2014 Canoe trip - prelude

[rusty]

The 2014 canoe expedition had everything! Bad weather, headwinds, poison ivy, minor accidents (how could it be any other way - all the brothers were there); it was grand. My trip began in Indianapolis where Carrie picked me up and i joined Chris and Ada helping Jon and Carrie pack and make the final preparations. There wasnt a lot left to do but at least i was able to offer moral support. It was great to see the place at Indi finally, and I was impressed by what a great place it is, including the basement which i guess Jon has fitted out totally (nice job). I got to stay in the loading room which was super comfortable. The most striking thing about the basement was the signage, including the street sign from Timberlane Dr in Spokane. The truck fit the 5 of us pretty easily, and all our gear, we listened to NPR and a talking book dad gave me which turned out to be really good and hardly any sex passages (no pun intended), which was a relief. It was pretty stormy and rainy on the drive up, particularly around Chicago, and i sort of thought that was a bad omen for the trip, but it did fine up a bit and by the end of the day. Highlight of the drive was breakfast with Aunt Jean in Janesville, it was great to catch up with her and hear some of the family news. By the end of the day it was pretty clear and we had passed Duluth and were looking for a state forest to camp at, having decided to deviate along the shore of Superior and then cut west to Virginia. We ended up staying at a little spot called Sullivan Lake. It was really nice and by that time it was great to be able to stretch out and get some sleep. The Minnesota DNR website says the facilities are primitive but that is an exaggeration. Apparently the Minnesota record Crappie was caught there, over 5lbs! It also has a lot of Pike. Something to remembeer for next time. We made it easily to the border after a visit to the hardware store and a big Iron Range breakfast at Virginia. Jon decided to start carbo-loading for the trip and had the Barn Buster which was everything, plus four pancakes. By the time we made it to Dave and Pats it was early afternoon, where we met up with Dave, Jason and MIke who had flown into International Falls (kindly picked up by Dave and Pat). We set up camp at Caliper Lake and came right back to do some work on the Dock which had been damaged in some bad weather earlier in the year. The weather was amazingly sunny and warm with no bugs, contrary to earlier reports and our worst fears were somewhat allayed. We carried out some makeshift repairs on the dock which mad the pontoon accessible, spending a couple hours mucking around in the water. The cribs needed a lot of work but that was more than we could do without a lot of preparation. We had a great ham dinner that night and it was a really nice evening. We all received our Babcock Voyageurs T-shirts that night, and the stencilled canoe paddles were also revealed, both looked really sharp and were a credit to the creative team, as well as a testament to how keenly anticipated the trip was by all of us. The night would have been idyllyic at Caliper Lake Park, despite the fact that there was a "moose and fiddle" music festival, but for the having to listen to the increasingly loud, boring and drunkenly obnoxious conversations of a group of Canadian bogans (its an aussie word, you'll have to look it up). It was the final straw. We had to leave civilization behind!