on the trail outside camp. This time I am right by the camera so I grab it. The deer are both bucks. They wander away from camp, I snap a few photos but they are pretty far away. They wander out onto a point down shore and I snap a couple more photos. I figured that was all I'd get but then they started back towards camp. I sat down on my chair and waited for them. Sure enough they came all the way back. I snapped couple much better photos. The hung around the edge of camp munching on shrubs. Each of them looked up at me repeatedly, but I wasn't moving and they couldn't wind me so they just kept calmly eating. Eventually they wandered in to the woods behind camp but they were around for a half hour before doing it. I never spooked them, pretty cool.

I have dinner, clean up and round out the evening with a fire, bourbon and cigars. There is some weather moving in from the west. I turn in around 9:00 but again its too hot to sleep. By the time it cools off a bit the storm is moving in. There is lots of thunder in the distance. It doesn't move in fast but by about 1:00 it starts raining. There is a lot of lightening with the storm which has me a little uneasy laying between two trees in my hammock. I don't sleep much until it passes around 3:00. By 4:45 another wave is coming in.

My second Fourtown camp.

Yoke repair.
Deer in camp.
One more Sunset pic, storm moving in...