Woke up sorta lazily, and finished packing before heading north to the Gunflint Trail. Lots of Lupine on the sides of the roads from Duluth onwards. Pulled into Gooseberry Falls State Park for a bathroom break and it was a zoo! I couldn't believe it, on a Wednesday mid-day no less!

Continued on. Thought about stopping by the Alpine Slide at Lutsen, but we were on the lollygag train back home, so we didn't arrive in time. Decided we'd hit up Java Moose, however we were too late for that as well!

We were staying at the East Bearskin Campground - camper cabin, so we pulled into Bearskin Lodge Outfitters. The place was not very busy at all. I walked up the stairs to the lodge [which on an aside, completely reminded me of a Summer Camp], the bear statues outside were all outfitted in masks, so I was very glad my slew of cotton masks from Old Navy came in. It wasn't required, but heavily appreciated, and I was happy to oblige.

Right when you walked in to the entryway they had signs up and lots of hand sanitizer asking you to sanitize before you entered. They had the main lodge blocked off, and had a table up so you just waited. They grabbed our key to the cabin, and told us to leave it on the table in the morning.

As far as our permit, your confirmation email from recreation.gov served as your permit for the weekend. So we were off to the cabin.

It was pretty nice looking. We brought extra "car camping" sleeping bags, and house pillows, and dropped and then took off for Trail Center for dinner.

We pulled in to a parking spot, ordered up, and then ate on the picnic tables across from Trail Center. The two ladies working on Wednesday night were a hoot. I was sad we couldn't go in, but they were making due, and appeared to be very busy.

After dinner, went back to the camper cabin, and played card games, and read. Another group pulled into the camper cabin near ours, and continually slammed the screen door all night long, and the "mom" was screaming at someone for quite a while. We were all really excited to get into the backcountry away from all the noise.

The camper cabin was SUPER creaky, so everytime you moved, it woke everyone up, so we all had a fitful night of sleep, but it was also so nice to be so close to the EP for the morning.