BWCA for the 4th

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I love the Boundary Waters. Not in a, I [heart] the BWCA, kind of way either.  I love it the way I love my little boy—little triggers lurk around every bend inspiring overwhelming emotional response. The smell of baking pine needles on a bed of rich humus, the reflection of the clouds on the mirror of a still lake surface, the ache of a well used muscle as I pull the paddle through the water close to a potential campsite, a solitary Iris blooming next to the portage. . .the cool relief of the lake’s embrace as the afternoon heat builds.

I will drive for nonsensical durations and slog across 200+ rods of portage, lugging half my body weight in gear, in punishing heat, so I can spend even just a few days taking in what this place has to offer. I doubt I told my mother and father that when they brought me here as a child, but more than anything else they exposed me to as a child, this place has nestled close. I think Optimus loves it too, “You know guys, we should do this together every year, until you get too old, and I come here with different people.”

10 Years of Adventures

To celebrate survival of ten years of marriage, Matt and I spent three days on the North Shore of Lake Superior at Bluefin Bay, exploring the Gitchi-Gami State Bike Trail, rock picking and hiking on the Superior Hiking Trail.

The room was lovely, the weather, not so much.  In typical fashion, we didn’t let it get to us.  We’d brought our bikes, so before dinner we went exploring by bicycle. . .finding the trailhead for the Gitchi-gami not too far past the confines of the resort. The views were incredible, with little stone bridges, fields of imported pacific northwestern lupine, and picturesque stands of mature birch trees. It was so lovely, we biked it again the next evening, going the full length of two sections: Temperance River State Park Segment and Tofte to the Onion River.

En route to dinner, both nights, we did some rock picking, because how do you visit the North Shore and not come home with some cool rocks? That’d be like going to the Jersey Shore and not coming home with shells!  We acquired a naturalist’s guide to the geologic composition of the land itself and managed to identify many of the pretty stones we’d picked up.

In celebration of our actual anniversary day we celebrated like we did for our first anniversary, by climbing a small mountain.  The first anniversary mountain was in Nepal, and thus more deserving of the title, but the hike up Oberg is a challenging 1.8 mile spur trail off the SHT providing scenic vistas at nearly every turn.

We started the morning by dropping off our car at the Britton Peak parking lot, then rode our bikes back down the steep 2.2 miles of 2 that preceded it. The ride down was invigorating; I can absolutely understand the road cyclist’s love of downhill sections of road now.  The resort dropped us off at the Oberg Mountain lot via their shuttle, which was exceptionally convenient.

After the hike up the immaculately maintained Oberg loop, we hiked the Britton Peak -> Oberg Mountain section of the trail in reverse. We’d been warned it was muddy, due to days and days of rain, so the mud wasn’t a shocker, but it did make for some amazing blisters from my newish boots!

I wanted to post all [5xx] pictures here, but figured no one really wants to look at that many photographs of someone else’s trip, so here’s a slideshow of the highlights. Enjoy!

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Shacks in the Northland

We visited the Iron Range Musiches for the weekend, and spent some time exploring in the woods.  Our reward was two cool shacks built with scrounged building materials.

Due to the probability that the locations of these structures are not exactly legitimate, I’ll not be telling you where they are, but let’s just say that they’re in mine country in close proximity to the Laurentian divide.

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New Jersey Funeral Road Trip

The family made a trek to New Jersey to be there for the funeral and burial of my Grandma Fran.  She’s been less than herself for several years now, but it was still sad to see her lifeless form and to know that she would no longer be around to suggest a new romance novel I should read (never did) or ask why I haven’t had more children (that’s my life’s purpose after I went to college to find a husband) and letting my little guy eat as many strawberries as he can stuff into his chubby little face.  As frequently happens with grandparents, it turns out she was more colorful than I realized.  My father’s eulogy taught me more about her than I’d ever known while she was alive and I’m grateful for all the documents and labeled photographs she left behind.

A trip to Jersey must include a trip to the beach, even if it is March.  I was shocked at how clean the beach was.  We’ve always gone in late spring or summertime, so I’ve come to expect garbage and the detritus of humanity littering the sands. . .not so much of that in waning months of Winter.

In the months of beach inundation you’re lucky to find shards of shells.  By contrast in March, you can find beautiful specimens of several marine creature’s shells lying on untouched sand– filled with rainwater and stray granules of sand and rock washed into the depression by the tides.  You can walk across miles of damp sand trekked through by seagulls and [name of other shore bird we saw].

Leaving Places

Leaving Moonlight Basin

Leaving Bridger Bowl

Cheese Processing Facility Visit

Matt and Opti learning how the extruder works.

We took the day off from riding and drove into town to visit Almaltheia Dairy ‘s Cheese processing facility.  We’ve gone every other year to their farm to see the baby goats and help with the milking, but this year we went to see where they make the actual cheese, and collect the whey to feed their pigs.  Who provided us with the bacon we ate with breakfast. Mmmmm, bacon.

The cup sealing machine, that was made specially for the dairy.

How cool is this machine? It was made in Wisconsin, just for Almaltheia.  It only does one tub at a time, but wow it looks awesome. How could you not enjoy using it? The girl that walked us around managed to know the answers to all our questions and was even friendlier in person than she was over the phone.  I love it when that happens.

A cardinal I embroidered for Optimus' quilt. Laura, of Mixing Medias, drew the pattern for me.

Upon our return to the cabin, it uncorked my bottle of wine and worked on finishing the cardinal square piece for a quilt I’m making by request of my bird loving boy.

Hello Bridger Bowl!

The snow looked like sparkling taffeta ribbons today in the afternoon sunlight. All it needed was a pretty little girl’s dress to wrap around.