BWCA Days 3 and 4

Sunday, July 12, 2015

I got up at 6:00 to the morning chorus of all sorts of bird species. After I got my eyes open, I sat on my bed for some minutes watching white throated sparrows forage for red berries in the shrub outside my window.

I couldn’t find coffee filters anywhere. I was on my way to the office to see if we were supposed to bring some just as Nancy pulled out of her house on her way to the art festival. We chatted a few minutes in which she told me that the festival wouldn’t be at all crowded after 1:00 that afternoon because all the weekenders would leave by then. I said we would take it into consideration. Meanwhile, the question of the morning was about the coffee filters.

“I knew they were getting low,” she said, turning off the engine and getting out of the car. “With getting ready for the art show, I forgot. I was going to be ready in March.”

Nancy got the coffee filters for me and resumed her trip to Grand Marais.

We had blueberry pancakes with peaches and maple syrup along with bacon that I had somewhat overcooked. 

Blueberry pancakes with peaches

We went up to the office to get our fishing licenses and two dozen leeches. Dave explained that the licenses were now “angling licenses” because someone had gotten busted for fishing without one and successfully argued that because he was releasing all of his fish, he was angling and not fishing. The court decided that “fishing” was not a legally defined term, and the State of Minnesota began issuing angling licenses.

The sky had some low dark clouds that made us reluctant to take the boat out. I took the folding chairs down from the cabin and set them up where I thought we could fish without hooking each other. When Jane came down, she pointed out that her chair was too close to the end, and she would not be able to stand up without pitching herself into the lake. Picky, picky.

We fed leeches to the little fish around the dock. Seriously, the effect would have been the same with less effort if we had thrown the leeches in the water without putting them on hooks.  Jane successfully landed one small perch, and that was the extent of what we caught. I never saw any of the fish that cleaned my line.

We fished until noon and had a quick lunch of ham sandwiches, carrot sticks, and yogurt. We took our showers and put on clean clothes to go to the art festival. A few drops of rain hit the windshield as we were driving down the last big hill before town. Parking was still tight when we got to Grand Marais even though it was well past 1:00, when Nancy said everyone would be going home. We found a spot just outside Beth’s Fudge and Gifts, which was only one block from the beginning of the artists’ tents. And just as we got out of the car, it poured. We weren’t wearing our raingear, of course, and got wet as we scrambled to get it out of the car and on our persons. It was not a warm rain, either.

A bedraggled seagull fledgling wandered around the bank parking lot looking for scraps of food. I’m sure a McDonald’s parking lot would have been better foraging, but there is no McDonald’s in Grand Marias. In fact, there aren’t that many parking lots of any kind. Perhaps the bank parking lot gets occasional scraps from the World’s Best Doughnuts across the street.

Baby seagull in the rain

On the sidewalks of Grand Marais, people were walking under umbrellas or scurrying for shelter in the shops that were open or under the awning of Ben Franklin, which was closed. We had hoped to look for a few items at B FRANK (as all their price tags say) while in town, but were thwarted. Lots of people were having a late lunch at the Blue Water Café.

Low cloud in Grand Marais

The art festival was very nice. I heard one of the artists explaining that it was a juried show, which explained the total absence of crafty crap. Beautiful paintings, photographs, baskets, jewelry, ceramics, carved wood, and glass beads filled two blocks of tents. Jane was particularly taken with small tables that had solid wood tops and artistically arranged branches for legs. They were striking. The price seemed reasonable--$400—but the legs would not survive a trip home in the car, and Jane is not short tables.

Grand Marais Art Festival in the rain

We visited briefly with Nancy but didn’t want to be in the way of potential customers. We found Betsy Bowen in one of the tents and bought our calendars, as has been our habit for the last two years.

