Day 5, Wednesday July 25. The weather forecast was correct….we had monsoons with some lightning during the night. There were a lot of puddles around the site. Temp was in the 70’s with a little fog on the lake. Today is moving day…heading back to Big Brule Lake for a couple nights. The portages should be interesting. Breakfast was oatmeal, breakfast bars, and granola. Jeff and son Austin went ahead of us again to find a site on Brule. He brought some flagging tape along so we would see the chosen site from a distance. The rest of us could take our time and be careful on the portages. The portages were as nice as a figured they would be…a guy had to take his time or a slip could be painful. We slipped, slid, and slogged our way through that 160r portage into North Cone Lake and met a pair of girls at the end of the portage. One was a teacher from Ruwanda Africa and they had put some big time miles in their trip so far. Unfortunately the front seat on their rented canoe had broken. With a beaver stick and some duct tape we were able to help them out. I wasn’t impressed with the construction of this canoe. The wood looked too light to hold up and that little bit of padding on the portage yoke didn’t look so great. I wasn’t familiar with a brand (Langford Canoe, Prospector 16.6) but could imagine the outfitter having trouble with them… if you plunk a heavy rear on those seats they weren’t going to hold up. Once our good deed was completed we paddled through the Cones and checked out some campsites as we traveled. As we left Cone Bay it wasn’t long until we could see flagging tape and Jeff’s Banana colored tent on the island almost straight south. It was still foggy and drizzly but with no wind and not cold. By 3:30 we paddled up to our new home for the next couple days. Wildlife sightings for the day include some eagle, vulture, loon and babies on Cliff Lake, and maybe some grebes on South Cone. After getting moved in, Dr Z and Alex went out with fishing poles….They met with success and came back with two walleye that they invited to dinner. We grilled them with fake butter (margarine) and lemon pepper. Chicken Alfredo with foil pack chicken and mushrooms was the side dish to go along with the fish. Rasberry Fig Newtons was the dessert. On wet days it is nice to have a nice tarp, a light weight table for the stove, and Roll-A-Chairs. Everything was damp and getting a fire going wasn’t easy. While looking for the ideal tent pad and firewood we came across many fish carcasses. Some slobs just pitched them everywhere and figured the wildlife would clean them all up?  During the night the skies cleared and the stars came out.