Day Seven: Travel Day

After a very bad night, up three times with excruciating head pain, I arose at 7:10 to an almost white mist/fog. I had noticed once in the night that the calm, misty lake looked like a scene from the "Lord Of the Rings" movie, and the atmosphere still had a surreal feel in the morning. It was 37 degrees outside and I went right to work photographing the ever-changing misty lake while Neil made a lovely breakfast fire and handed me a cup of steaming coffee.

A trip to the biffy revealed many beautiful small spider webs in the trees, and I spent a good deal of time on that photo project also.

We had another big breakfast: BPP Denver Omelet, perfect hot biscuits with jelly, oatmeal, and hot chocolate or cappuccino. A little red squirrel came by, looked very surprised to see us, and left immediately.

It was time to do the camp chores: washing up the dishes and packing up to go. We had not covered much ground on this trip, nor had we set any kind of a brisk traveling pace. At this point my nights were filled with pain, prayer, and what little Darvocet I had left, and we were still enjoying our time in the BWCA, but it was becoming more obvious to me that we needed to head back to Ely and find medical care.

Packed up and on the water at 10:20, with the sun burning off the fog and warming things up nicely, we had a peaceful paddle around our campsite. We went up the little inlet and were amazed to see how very little water was coming through the rocks and into our lake. We saw the beaver returning to the lodge, and a small snake swimming in the water. There were two turtles basking on a rock, a loon, and a group of mergansers as we continued on our way.

We had decided to take a side trip up to Fire Lake, and the paddle to get there was very pleasant. After awhile it was obvious that we were following two canoes going to the same place, so I photographed them. When we reached the portage I told them if they would give us an address we would send them a photo. They were two older couples (maybe older than us??), retired folks from Arizona and Texas. One of the ladies took a photo of us as we paddled away, and she said she would send us one.

Fire Lake was very calm, with mirror reflections and a warm sun shining down. We had a particular campsite in mind, but it was taken, so we took one a little bit down the way. It is a really nice campsite, and we were glad to stop there at 12:45. There was a resident turtle sunning himself on a rock offshore, a few dragonflies, and one mourning cloak butterfly. Not having the constant breeze was somewhat of a relief and we enjoyed our afternoon. There was a fiddlehead fern growing out of a big rock just behind the fire area. There is a nice shady grotto down by the lake; one which would be perfect for sitting in the shade with a book and a cup of coffee. I thought I would go there, but I never did.

Our supper consisted of BPP Chicken and Rice with added rice and MH green peas. I didn't cook it long enough and the peas were crunchy; since I wasn't hungry anyway, it didn't improve my mood. Some anxiety about sleeping and worry about the head pain was bothering more than I cared to admit. We had decided that if I had another bad night we would probably just try to get out as soon as we could.

It was 62 degrees at 6 PM, and down to 48 by 8:30. We had a few marshmallows and retired early.

I was only up once in the night, but the pain was severe.