On our way back to the car, we passed a tent where a young man had a foot-pumped lathe set up. A half-carved bowl of birch wood was on the lathe, and the ground was covered with shavings. He wasn’t working on it when we went by.  The foot petal was hooked to a rope that wound around the drive shaft. It seemed to me that the spin would reverse as the lathe was pumped. I wondered afterward how that would work. If I’d thought of it at the time, I could have asked.

Foot-powered lathe with birch wood bowl

Jane waited in the car while I picked out a postcard to send to Kate for her birthday in Beth’s Fudge and Gifts. I had never been in Beth’s Fudge and Gifts before. The store was larger than it looked from the outside and stuffed to the gills with every souvenir imaginable. The postcards were right in the front.

Posing outside Beth's Fudge and Gifts (that's me on the right!)

We went to IGA next. Our planned menu was steaks on the grill. Jane was concerned that it would be too wet. We got pasta, tomato sauce to mix with the leftover WondeRoast chicken, and garlic bread as a rainy day backup. And then we went to Sydney’s for custard. Of course.

Back at the cabin, all was dry. It seemed as if the clouds were clearing. I thought we should go ahead with the steaks because 1) they had been thawed for three days and 2) we could save the chicken pasta for a day when it was raining, should there be one.

I began peeling new potatoes and garlic to make a foil pack while Jane started the grill. As soon as the grill was lit, thunder rumbled ominously. We hoped it would stay to the north until we were done cooking dinner, which it did. I made enough foil pack potatoes to have leftovers for breakfast.  I also cut the baby zucchini in half and rubbed them in salt, pepper, and butter.Jane was able to successfully complete grilling supper, and it didn’t rain all evening. 

Grilled steak, zucchini, and foil pack potatoes with garlic

We played Farkel after dinner. I almost won the first game, but Jane beat me in the final round. I was not even close to winning ever in the second game.

Monday, July 13

I woke at 5:30 to the sound of a light rain. The light coming in the window was green-yellow. The birds were singing their little hearts out in spite of the weather. I lay in bed listening to the sounds. There was no wind and therefore no need to shut the windows. The air smelled of rain, earth, and balsam fir. I was so very glad to be warm and dry, so very glad I did not have to roll up a wet tent, eat a cold breakfast, and start paddling in the rain. Even back in the day, I didn’t enjoy that part of canoe trips.

The view of a rainy day from the dining table

I made scrambled eggs with leftover foil pack garlic potatoes, grilled zucchini, and fresh spring onions. There were enough leftover potatoes to save half for another breakfast. I sprinkled bits of cheese curds over the top before serving. We also had bacon and toast.

Eggs with stuff

What to do? Jane suggested driving up the Gunflint because sometimes wildlife is out in the rain.

“And sometimes you drive all over creation in the rain and only see ducks,” I said, remembering a trip a couple of years ago. And so we put together a jigsaw puzzle. Once Jane gets started, she can’t be stopped. She kept at it even during our lunch break (more ham sandwiches).

Jane had to stop for a little while when all that was left of the puzzle was the sky. Her back hurt from sitting so long in the same position. It was going on 4:00.

Jane sat on the couch and took a little nap. By this time, it was raining harder than it had all day. It would have truly been a miserable day on the water, canoeing all day in the rain and cooking dinner with wet wood. (I am still quite proud of my ability to start a fire with wet wood, but no one seems really interested anymore.) So nice to have a cozy cabin and a stove. I worked on the sky part of the puzzle until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

I made the WondeRoast pasta and a salad for supper. 

Pasta with leftover chicken, garlic bread, and salad

Jane finished the jigsaw puzzle, sort of. She couldn’t tell one sky piece from another, and ended up putting them where they were close enough.

Completed jigsaw puzzle with the "close enough" sky on the left.

After supper, I asked if I should put the puzzle away or fix the sky.

“Do whatever you want,” Jane replied. I put the puzzle back in the box. I love our jigsaw puzzle days. It’s one of those things that you never have time to do at home.

Our Yahtzee games were notable in that we each got at least one Yahtzee in nearly every game, and one time, Jane got three!