Travel Day: 08-08-08 Friday

Pete



Last night, I went through my gear one last time. I was debating on taking my Cabela brand heavy duty rain bibs and jacket, but I decided to take only my lighter weight rain gear.

My alarm was set for 6 am. I was up as soon as the music for my alarm began playing in the morning. I slept really well. I was now beginning to get a little excited about the next two weeks of the unknown paddling with four unknown people in an unfamiliar area.

The day was looking good. The temperature was 55 degrees outside. It was a little cooler than the past few mornings. There wasn’t a cloud in the clear blue sky.

Today would be my last regular breakfast of oatmeal, ripe banana, dried cranberries, blueberries, cinnamon and a dash of olive oil for over two weeks. Oh, boy…my breakfast tastes so good in the morning. To top it off I have my Starbucks Guatemala coffee. I made two pots of coffee this morning, so I could fill up my large thermos for the road.

While I was waiting for my oatmeal to cool, I got on the computer to check my e-mail and to pay my last bill on-line.

Pete showed up a half hour earlier than expected. This wasn’t a problem since I was ready to go when he showed up. We just needed to tie his canoe on his vehicle and throw our packs inside that he had dropped off at my house a week ago. It didn’t take us long to do it and we were off at 7:42 am.

Pete and I talked a little about our selves, but mostly we talked about paddling while driving north.

Before this trip, Pete had e-mailed me about what type of paddles I was going to bring on this trip. I brought two medium Zaveral carbon bent shaft paddles and some epoxy for repair. I haven’t used a wooden paddle since one of my trips in 1997, so I don’t own any wooden paddles that I would consider paddling with any longer. Most of the wood paddles are way too heavy and I don’t like the grip / handle on most of them. All I use for racing are LeVas carbon fiber that weight 6.5 ounces and for training or trips I use my older ZRE paddles. These paddles weigh about 10 ounces.

Pete brought two of his 23 oz. wooden paddles. Dave Phillips only wanted one spare paddle per canoe. If something happened to my carbon paddle I know I didn’t like the feel of Pete’s paddles and I sure wouldn’t want to paddle with it. We decided to stop at the Duluth Pack Company when we got to Duluth to take a look at the wooden paddles they sold. It was about 10:00 am when we stopped in. I knew I really should have a wooden paddle for this trip, so I decided to buy a Whiskey Jack Chaser paddle. This way Pete could take his wooden paddle and I would take my ZRE carbon fiber and the Whiskey Jack as a spare. Later after our trip I found out that Whiskey Jack makes a higher quality wood paddle, but they didn’t have any in the store.

We didn’t stay long in Duluth. Our next stop was in Two Harbors to buy a Subway sandwich. We each bought a 12 inch sandwich and ate half right away and put the other half on ice. Pete also stopped to pick up some beer for Dave, Dick and himself as well as some ice at the liquor store down the road from Subway. The beer was for Saturday night’s cook-out at Wildwater’s Bed and Breakfast in Armstrong. We are having brats done on the grill prior to our trip. Since I don’t drink I’ll just have some water, but I’ll have a few brats.

Next stop was Grand Marais. I filled up Pete’s mini van with gas before we headed over to the local coffee shop, the Java Moose or something similar to that name. We filled up both our two large thermoses.

As we were approaching the border with Canada it appeared it was raining not too far a head of us. We pulled up behind some other cars waiting in line at the border at 1:57 pm. Pete hadn’t received his passport in the mail prior to leaving on the trip, but he did have a certified copy of his birth certificate. I renewed my passport last year so I was good to go.

While we were in line at the border it began to rain. It was now our turn to speak to the friendly, younger border crossing lady. Pete handed over our documents to her. She immediately began asking us our reason for coming to Canada, where we were going, when was our last time to Canada; if we had any firearms, any tobacco, any liquor, any firewood, any potatoes and some other things I forgot. She must have wanted to see my eyes from a distance, because she wanted me to remove my prescription sunglasses or maybe she didn’t want me to see her. She asked each of us what we did for a living. Afterwards she handed back my passport to Pete and she reminded me to sign my passport.

Just as we pulled away from the Border Agent it stopped raining, but it was still very dark in the sky from the northwest to the east a head of us.

Pete was wondering where the time zone was so I looked at the map. It was right at the border, so we were now in the Eastern Time zone. We lost an hour, so I moved the time on my watch ahead an hour.

With the time moved ahead an hour, we arrived in Thunder Bay at 3:45 pm. There were some high cliffs in the distance on either side of the road while we were driving to Thunder Bay. The Thunder Bay sign showed the population at 110,000.

Our reservation in Thunder Bay was at the Econo-lodge Motel. Pete had the general area where it was located, but we still needed to call them to find out exactly.

Once we were checked in we drove to Ostrom’s to browse at their gear. Pete was interested in the Ostrom’s packs. It’s actually a small store, but there were a lot of items. Pete was looking a one of the soft packs and said it was $405. He believes he saw the same pack in the US at a lower cost. Once we got back I checked on this price and it was a better deal at Ostrom’s in Thunder Bay.

We drove back to our Motel room. Pete went to tell the front counter staff that we were expecting Dick Beamish to arrive at the motel and if they would let him know what room we were in. Pete came back and said that Dick didn’t have a reservation. What we weren’t aware at the time was that Dick had arrived earlier in the afternoon.

A short time later, Dick Beamish came across Pete in the hallway at the motel. I could hear Pete talking to someone in the hallway. Dick followed Pete into our room and he introduced himself to me.

Pete had now met everyone who was going on this trip. Earlier this year in May, Pete and Dave had been on a trip in Quetico. I still had to meet Dave and that wouldn’t happen until tomorrow in Armstrong.

Pete got out his topo maps. He had the route we would take marked out in yellow highlighter. Since I didn’t have any highlighter pens with me the three of us drove over to Staples that wasn’t too far away.

I marked our intended route in the yellow highlighter. It would be much easier to follow while I was paddling and navigating. I noticed Pete had gone through his topo’s and marked some of the drops on his maps. I didn’t want to rely on his measurements, so I stopped marking them on my maps after the first couple of them.

Pete and Dick began talking about this trip and about the earlier Quetico trip, although Dick wasn’t on the Quetico trip. I began writing in my journal. I know from past experience how hard it is to write in a journal while everyone is still talking about different things and then trying to write after everyone has gone to sleep or whatever. I’m going to try hard to write something every day.

My plan is to do some sort of trip report, but at this point I don’t have any idea what form it will take. I do know one thing that I have to document things as I go.

We need to get some coffee filters for Dave and Pete’s gravity water filters, since Pete forgot to bring some from home. Most if not all the lakes will be tea stained with tannins. The water would most likely clog the filters fairly quickly. Time: 08:29 pm.

I’m back! We drove around Thunder Bay. Pete wanted to find Hwy 527. This is the road to goes to Armstrong Station. The road goes on for 150 miles with no services until the small town of Armstrong. Before we located the road we ended up in some large park where there were several people walking, jogging or hanging out.

On the way back to the motel room we stopped at Tim Horton’s. We were planning on getting an early start for Armstrong, so I picked up a couple muffins and a couple bagels. Well, I ate one of the bagels and the two muffins. I found out while we were Tim Horton’s that they were open 24 hours. I’ll be able to get my thermos filled with coffee and get some more treats in the morning.

The skies were getting very dark to the NE. Just as we got back to our room it began to rain hard, but it only lasted about an hour.

Pete forgot to get coffee filters.

Lights were out at 10:30 pm.

We were registered in Room 122 at the Thunder Bay Econo-Lodge.