Sunday, February 24, 2008 We woke early and one blessing that started the day was that our boots were not frozen. Cold, but not frozen. Eric was up earlier than I and got some great shots of the rising sun and in a 180 degree turn got some wonderful pictures of the pale moon. Oatmeal, sausage and bacon for breakfast and we were off on a day of snowshoe exploring. The whole time were were at our site, we could hear the Kawishiwi River rapids at Lake One dam. So, our first destination was to go and see where we would have been coming in had the river been traversable. I imagine that this part of the river is not ever frozen well enough to travel on. We knew we weren't able to get here this way and up to this point, meeting that gentleman on our first day, we had not seen anybody. Another blessing! So, we made it to the river and had a nice stop, just being quiet...taking in this magical beauty that we were faced with in that moment. The sun was very bright and the water clear and gently rolling over pebbles and stones, making that rushing sound that moving streams make. Simply Spectacular.

We came back to our site and decided to take a rest and just hang out for awhile. There were some cute birds that were our constant companions, especially if we had a few peanuts to share. In the picture of me reading my book, look closely at my leg...there is one of my friends eating a snack! 

We ended up napping in our lounge chairs for over an hour and actually got a smidgen of a sunburn! Today, the temp. would eventually reach 60 degrees F on the lake with all the suns energy being reflected off the white white snow!

As fun as it is running around with out my shirt on because of the warmer temps., I had a funny feeling that our 1/2 igloo may not fair so well...and when we got back from another slushy snowshoe walk, we came up to see 1/2 of the igloo had fallen. As things happen, all we could do was wait out the rest of the day for cooler temps to arrive and replace the wall with new bricks. At this point, we had become fairly able and quick with forming bricks so the task took only about an hour. We placed our bedding inside and waited yet again for the snow to harden up with cooler temps still on the way. We needed to put our tarp on top and secure it with bungee's and large tent stakes.

During some of our wait times, Eric tried his luck with fishing and didn't get a bite. Honestly, we didn't put the time into it that maybe could have produced something, but at least he tried...if he had caught one, he would have had bragging rights for the rest of our stay, not to mention for awhile afterwards!

Our night ended with chili and cream of wild rice and ham soup with hot coffee and more chocolate for dessert. Another fine, warming meal. We had also been to our wood stash and had ourselves a wonderful last night bonfire. Our last night in our shelter proved to be the most comfortable and we both slept deeper and harder than the two previous nights. I've always known that the longer I'm in, the more restful my sleep can be. Another blessing brought to us!