Friday, August 21, 2009
Some sprinkling this morning but we were up and at ‘em to get off of this lake and head back to Bald Eagle. I finally admitted to John that I thought I would love the solitude of this lake, with no one else around, but instead it just felt like isolation and I felt vulnerable. I was surprised to hear him echo my sentiments. We decided people aren’t all that bad…knowing someone else is around somewhere nearby can be comforting. It doesn’t mean I want to hang out in the busiest places in the BWCA, but also I don’t want to seek out complete isolation on purpose. It was enlightening to me because it was not the reaction that I had expected going into it.

We had breakfast and packed up and paddled over to the portage to Turtle. The weather wa still poor, but improving. Then, just as we were starting the Clearwater – Turtle portage, the sun popped out from behind a cloud, almost like a sign that we were doing the right thing. I felt like I shouldn’t have gone that far in; it left us a bit vulnerable and also left us very far from our children; should we have been called to go back to them (for some terrible happening), it would have been a very difficult journey; more difficult than it would have had to be. We decided that the next time we go back, they are coming with us.

We tried fishing on Turtle, but were stymied by the winds and frustrated by weeds. We went to the campsite by the portage to take out, and decided to have an early lunch of PB&J tortillas. While getting out the lunch supplies, I realized it was our 16th anniversary that day, and so I got out John’s present that I had been hiding all this time. I had had our older daughter count out in-the-shell peanuts, 16 of them, for me to give him to enjoy by the campfire. He loves eating peanuts by the campfire. So I gave them to him, and told him to count them. There were only 14. I insisted that he count again, and still, 14. “Well,” I said, “math isn’t really her best subject.” We laughed about that, and then he said, “Is this all our marriage amounts to after 16 years….peanuts?” More laughter… “Yes, and only 14…” We found this hysterically funny, and while laughing our butts off, out of the woods right in front of us comes two kids and a dog. Scared the pants off us! The first people we’ve seen in two days, and they just appear out of the woods like that! The girls were about 7 & 10 years old and their parents weren’t too far behind. They were all traveling in one canoe. The dad said, “Yeah, we sit pretty low in the water.” No kidding! He was gung-ho to go off into where no one else has roamed, and even talked about a portage from Clearwater toward the Lake One area that isn’t on any of my three maps. I hope his family didn’t mutiny. We showed them which site to stay at on Clearwater, so at least they had a nice site that night.

After lunch, we tackled the portage to Bald Eagle and found it easier than the first time. No doubt due to it being more downhill this time than uphill (we had also found the Clearwater – Turtle portage easier, too). Bald Eagle Lake was again besieged by winds. We went down the eastern shore of the lake, the leeward side, and went to a great campsite with a walk-to island. It’s a gigantic site. Not really great to cook at (no good surfaces, really) but a lovely respite from the winds, many choices for tent pads, and two different views of the lake. We decided where we’d put our tent and hung a bunch of clothes lines to dry out. I tried making my own clothespins, as someone here suggested, but didn’t have much luck. They kept splitting in two. We’ll bring a few real ones next time, for the smaller things.

We discovered our lunch hadn’t lasted long and we were still hungry. We made “Chinese Take Out” which we liked a great deal. After that, we went to the walk-to island to fish. John found a likely site and started fishing as I was catching up. On his second cast…fish on! It was a small pike, but we decided he was just the right size for the two of us to eat. He fished a little more and quickly caught another pike, but he got loose as we were trying to get a grip on him and so he got away. I hope he is okay because he got banged up on the rocks a little. We stopped fishing because we didn’t want any more fish to get banged up unnecessarily, because we probably couldn’t eat any more than we already had. On the walk back to the camp, we saw a pile of bones on a rock along the shore of the island. Bigger bones, from a mammal. Very weird! The rocks along the shore are black and very jumbled upon one another, and the going was slow and wobbly. But our fish was worth the effort.

We finally put up our tent as it was now dry, and messed around in camp a bit, then fried up the fish. He was delicious. I let John have most of it, since it was his catch, plus I had pizza to make. After the ease of the freezer bag meals, making the pizza was a serious pain in the rear. Plus I had extra ingredients when it was all over, which annoyed me. We had very little trash or extra up until that point.

We had a fire, but it was again kind of lame…that’s what two days of rain will do, I suppose. We stayed up until full dark so that we could enjoy the stars… amazing. Our necks started to ache and from all the craning and so we went to bed.

Pictures: Camp, bones on lakeshore, sunset, Chinese take out meal, frying the fish, pizza