fall camping 2007

so our camping trip was fantastic!!

here is the short version:

- lindsey got lost and slept in her car
- jeff and i became bff's (best fart friends)
- julie camped for the first time and loved it
- lindsey shared her toothpaste with me
- zack drank too much and got sick
- saire and mark argued about how fast mark was driving
- jeff and lindsey got married

here is the longer, more detailed summary:

jeff, aaron and i drove up on friday. we got out of town a little late (okay, yes, maybe i was working a little bit...) and we stopped at fitgers in duluth for a little lunch and a few frosty beers. mmm.
























we found our campsite easily, and jeff and i put up our tents while aaron went to get firewood. while he was in town, aaron called lindsey to make sure she was clear on how to get to the site. he said that the connection was bad, but he thought he had given her all the directions...

after we put up our tents, we headed down to the lake. the moon was so beautiful!


















yummy bratwursts and beer for dinner. it got cold quick and we waited patiently for my dear friend lindsey. at about midnight, i gave up and went to bed, asking aaron to stay up a little later for her, which he did.

in the morning, still no lindsey, so jeff and i headed out to find her. we got to town and checked my messages- there was one with lindsey crying, which broke my heart clear in two. she had gotten lost and had slept in her car... =(

so we called her, found her, and hugged her for at least 5 minutes straight!!


















then we went back to camp, got some breakfast, and headed out to lutsen.

when we got there, we found out that they weren't running the alpine slides on account of weather, so we got drunk and played scrabble. =)



















soon saire and mark showed up and we hung out a little longer until we could see that the mountain tram was finally running.

we took a trip up the mountain and checked out all the fog on top. =)

the colors were amazing!



















then we drove down to temperance river state park to meet jules and zack and to hike around there. the waterfalls are so fun in the fall.=)















































headed back to camp and aaron made pork chops (and apple sauce), potatoes, and corn on the cob. fabulous!



















julie and lindsey brought birthday dessert, so we scarfed that, too.



















then, the campfire conversation kicked into gear and we hung until late into the night.

at one point, the boys decided to find campfire and even had a wood chopping competition or something silly like that with an old ax aaron and i bought in 1996 (yes, i remember when we bought the ax) which has never been sharpened.

beers were drank, laughs were had, good stuff.

in the morning, it was raining (and zack was puking outside his tent), so we piled into the cars, left zack behind to recover, and hit a restaurant in town for breakfast.

we came back to camp and most of the group headed out. julie and zack hung around until zack was well enough to travel, then the four of us went to split rock lighthouse, which is one of my favorite sites up there.










































we said goodbye to julie and zack and hung out at the beach for awhile longer.

we drove home.

all the pics:



i'll post some video soon...

aaron has something he would like to say...
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yay for susan's birthday!! it was awesome.

in honor of susan's project management skills, this list of 'things not to forget when you go up to the northwoods' was compiled around the campfire on saturday.

if anyone reads this and goes camping in northern minnesota, don't forget your:

ashtray, bratwurst, campfire, dildo, egg, fart-knocker, galazy, horseradish, icabod crane, jelly bellies, kayak, both your legs, your military, a nano second, octopus, pipe, quantum mechanics, recess, sub sandwich, transformers more than meets they eye, uzbekistan, victory, water, a xenophobe, yogurt, and when you're ready to sleep, some zzzz's.
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yay fun camping weekend with friends

aaron and i are planning a weekend up in tofte (northern minnesota) for the fall colors, not this weekend, but next weekend. =)

(i sent out an email awhile ago to just about everyone i know to see who might like to join us, but if i missed you, and you'd like to go, let me know)

i just have to say, i'm so damn excited, i can hardly contain myself. i'm about to become uncontained, and that's not good!!! =)



















if you wanna see some of the stuff we're going to do, check out the google map i made here.

here are some pics from last year's trip:



here's the video from last year's trip.



outrageous exciting!!!

dad survived!!

despite 1) taking a plunge face first into the beach at temperance river, and 2) tripping over the canoe face first into the drink (officially qualifying himself as asswet), dad made it through the boundary waters trip unharmed. he was somewhat sore, but not unlike the rest of us. =)



so i'll start by saying a bad day in the bwcaw is better than a good day just about anywhere else.

with that said...

