30² ft Adventure 007

From my digital journal about my trip to Superior National Forest dispersed camping area at Janette Lake Campground and further north in Minnesota to Voyageurs National Park.

 

5/16/2022

Gone Primitive….And Way Off The Grid

• Had a quick breakfast and and was on the road to lake Janette campground in the superior forest.
• 4 hours of driving over roads that apparently lead to nowhere anyone ever lived. I might be the only person on the road going anywhere for an hour at a time.
  
• I was the only car for 2 hours and only see one gas station.
• Through vast areas of nothing with 4 bars of cell. And then drive right next to cell tower and have no signal at all.
• Miles into the northeastern MN.
• Got to the turn-off for the campground and then had to drive on 11 miles of dirt forest service roads to get to the campground.
• This is primitive. No cell service, and it was cold and windy and cloudy. The site is a pullout in the road on some ledge with stairs down to a campsite. More tenting than the RV type site I was hoping for when I made the reservation from the picture.
• But absolutely gorgeous at the edge of the lake.
• I set up the privacy tent as a cabana with chair and table and have been sitting out of the wind for the afternoon. Blowing steady at at least 20 mph. Cold off the lake but warm in my little shelter with its door facing the sun and lake.
  
• Tonight I will have Mac n cheese for dinner.
• Time to get my wool hat and gloves.
• The Mac n cheese for dinner wasn’t a complete disappointment. I actually turned out well.
• Rather than cook in the wind up at road level, I brought everything I would need down to the cabana where I could cook next to the lake in the cabana out of the wind.
• Good news I remembered everything that I needed to make the meal.
• I had already divided the noodles into two servings before I left on the trip, except for the cheese sauce. I divided that at the car and put the half I wasn’t going to use in the fridge.
• I put too much water in the pot so when I added the noodles it started to foam up and boil over. Removed it from the heat quickly and dumped some of the water out. Then lowered the heat and it cooked perfectly.
• Strained the noodles into the weeds and poured the noodles onto the plate that already had some pulled rotisserie chicken on it.
• Added the sauce and stirred it on the paper plate so I wouldn’t have any cleanup.
• Very tasty and hot. Just what I needed.
  
• Had some gorp for desert.
• Cleaned the pot of the noodle residue by boiling a little water in it and fed that to the weeds.
• I took everything back to the truck and tidied up. I will read in the cabana for a while before turning in.
• Got to remember to make the headlamp at the ready because there is no light in the bathroom. Which is just a pit toilet in a block shed.
• Still cloudy and the wind is harsh off the lake when it blows. Totally different this far north but it reminds me quite a bit of Northern Maine.

Ledge area for the truck

View from campsite

Shelter from the wind at lower campsite

Cooking dinner in my cabana

 5/17/2022

Written while my phone is charging (typed later)

• Cold still morning when I woke up. The wind has died down though.
• Now that I have been up for an hour and had some oatmeal and a little coffee it is not so bad.
• Watched the movie Gravity last night and fell right to sleep probably by 9.
• Slept warm- glad I got the 0 degree sleeping bag. Temps dipped down into the 30’s
• While finishing my breakfast met a guy who was up here w/ a bunch of his buddies fishing.

Conversation ensued:

• Me- good morning as he walked by
• Him- morning a nice one
• Me- yeah nice to not have the wind and the sun feels warm
• Him- Oh brutal hey, had 3 days of that wind
• Me- you up here fishing?
• Him- yup been coming here the same week for 34 years to fish.
• Me- any luck?
• Him- we’re doing ok
• Me- told him I didn’t realize the site was split level. Hard to tell things like that when making reservations on line.
• Him- you’d have been shit out of luck if’n the waters hadn’t gone down over the last couple of weeks. You here fishing?
• Me- no going to the National Park to do some hiking and to see about a boat tour they say they offer.
• Him- You’re in it- the National park. Didn’t know they did that sort of thing.
• Me- that’s what I read. If that doesn’t work out I’ll head up to International Falls to see what that’s about. Just touring the area.
• Me- again does this place stay open all year for you guys? Ice fishing?
• Him- Nah! used to. 2 years ago feds started to put gates up because of Covid. They must have figured out we were having too much fun. They do leave it open later in the fall so we can at least hunt.
• Me- well, very nice to meet you.
• Him- Yup , same you have a great day.

After a few minutes a friend of his came over and introduced himself.

• Said that his friend is from MN and that he was from Chicago. Retired.
• He has been coming here the same weeks also to fish and hunt.
• I told him I was from Maine.
• I know a guy from Maine. They had worked together for the same. Maybe I would know him? 😳🙄(Hard to know. He didn’t give me his name, and oh and big state. What I was thinking not what I said) and that he live in Mount Desert. Calls every Christmas asking him to come for a visit. Says he would like Maine.
• I told him that if he likes this place he would love Maine.
• Told me that some time ago he went up through International Falls into Canada and did the trans Canada highway all the way to Yukon and the arctic circle camping in the back of his truck.
• Also gave me a little history of the area the park and national forest. Long before they put borders and names on them all these lakes and rivers are what opened up this land to the original fur tappers.
• He headed off to fish.

