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Clamshell Beach - Pequot Lake, Whitefish Chain, June 2007
This is the third week we've spent at the Clamshell Beach resort on Clamshell Lake, a small lake off the beaten
path of the Whitefish Chain. With a sandy beach, comfy cabin, water trampoline, good fishing, good people, Grandma along for
a few days - it's the most relaxing week of every year! Nothing to do but fish & grill & read & watch the girls
frolic.
This year we came late enough in the year that the girls could participate in the Kids Club with other kids
staying at Clamshell. They painted shirts, sold lemonade, held an Olympics, & did all sorts of other activities including
their favorite - pony rides!
During our seven day stay Molly managed to read six books (or was it seven?) & made friends with our neighbors in
the cabin next door, & I fished every day - in the morning during Kids Club & often in the afternoon &/or
evening, when I'd take on passengers. Emma & Leah came out for an afternoon of sunny fishing - ask Leah sometime
about the bass she caught (she'll show you how big it was, she's going to be quite the whopper teller when she's older!).
Molly caught a few pike & I took my Mom & Dad out to see the bass & sunfish beds in the weeds along the shores
of Clamshell.
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| On the move in the Crestliner |
We love our week at Clamshell. We'll be back again in 2008 with the boat, kids, & another duffel bag full of books!
This is the way life should be!
Boundary Water Canoe Area - Meeds Lake, May 2007
Our annual May trip threatened by the Ham Lake fire, the BWCA crew of Kevin, John, & I were ready to venture elsewhere
while the fire terrorized the poor folks on the Gunflint Trail. However, only six days before departure, our entry point was
re-opened. The trip was on!
The trip highlight was our bushwhack into Moon Lake - a lake with no portage or campsites that might not have been
visited in a year or more. The way in was brutal. The "creek" was more of a rock bed with a trickle of water, so we hauled
& pulled the canoe several hundred yards until the creek became, uh, "navigable". But once in, we saw two moose & caught
all the hyper-aggressive northern we wanted. The solitude was worth it. The moose sightings & great fishing made it one
of my favorite all-time days in the BWCA.
The trip after the Moon bushwhack was regular old BWCA fun. We paddled down through Swallow, Hensen, & Pillsbery
to stay on Omega lake the second night, & caught a good deluge that last almost the entire third day of our trip. Folks
ought to hire us during a drought - rain always follows us into the BWCA!
The layover day spoiled our plans to go north through Rush Lake, where a finger of the Ham Lake fire had burned over
the lake, so we turned south, to Winchell Lake, a long, deep lake. We were fortunate to have a tail wind as we paddled
its six miles! The east end of the lake partially burned in the 2006 Red Eye Lake Fire, a lightning-sparked fire driven by
fierce south winds that burned in a narrow swath up & over the south shore of Gaskin before jumping to the northern
shore.
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| Red Eye Lake Fire - Winchell Lake |
We paddled north from Winchell through Gaskin & for the first time, John & I retraced a bit of path we'd already
taken (during a 2002 trip) & portaged into Horseshoe. The final day we picked up & moved north through Caribou, Lizz,
& back onto Poplar Lake where civilization awaited our dirty, smelly selves. But not without one more backwards glance
over Lizz.
We agreed heartily that another 2007 trip was in order. And whenever that trip occurs, it's going to include another
side-trip bushwhack without a doubt, although John's faithful green Old Town canoe might disagree. You'd need a calculator
to count the scratches we've put in that poor battered thing!
Boundary Waters Canoe Area - Ella Hall Lake, August 2006
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| Molly Reading - Ella Hall Lake |
This is the way we spend a lot of hours in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area - reading. Lollygagging. Laying on the
rocks. Watching the sky.Of course, on this trip, I wanted to treat Molly to an easy experience, so we chose Ella Hall Lake
as our destination. Why? Because the Four Mile Portage is one of the only places in the BWCA that allows portage wheels. What
better way to ease her back into the wilderness she hadn't visited since 1998 but had wanted to come back to ever since? So
the easy trip it was.
Yeah, right. The best laid plans of mice & men & all that.
