Vacation, Day 3: Driving the backroads

It was another gorgeous day, calm and cool.

Another beautiful morning

I noticed that the arbor vitae was covered with small cones.

Cones on the arbor vitae

I had never seen arbor vitae seeds before. I peeled back the outer scales to reveal two seeds side by side with wings surrounding them. These did not seem mature. I don’t know if they would get bigger or not.

Twin seeds in the arbor vitae cone

There had been a little rain in the night. I suggested that we take our annual drive on the dirt roads to Ester Lake because the rain would have settled the dust. Jane thought that was a fine idea because we had her car. Here is a picture of the open (dirt) road.

Our trek through the National Forest

We stopped to admire the Joe Pyeweed growing near a beaver dam.

Joe Pyeweed (pinkish flower on the right) next to a beaver dam (pile of sticks on the right). The beaver lodge is in the back

The pearly everlasting was in bloom everywhere, as was common tansy.

Pearly everlasting (I've always loved that name)

Common tansy, a cheerful if invasive flower.

At the Otter Lake portage trail, I easily collected a handful of wild blueberries.

Blueberries from Otter Lake

We did not see a moose on the road to Ester Lake this time, but the roadside was lined with more flowers than we had ever seen before.

A roadside floral display

We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife, just the usual robins, blue jays, crows and squirrels.

We visited another site from the Passport to the Past, the Hovland Dock. There was a sign warning of peril—unstable cement, big waves, etc. I did not venture out. I don’t want to be the one on the news who ends up dead because she doesn’t heed the warning. The Passport said that Hovland was settled in 1888 by two Norwegians, Ole Brunes and Nels Elaisen, and the location was known as Chicago until a year later, when they renamed it Hovland after Ole’s birthplace in Norway. Chicago, Illinois comes from a Native American word for ramps (sometimes translated as “stinking onion”). I wondered if ramps had grown here near the Flute Reed River also. The dock brought supplies to Hovland until the highway was completed in 1928.

The Hovland dock. Don't go out there.

Next stop: Chippewa City, a bustling town of 100 families of Ojibwe until 1915. From the 1700s to the 1900’s, Jesuit priests tried to save the souls of this and other communities. The only thing that remains is a church, built in 1895. The Jesuits were replaced by Benedictines in 1905. No idea what that means from a theological standpoint. Over time, the community dwindled, I’m guessing due to relocation of the Ojibwe to a reservation up by Grand Portage. A new church in Grand Marais forced the Chippewa City church to close. From 1936 to 1970, the church fell into disrepair. It was then restored as an example of early missions

St. Francis Xavier Church, the only remaining remnant of Chippewa City

Back at the cabin, we filled our vacation glasses with ice and grapefruit margaritas. We got out Jane’s new tripod to take a better picture of us using the 10-second delay on my camera. The tripod was a vast improvement over trying to balance the camera on the deck railing.

Happy hour!

While we had happy hour, a constant rain of birch seeds fell on us. It is amazing that such a large plant can come from such a miniscule seed. The seeds are beautiful. Their wings make a perfect little fleur-de-lis.

A birch seed with wings. For scale, that is the weave of denim on my jeans.

I saw something shiny and brown on the ground under the deck. It was about 2" long. I could not figure out what it was until I got quite close. It was a slug! Not as big as in the Pacific Northwest, but twice the size that I usually see in Illinois.

A relatively monstrous slug

I made steak fajitas with the leftover steak, pablano, bell peppers, and onion from the garden, and a salsa of peppers, tomato, and onion. Jane bought little “street taco” tortillas. It was a lovely meal on the deck, if a little drippy.

Steak fajitas

Jane went down to the dock to fish. I sat with her and worked on my journal. She caught a bass. I took a picture because, based on the fish we’d caught so far, I thought it might be the biggest one we would see. Turns out I was right about that.

Jane's bass--the largest fish either of us caught