My Day continued

• I packed up and left to hit a couple of NP info centers and perhaps purchase a Voyageur National Park sticker.
• One and a half hours later the Ash River center was closed still for the winter. Looked around a little took a few pictures and hike to a look out. Gorgeous country.
• Drove another 45 mins north to International Falls and then the NP Rainy Lake info center. Also closed stayed about a half hour doing the same. Beautiful.
• As the NP promotional materials state this is an area set aside that while beautiful is more for adventurers who want access camping by boat or fish.
• 1 hour and 45 mins later I am back at the camp.
• Looks like the weather will be rainy for the next 2 days.
• Don’t relish sitting in the truck through that. But I guess that is what I signed up for.
• Thinking about that as I ate dinner (second half of subway sandwich that I bought for lunch) I looked over at my cabana.
• I decided when I finished dinner that I would rather break that down now while it’s dry than in the pouring rain and put it away wet.
• I would have left it up if it was closer to the truck. This split level site really kind of f’d me.
• I can tell now as the afternoon draws to evening that the sky has kind of gone milk colored. I’m remembering too that there was no dew on the cabana this morning. Both signs do, if I remember correctly from the "Camper’s Bible" book of my youth that means rain is coming.

From Blue Highways “Moving without going anywhere, taking a trip instead of making one.” Has this what my trip turned into? Is going any farther west taking a trip or making one? I am wrestling with this now while family on the east coast tugs at my heart as does my familiar coast of Maine.

• The sun still has a ways to go before it sets.
• I think I will leave my picnic table by the lake and head up to the truck.
• The campground is dead quiet with the exception of someone pulling their canoe up on the shore across the bay from me.

Janette Lake late afternoon

 

Voyager National Park

Rainy Lake, Voyageur National Park

Ash River, Voyageur National Park

5/18/2022

2:52 AM 🙄💩😵‍💫

• Yup that about says it all.
• Campground is dark and the sound of frogs is deafening.
• When you gotta go you gotta go.
  
• Was able to get back to sleep until about 630 then back to the restroom to get rid of the rest of the Subway sandwich poison.
• Had a quick wipe shower and put on some fresh clothes.
• Thought that I heard some sprinkles on the roof during the night. From the dust trails on the truck I would say that we did.
• Was able to tidy up a little and had another talk with my campground neighbor.
• He is from Brainard, MN which is about 4 hours from here. He is spending the day tidying up also and winding down his vacation as he leaves on Saturday.

A conversation ensued

• Me- have you toured much
• Him- nah. I know what I like and this is it. I will come back in the fall to hunt grouse.
• Me- I saw a bunch of deer crossing the road as I came back into the site yesterday. And I was reading the notice on bulletin board that there are bears?
• Him- Yeah lots of both here. Just before I came here had a 500 pounder (bear)at my house swipe over a garbage can that I store cat food in spilled it out on my deck laid down and ate 35 lbs. of it. Laughing he continued I’ve got it on my game cam.
• Me- do you hunt deer?
• Him- yeah but not here. Got a hundred acres back home. Can pretty much hunt from my bedroom window.

Back to my day

• Listening to Minnesota PR. Rain showers this afternoon and more tomorrow. But a little warmer.
• 10 AM it has started raining! Have been sketching all morning. In the truck now for while.
• 76% charge left on the power station. These low air temps are great because the fridge isn’t cycling near as much using up power.
• Have contemplated making some changes to the camping set up. Less stuff and a complete aisle on the side opposite the bed. Fridge behind the passenger seat and do something more permanent with the power.
• It was a very nice quiet day.
• Weather was in and out of clouds and there were showers.
• Every now and again the wind would bluster and blow along the front of an oncoming shower.
• Then the sun would come out for an hour.
• This pattern would repeat itself. I spent the day reading in camper when it rained and out in a chair. I would sketch when the rain stopped for extended periods about sketching scenes of the campground using just a bic pen on paper. It was fun to keep it simple for a change.
• Lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwich and dinner which had to be made quickly between raindrops was a rotisserie chicken wrap and the last of the fruit salad I had bought while driving here on the road.
• Met the rest of the fisherman staying at this dispersed camping area. I was quite the novelty because I wasn’t here to fish but just here touring.
• I made the decision that I will end my adventure west after my stay at Nancy and Steve’s farm in Iowa.
• I will trend SE to Florida to spend time with Will, Ashley and the little women. Then as I head up the east coast back from whence this trip started I will see more family in PA.
• Having taken so much time to get this far in my journey I feel inadequate in my ability to sustain myself into a trip farther west.
• I want to regroup and make several future trips that are planned out like this part of my trip using what I have learn about camping and campgrounds.
• I just don’t think it would be enjoyable to wing it for the other places that I really want to see.
• That will give me something to do the rest of this year. Plan!

The moon on the way back from bathroom

Hike into a bog

Quick sketch at the bog

sketch of neighboring camper set up

Quick sketch of some birch undergrowth

My picnic table

Reading, waiting out a passing shower

5/19/2022

Cloudy day

• Fairly restful night.
• Finished “River Runs Through It” and then read until 930 before calling it a day.
• Was up once at 330 and then 530 for the day. Laid in my sleeping bag for another hour listening to the news.
• The news wasn’t very good so I stopped listening. Morning Edition on NPR was talking about the cost of things, particularly gas on the west coast. $6/gallon. Ugh 😣
• I think my choice to trend east next week is a good one. So I will put a book mark in this adventure after the upcoming chapter called Iowa.
• Off to the farmland!