1. we had a helluva tough paddle across homer lake, the first lake we dipped into
2. we didn't find an open campsite on the lake we were hoping for, which meant we had to paddle two more lakes and portage another 65 rods
3. our campsite was in an burn down area, which means no live trees to hang bear packs in. we spent a lot of time trying to hang a pack in a tree by the water, which didn't work as well as we hoped
4. since we spent all that time hanging a bear pack, we missed a canoe opportunity in the middle of the lake, watching the sunset =(
5. it was a gorgeous sunset
6. fires were banned so we got cold and went to bed early
7. after breakfast, we spent a lot more time trying to hang the bear pack again. after at least an hour of mishaps, we were finally on our way to a hung pack, when 'snap!' the line broke and the pack dropped emphatically on the ground. rude!
8. yay- we caught a bunch of fishies!!
9. dad fell into the lake and nearly took aaron and i with him
10. the dessert i brought along (instant lemon pudding) was a disaster! anyone who tells you that you can substitute evaporated milk for real milk in pudding is outa their mind.
11. beautiful moon
12. again, cold. no fire sucks!
13. on the morning we were leaving, the wind picked up again, AND it shifted. which means our trek home was, just like our trip in, straight into the wind. we did get to see brule lake for the first time. that lake is huge!! (and gorgeous)
14. success!! aaron's dad did pretty well. he carried the canoe on his shoulders like a real trooper, cast his fishing pole with all his weight from the center of the canoe, and just ask us to tell you about his pack sometime.

bwcaw again!!!

aaron and i are going out into the wilderness again!!!! woohoo!!!

we have invited (and they have accepted) aaron's dad and brother (david and david respectively).

we are going in at homer lake, heading to pipe lake to do some fishing. i feel pretty lucky to be able to go out there twice in one year. =)

august 17- reentry into paradise

bwcaw- revisited 2007

aaron, my brother scott and i dipped our canoes in wilderness water again. we dipped in at baker lake and stayed on weird lake for two nights.

it's not easy to find the right words to describe the way we feel about the boundary waters. aaron and i brought our favorite book of poems up with us to read by the campfire, and we found this poem by william stafford which does a nice job of articulating the happiness for us:

Why I Am Happy
- William Stafford

Now has come, an easy time. I let it
roll. There is a lake somewhere
so blue and far nobody owns it.
A wind comes by and a willow listens
gracefully.

I hear all this, every summer. I laugh
and cry for every turn of the world,
its terribly cold, innocent spin.
That lake stays blue and free; it goes
on and on.

And I know where it is.

all my pics on www.flickr.com

here are some of the highlights of our trip:

aaron tipped his canoe while shooting some rapids and took a long cold swim in the drink (btw, going into the drink deeper than your rear is known as getting asswet, which aaron did with grace)

we saw about a zillion bald eagles- one of which was enthusiastically eating something on the shore of the lake we were fishing in.

we caught a few northerns and one super huge small mouth bass.

we witnessed the procreation of a couple of turtles who laid their eggs on the shore of our campsite.

we had three days of uninterrupted sunshine, amazing weather.

i took my digital camera with me- a huge risk, based on my track record of losing two cameras to the wilderness so far. my canon made it out alive with no injury and with almost 4 GB worth of images and video. thanks wilderness for not harming my camera friend!

this is going to sound incredibly macabre, but it's really very settling for me... while we were out there canoing around, i decided that if anything ever happens to aaron and he is gone, i will go out to the boundary waters for a solo trip to find some solace. i know which lake i will go to. aaron says if i am gone, he will also go there... as an atheist, there isn't much i can do to feel better after the passing of my best and most treasured friend in the world. it's so reassuring to know that i have a plan for the best possible thing i can do at the worst possible moment in my life.

we're planning another trip to the bwcaw this year, possibly with aaron's dad. we're also planning another car camping trip hopefully with some new friends- carla and tom. oh yeah, and we're going to pull off another fall colors camping trip for my birthday, perhaps in northern wisconsin!!

minnesota is a great place to live. =)

here is some of the video i shot (7:46)(it's working now):

wisconsin has waterfalls and bears!

here is a small random selection of images from our wisconsin camping trip!

this is a link to the whole set on www.flickr.com.

here is a hilarious video of one of wisconsin's black bears, which we met up close and personal...