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| Corey Fishing - Ella Hall Lake |
That was before the portage wheels wouldn't fit in the canoe. Before my faithful maps betrayed us. Before we found the
beaver pond that flooded the portage. Before I decided to be a tough guy & carry the canoe 2 1/2 miles. Before the map
betrayed us again (for those keeping score at home that's two of the three map problems I've had in the BWCA in eight years)
and realized we didn't even know what lake we were on.
And we had a great time, thank you. Molly caught the first big smallie (18") and the fishing was good enough that we
never caught anything small enough to eat! We saw a pair of trumpeter swans, a first in the BWCA for me, and generally had
a great time sleeping in, lounging, fishing, & paddling up & down Ella Hall. Our thirst for exploring had been sated
by our rough trip in, so we stayed put all three nights. And the trek back out was a breeze!
Chicago/Twins Trip - July 2006
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| Read to face the White Sox! |
When I asked Molly what she might want to do the rest of the summer she said "Well, maybe go see the Twins in Chicago
& go to the Boundary Waters?"
Man, do I have a great wife.
So it was done. I scrounged up a tickets for the family & we were off to watch the Twins battle the rotten White
Sox for two games of a three game series in late July 2006.
It was fantastic. In case you don't recall, the Twins had risen from the dead in early June & were making a serious
run at the playoffs. The team was rolling when they arrived in Chicago to face bat-flipping A.J. & his
evil Sox minions.
And did we have fun! Unfortunately we forgot the camera during both games at Cellular because, well, I'm an idiot, but
the games were fantastic. By the time we headed out on Wednesday the Twins had swept the Sox under the bus & the
Mighty Whities would barely be heard from for the balance of the 2006 campaign.
One of the guys at work told me before we left that the Sox fans were a very brutal bunch. Perhaps it helped having two
cute little girls in Twins uniforms, but we only received one half-hearted heckle the entire time (with lots of high-fives
from fellow visiting Twins fans). He asked me about when we returned & I said, "How do you give someone a hard time
when his team is kicking the snot out of yours?" Evidently nobody in Chicago knew the answer to that question, either.
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| Girls & Gorilla! Lincoln Zoo |
Naturally we did some other things in Chicago, hitting the Lincoln Zoo & the Aquarium, but really, who wants to hear
about anything but the Twins whomping the Pasty Sox?
Boundary Water Canoe Area - Sawbill Lake, May 2006
The spring 2006 trip party consisted of myself & long-time BWCA side-kick John, as well as 2005 addition to the roster
Kevin, who was on his second BWCA journey. For those who may not have visited in the spring, it's a fine time of year. Few
bugs, less people, good fishing. Of course there's also wildly unpredictable weather, flooded portages, & sometimes erratic
fishing.
Our permit put us at the Sawbill Lake entrance late that first afternoon. By the end of the second day we put down roots
on a fantastic island site on Phoebe Lake after John almost ran an unrunnable set of rapids, we made the mistake of taking
the detour into Ella - the little-used portage into Grace wasn't pretty - & when we exited the Phoebe river were greeted
with the most beautiful downpour I'd ever witnessed. Hard rain, no wind, with the raindrops splashing lake water a foot or
more above the surface of the lake. We just pulled up our hoods, put down our paddles, waited, & admired. That night a
thick fog rolled in to complete the evening, making it hard to see anything beyond the end of your arm. It was a marvelous
day. The next evening we were treated to a fine rainbow over the south end of Phoebe.
The fishing wasn't great on this trip. The fish were following & nipping rather than hitting - we saw more northern
than we hooked, & never did see a walleye. The smallies were around but not very big.
We spent another night on Ella, the small, out-of-the way lake. Nice lake, if you're ever in the neigborhood, and very
quiet. During our final day it was also on the median of the storm superhighway, as we enjoyed watching rumbler after
rumbler grind just around us without ever letting us suffer a drop of rain. And we managed to catch a few northern, one of
which ended up as supper.
The trek out I have no pictures of - the memory of the three foot waves crashing over the side of the canoe are enough.
Suffice to say that we made it in one piece and solid land never looked so comforting.
I'm sure we all wonder what happened to the amateurs going in with their boxes of wine & Wild Turkey packed high
over the gunwhales. That is something that I really ought to have a picture of, though I didn't think of it at the time!
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