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Arrived at Brule entry point at 9:05 on a cold, damp, rather ugly-looking day, but not particularly windy. A white-throated sparrow was singing welcome for us. Shortly after we pulled up, a group of four young men from the St. Cloud area drove up and started to unload also. I helped them out by taking a group photo. They said they were base-camping for six days also, and they were heavily loaded with coolers and lots of camping gear.

We also saw a Minnesota man with his dog, Gertrude. He said he was on bwca.com and I thought he said his name here was JHolman57, or something like that, but I cannot find a member with that name. He and his son were setting off after us, and we had a friendly conversation, after Gertrude initiated the meeting. She was a nice dog.

We set out on our trip at 10:10, under overcast skies with occasional very light mist, and just a bit of chop on the lake.

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We paddled into a little sheltered bay area by mistake (Spartan1 thought we could get through) and it was a good place for some reflection photos and some quiet contemplation, but didn’t get us anywhere that we wanted to go.

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Paddling was pretty gray and gloomy this morning.

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Two loons gave us a show near a couple of smaller islands. We assumed that they were a breeding pair, and that perhaps they either were nesting, or were planning to nest along the shore of one of the islands. One seemed quite interested in keeping us entertained and away from the other, so I obliged him (?) by taking lots of photos.

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How about a break to look for some fish?

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And the "dance" continued:

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And finally, it seemed to be done.

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At noon we stopped at a campsite for a lunch break. We discussed staying there for our base camp, but we didn’t like it a whole lot, and there was no reason to stop so early. It appeared that there were lots of campsite opportunities in Brule Bay, and we hadn’t seen much canoe traffic on the lake to make us think that there would be a lot of competition for sites.

As we paddled across to the other side of the lake, both of us mentioned a white spot in the distance that caught our eye and made us wonder what it was. It wasn’t an animal, as it didn’t move. Didn’t look like a broken tree—too white. Too high up in the landscape to be a rock, from what we could see. It was a puzzle. So we had to check it out. And as it turned out, it was nothing more than a rock inside a blown down root tangle. . .

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. . .so we paddled on. We checked out the next site on the map. It appears that there has been a recent small fire from this campsite and it looks like the site is closed. An area around it is burned, and the rocks are white. Not much green vegetation has grown up yet in the fire area, either.

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Two fishermen paddled by in an aluminum canoe. Then we saw two groups of three kayakers, each in their own watercraft, a colorful fleet as they paddled on the other side of the bay. When we passed by the next campsite, they appeared to be having a lunch stop, with three kayaks at the campsite landing, and three more in the brush a bit further down the shoreline (but only six people gathered together, and only three watercraft in one place.)

There was one more campsite to check out—the one at the very end of the bay. It was the most sheltered and private, and I thought it was the one where I would want to stay. We paddled up to it and I scrambled out, intent to find it just to my liking. Not so much! I rejected it quite firmly, enough so that Spartan1 didn’t even get out of the canoe. It was a rocky climb up to the fire grate area, and once you arrived, the entire place was just a rock garden! I couldn’t see myself maneuvering around all of those rocks and going up and down the rocky path to the water over and over for five more days—when I needed trekking poles to even get up there! Not a site for a person with mobility issues!

We decided to go back and check to see if the kayakers had, indeed, only been stopping for lunch. It pleased me to see that they were now approaching the portage to Vernon Lake, in two nicely legal groups. Four kayaks had already started to cross at the portage, and two more were holding back until the first group had made their way across. We paddled around in the bay until all six of them had portaged away, and then checked out the campsite across from the portage, which was much more to our liking. Flat, fairly open out back, with an unusually easy and flat biffy trail, and a decently level tent pad. It would do nicely for our stay on Brule Lake. And anyway, it was beginning to drizzle, so we were thinking that making camp would be a good plan.

The site is on a small point, with a flat area by the water. There appear to be two tent sites and we took the more open one nearer the fire grate. We were glad that we hadn’t taken the first campsite at lunchtime, as we liked this one much better than anything we had seen all day. Not exciting, but workable for us in most every respect.

I felt cold! The thermometer said 52 degrees, but with a breeze and the damp drizzle, it felt colder than that, and the temperature was definitely falling. By 3:10 it was down to 45 degrees and I was ready to get into my long johns! Decided to make some hot tea instead, and warming up the inside did help a bit.

We sent our first SPOT message at about 3 PM. We bought a SPOT messenger this spring and this was our first opportunity to use it. After testing the “I’m OK” message several times with our children along the trip as we came across the U. P., we felt confident that they would receive our message on this afternoon.

We had our supper about 5:30. First I fixed a Cache Lake Italian Fry Bread to enjoy while our Camp Chow Mac and Cheese (this is really mac and noodles) cooked on the stove. Added a few extra noodles to meet Neil’s carb requirements, and of course we had some hot decaf coffee (Starbucks VIA.)

A heavier drizzle started about 5 PM and continued into the evening. I was bundled in my rain gear over several other layers, and felt chilled with a temperature of 41 degrees. Unfortunately we had encountered Challenge #1: the pants of Neil’s rain gear had inadvertently been left behind. [All through our vacation I was under the impression that this was his oversight, but when we got home I saw them sitting by the sewing machine and realized that I had set them aside to repair a small tear—my bad!—so he wasn’t the one at fault after all.] I could see that he was shivering, so I sent him to the tent to put on long merino wool underwear and to warm up in his sleeping bag for a little while. This was the first realization that a lack of proper rain gear might be a deal-breaker for a planned six-day trip.

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I did up the dishes by about 7:30, and was feeling quite discouraged. With the cold and damp conditions, my arthritic joints were barely able to move and my mobility was so compromised that I was realizing more and more how helpless I was to contribute to anything of substance on the trip. My pain level was high and I was also worried about how the chill might affect Neil’s blood sugar during the night. Challenge #2 was the cold and damp late-spring weather.

We retired early, and slept fairly well, although the blood glucose sensor kept giving warnings, as the readings were on a roller coaster of highs and lows. There was a problem with the set on the insulin pump becoming unhooked and he ruined a second one when replacing it, leaving him with only one working set for the pump; this was problematic, as the backup insulin supply was only a vial of regular insulin (no long-lasting Lantis) and a handful of syringes. So now we already had Challenge #3.