MinneSODA

Got back last week from a trip to Minnesota.

The weekend was spent in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. . . well, canoeing the boundary waters. Six people. Two three-person canoes. Six hundred stinging flies and pesky mosquitos. (30 flies confirmed dead, their carcasses left in unburied piles at the campsite.) One beaver enjoying a jaunt at dusk. One six-inch leech swimming happily in the water we had only moments before been swimming happily in.

It's been a while since I've camped and canoed, but it was great fun. Can't wait to do it again! The first night, we got to Ely, MN late and there weren't any campsites available due to the Blueberry Festival weekend. (If I remember correctly, the guy at the outfitters said that 40,000 people were expected to wade through Ely that weekend.) We found a parking area off one of the main roads where the boys' tents flanked a very nice (and none too smelly) bathroom and the ladies opted (wisely) to set up camp in the van. There was only one incident where I had to don my white knight apparel and scare away a vehicle whose residents were just a little too curious about a lone van parked in the middle of nowhere at midnight. The only trouble it gave was blasting Tom Petty. But the most incredible thing about that night was not how scary I must have looked after a 5-hour drive from Minneapolis to Ely but how beautiful the stars were--thousands of them peppering the night sky. The view of the Milky Way was simply marvelous! Unfortunately, the next two evenings were too cloudy for a repeat appearance. . .

The first day, after we got our canoes and gear from the outfitters, we canoed up the Little Indian Sioux River and portaged our canoes and gear to Lower Pauness Lake, where we found a nice little campsite (complete with lots of healthy poison ivy!) overlooking part of the lake. (I say "we" portaged our canoes--it was actually the packhorses Thomas and Oren who did most of that work.)

Evening and morning of fighting off flies and mosquitos with DEET and fist, the first day.

We canoed the Upper Pauness Lake to Devil's Cascade--a nice little creek connecting Upper Pauness with Loon Lake. We left our canoes and hiked up the Devil's Cascade trail to a point overlooking the creek in the valley below. It was a bit warm out. We succumbed to the call of the cool creek water. We also succumbed to an engineering project of trying to get the creek water to run faster through a little opening so that it would make a better slide through the rapids. But alas! the rocky bottom of the rapids didn't sit well with my bottom. . .which wouldn't have sat well if I'd continued much more of that.

Evening and morning of fighting off flies and mosquitos with DEET and fist, the second day.

We broke camp, canoed and portaged back to the van, and left the garden for the city: Minneapolis. (But not before getting a bottle of blueberry soda. It reads: Ely Elixir Blueberry Soda Pop. Concocted in Ely for Ely. Made in limited quantities to celebrate Ely, MinneSODA's [I kid you not] world famous Blueberry Fest, their annual Blues Festival and all that life "at the end of the road" has to offer. For more soda than you can shake a stick at check out: http//www.elysoda.com)

I have no pictures from the canoe trip, as I didn't want to risk it in a boating accident, but I did get some pics of some places in Minneapolis I wanted to see. Here's a collage from pics I took of 1st Avenue & 7th Street Entry, a local club that was the home of a couple of my favorite (Minneapolis-born) bands Husker Du and The Replacements. Two sides of the club are covered with the stars of artists of note who have played there. I didn't get to take pics of all the stars I wanted to, but here are a few of the favorites I snapped.



I also really wanted to see the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices, but the exhibit had been long gone (for a couple of years) by the time I got there. (I really should pay more attention to the tiny dates at the bottom of web pages.) However, all is not lost: I could get this book instead! Autographed, no less. Sweet.