Our first camping weekend without children. Can you believe we have never been camping without the kids? Not only that this was our first trip waaaaaay up North. We have never been further north than the iron range. I take that back Bob’s been somewhere north bear hunting… remember that’s where he found Big Foot.
Before we headed out Bob decided he wanted to check Craigslist for a tandem bike. We were lucky enough to find one…. in
By the time we got out of town the storm was brewing, cars stopped all the way across 35 W as the hail came down. When we were just outside of Gilbert, a tire blew on the trailer. I believe Rodney cursed Bob before we left. We stopped at Rod’s house to change one tire and he told Bob he should have put on 2 new tires. Hmmm, is it Rod’s fault for cursing us or Bob’s fault for not listening? Anyways, the rain had stopped long enough for Bob to put on the spare. We pulled off at the West 40 Campground in Gilbert just in time for it to continue raining all night. Small favors. :)
We woke up to a beautiful morning. Since we were just of the Mesabi Bike Trail we took our new bike out for a spin. Getting to the path we had to ride down a HUGE hill. Yep… the whole ride I was thinking “we have to go back up that hill to get back to the campground.” The trail was pretty flat and after the first ten minutes our legs were numb. We spent a couple hours on the trail… then walked the bike back up the hill.
When we left the house around noon on Thursday we knew we had to grad tabs for the four-wheeler. It just so happened that after we pasted each destination bob would remind me.. "the next town we have to stop to tabs"... It was around 3:30pm when we past the DNR headquarters just north of Tower, when we realized again we hadn't stopped for the tabs. We pulled in hoping we could pick them up, but no luck, our closest option was Ely... and we were cutting it close to closing time... on a Friday.... No problem we bought the tabs in Ely with minutes to spare. It also allowed us to visit Ely...BWCA headquarters. What a cute town, it is very charming!
We finally got to
Saturday, Bob and I trailered the 4 wheelers to Stony Spur Trail in Babbitt. The trail was empty and the ride was nice. It was very scenic, we ran through a lot of mud, it ended somewhere in the middle of nowhere with a toilet, shed, and fire pit. It ran into the Taconite snowmobile trail. When ever we stopped the mosquitoes would come out out the woods and swarm…even with bug spray! We didn’t stop long.
Sunday we rented a canoe and enjoyed a relaxing day on 
We ran into the Gales on the way. Kaylee was just an infant when she came to my daycare, now she’ll be in kindergarten in the fall. Look how big she is!
We stopped at a boat in camp for lunch… Hobo dinners, my favorite camping meal.
When we got to the dock there were HUGE spiders (the picture doesn’t do justice) I asked Bob to take a picture. He was on the dock unloading the gear. He said something needed to be in the picture for perspective, so he put his face down below the dock and handed the camera back to me. Foolishly, I leaned over to snap the picture and I capsized the canoe. 
Too funny, why can’t I ever have a dry ride in a canoe? I really think this time Bob set me up for failure.
We canoed over to Jim and Wendy’s camp… It really is a nice group camp, the kids had a lot of room to play, the dock was big enough for several boats, they had there own little swimming area…
the other side of the coin they had snakes, there was a weasel looking thing (martin) that would steal there trash, the mosquitoes were awful, even worse then the norm around camp, the toilets were stinky… I didn’t use them, but I heard they were and the camp came with huge bear lockers to put your food in. Doesn’t that just say “look out you’re in bear country.” And they were all sleeping in tents! No thank you!
We took the canoe back to the landing and went back over to the group camp so Bob could fish with the guys. I guess the fishing was great; Bob caught his biggest bass ever! Not that he’s caught a lot in his life… ha ha ha.
Then around 7 pm it started to rain again we moved into the screen tent… it continued to rain… we moved into Jim and Wendy’s tent… it continued to rain… we put Kaylee to sleep and started watching a movie with Lilly… that’s when the fun began.
All of a sudden we hear noises outside of the Tent. By the way Jim and Wendy’s tent is a fortress. It’s like a huge tent with an attached car port. Then over the whole thing is a rain barrier, not a fly, but rather anther layer that extends all the way to the ground. We realized we were inside, something was outside, there were no guys to protect us, and we couldn’t see what was out there because the fortress is closed for the storm….
Should we make an escape plan?? What are we running from??? skunks, raccoons, the martin, the BEAR!!!! Dang, why did we let the girls bring cookies into the tent? You know whatever it is it’ll want cookies when it’s finished.
After a lifetime of contemplating our crises, we decided to brave the situation. We had to reach OUT to unzip the tent, but we did and we shot the spotlight on all the coolers, nothing seemed amiss. So we HAD to look up front, where the noise was coming from.. we had to reach down near the sound to unlock the front zipper… We really were not very good at keeping each other calm, saying one thing, “I’m sure it’s just the martin coming back”… thinking another “It’s a bear!” all the while pretending nothing was happening so we would worry Lilly. She kept asking “what’s wrong as we were barricading the edge by the noise, looking out the back window.. scrambling for a plan. We remained calm on the outside.. “ the rain is getting in..” We’re watching the storm..” thinking to ourselves “where are the guys!!!!”, “How could they leave us stranded with children, in a tent, in the rain, in bear country!”
… so we reached down to unzip the front zipper, not knowing what we’d find and if the noise and light would attract or scare whatever it was… zzzziipppp …. Nothing…. We look around….. nothing….in the trees…. Nothing…coolers, buckets, pans,… nothing looks turned over…. The noise!!!.... it’s just the rain thumping the things right out the door. RELIEF!!! We zip the tent shut, take a huge breath and sit down to watch the movie, Goonies, with Lilly.
Less then 5 minutes later the guys arrive. Thank goodness I had a camper to go to that night. I’m not sure I could have fallen asleep in the tent. We said goodnight and headed back to our site for a peaceful night of sleep. It continued to rain until around noon the next morning. We got up had coffee, something to eat, and packed up our camp. We headed over to the group camp and no one was there. They decided to pack up early (in the rain) and head home.
Really we had a fabulous weekend up north in bear country… minus the mosquitoes, snakes, and spiders!
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