Up North - Evening One thru Day 1

Since Brian, despite my protests, enjoyed his nice slow-paced drive through the woods eerily, I thought I would let him put the tent up himself. :) - Okay I do have something of an evil streak... I was nice enough to put the poles together for him and point out which goes where, but it was up to him to find the sleeves to put them through! It began misting so the rainfly had to go up as well. Needless to say he was frustrated by the end of it and hopefully will enjoy putting the tent up while it is still light out next time.

As soon as the tent went up, Maggie was in it. Sage and I sat by the fire and made some coffee while Brian finished up. Sage, my big fru fru dog, loves getting wet, dirty and rolling in leaves and such. The photo above shows her contentment. Maggie, approaches nature a bit differently. She does not like to get wet or dirty. She avoids the puddles Sage splashes and splunks through. While Sage sits in her own chair by the fire, Maggie will only sit by the fire if I am holding her. However, as you will find out later, she is no stranger to the wild!

After a short morning stroll to the lake, (about the equivilent of 1/2 a city block away) we went into town to have breakfast and get groceries. The car was so packed that we couldn't fit many groceries. Not only that, but if we like to frequent the area, we feel we need to support it and keep it going. Cranberry's, the restaurant we usually frequent, changed ownership and covered Grandma up with another sign that didn't do it justice. Perhaps it did, however, as the menu had changed from good home-cooking to a more "Applebees" cuisine.


We shopped a bit at our local favorites and even frequented a couple of new places. Compared to all the other times, the town and the campground were both quiet and not full of sightseers. The reasons for this were the cold weather this spring, gas prices, and the black flies not having hatched. Once the black flies hatch, the fish no longer have larvae to munch on and are more lured to the fisherman's lure. Our camping neighbors from Wisconsin said the fish they were getting were about 10 inches shy of their average catch of 26-27 inch fish. They fish for Pike, Walleye and Trout. We have seen the fisherpeople come back through the campground with these fish nearly as big as their smiles.