Days 5 and 6

Day 5: Thursday, August 12

I woke to a strong wind. No fishing or boating today. We had a leisurely start to the day, drinking coffee (Jane) and tea (me) and eating leftover pancakes for breakfast. Eventually, we got dressed and headed up the Gunflint Trail, driving the Iron Lake road looking for wildlife or anything interesting. We saw a robin. Big deal.

I made salads for lunch with cheese curds, hard boiled eggs, carrots, mixed nuts, and cherry tomatoes. My goal was to use the rest of the lettuce and cherry tomatoes. Jane can’t eat very much, so my salad got to be quite large. It was a lot of chewing, but we were finally getting some room in the tiny refrigerator.

Lunch

The wind was really blowing, whipping up white caps on our little bay. We hung around the cabin. A hummingbird came by briefly. I tried to take a picture of it through the window screen, with predictable results.

Impressionistic photo of a hummingbird

The cilantro was on its last legs. I made another batch of corn and black bean salsa with the rest of the beans and two of the remaining four ears of corn. What was I thinking when I brought so much corn? The bowl of salsa was huge compared with the number of tortilla chips we had left.

A salsa/chip inequality

I made quesadilla with onion, poblano peppers, cheese, and the last of the steak. OMG, those poblanos were HOT! There’s a lot of variability in how spicy poblanos can be, and I hadn’t tasted them before throwing both in the skillet. There was no going back. All we could do was hope we didn’t have heartburn in the night. Getting old is not for sissies.

Very spicy quesadilla

We played marble chase after supper. The waxing moon was over the lake shortly before bedtime. It was a beautiful end to a relaxing day.

The moon over the lake

Day 6: Friday, August 13

The wind settled down during the night but picked right up again when the sun came up. It also got cold, by summer standards. Jane brought an outside thermometer this year, and it read 56°. I put on my long underpants.

On the last day, we have to focus on eating all the leftover food. I made fried corn and potatoes with the last two ears of corn, eggs with stuff, and bacon for breakfast. It was a lot of food.

Big breakfast

We tried fishing from our dock with no luck. We walked over to Dave and Nancy’s dock to see if there were any fish there. Unlike our dock, which is mounted on posts in shallow water, Dave and Nancy’s dock floats, and it was rolling plenty in the big waves. We soon gave up, went back to the cabin, and turned of the faux-woodstove space heater.

Still full from breakfast, we had a light lunch of yogurt and the last peach.

In our trips back and forth to Grand Marais, we drove past a road called “Lullaby Creek.” It sounds restful and scenic, doesn’t it? Jane was intrigued. “I dunno,” I said hesitantly. “It’s a dotted line on the map.”

Jane was undaunted, and it was her car. After lunch we went on a little adventure. The road deteriorated rapidly until it was two ruts with long grass in between.

What the dotted line means on the Forest Service map

The trouble with the long grass is that it hid substantially sized rocks. Jane drove very slowly, but still our conversation when something like this.

WHUMP.

“Shit!”

SCRAPE.

“Shit!”

As for wildlife, it was limited to one red squirrel eating a mushroom in the road. It seemed unconcerned or perhaps annoyed by our presence.

Red squirrel eating a mushroom

If finally moved shortly before we ran it over. We continued creeping along seeing nothing but more forest. Lullaby Creek remained hidden behind the trees and shrubs.

“At least we won’t see anyone back here,” Jane said.

We came to a wide spot in the road where a ski trail headed off to the right. It was the perfect place to turn around, yet we persisted in going forward. This was a decision we soon regretted. When we knew we had to turn around, there was no place to do it. We crept forward until we came to a spot where it didn’t look like the shoulder dropped off into oblivion, and Jane carefully went forward and backed up until the car faced the other way. Remember the 3-point turn from Drivers’ Ed? This was like a 20-point turn.

As we were headed back, going 5 mph, damned if we didn’t meet a 4-wheel drive ATV filled with people on our way back. “Shit!”

They very politely pulled to the side while we inched down the road to get around them. I gave them two thumbs-up, and they waved back, laughing at us. It was embarrassing.

On our way back to the cabin, we noticed that the information kiosk by one of the lakes had been painted over. Closed because of COVID?

Information kiosk with no information

We paid our bill at the office and began the sad process of packing up and loading the car. We finished the tortellini with pasta sauce for supper, along with green beans sautéed with onions, garlic and tomato. Can’t get enough tomatoes!

Tomatoes on everything!

And thus ended another vacation at the cabin.