Day in the Life of an Idiot

Yesterday, we decided to do our usual attempt to see moose at Moose Viewing Trail. We are past moose season, really. I mean, moose are out here in the woods. It’s possible to see one. But, tourists, like ourselves, are more likely to see moose during calving, which is earlier in the year--in May.

Moose are sometimes more active in the early morning hours, so to sweeten the “how about we get up at the crack of dawn?” deal for our late risers in the house (namely Mason), we decided that once we have attempted to moose view, we would hit the new nearby coffee shop called Loon’s Rest.

We did not see any moose at Moose Viewing as expected.



Image: Moose Viewing view (Note: No Moose.)

The other funky thing about Moose Viewing trail is the fact that as you turn in to the official Moose Viewing platform, there is a myserious abandoned car. There are a lot of questions about this car. How did it get here? When did it get here? How did the boulder get on top of it?



Image: car in woods?

We ran into a couple of well-equipped hikers from Oklahoma who were perhaps a little too eager for moose. We gave our best advice, which was hang out as long as you can and be quiet—and, you know? Maybe they got lucky. I hope they did.

The Loon’s Nest was entirely full of old, white men (but one can sort of say that generally about the Gunflint Trail.) The espresso was perfectly adequate as were the croissant, egg, and sausage patties.

I did not attempt a big walk yesterday, since I wanted to save my strength for canoeing. Mason and I had yet to get out in the lake. When we did, it was the first time in a long time that Mason was in charge of steering. It took us a little time to figure out our rhythm, but once we got going we were amazing. We canoed out past the point to a part of Bearskin that Shawn and I call “capsize cove” thanks to a certain incident several years ago. There is a lovely beaver dam out in the cove. We fought the wind coming back, but it was actually fairly energizing.

An absolutely lovely day all told.

And, now…. More wildflowers for identification!


A purple wildflower of some kind!



False lily-of-the-valley?

We are at Bearskin!


The moon (and traces of Northern Lights) over Bearskin (from Cabin 1)

Yesterday, as usual, we stopped at several sites along Highway 61. We had a late lunch at the “world famous” Betty’s Pie. I do not know if this pie is truly well-known throughout the world, but it was, as they say, damned good pie.


The three of us at Betty's Pies.

As has become typical of us, we stopped to do some agate hunting about a mile north of Two Harbors at Flood Bay. We had to backtrack from Betty’s, but we didn’t care. My family simply cannot be hurried once we’re in vacation mode. Once we’ve made it to Duluth (to-du-loot!) vacation mode has fully activated. “Oh? The thing we wanted to see was back there? Sure, let’s turn around!”



Me and Mason agate hunting at Floor Bay.

I’m not ever sure what an agate looks like when it’s not polished. Not that it matters to any of us. Shawn hands out plastic baggies and we find a nice spot and start hunting. On this trip, it was extra windy. It was already decently cold, maybe mid-50s F/ 10 C. We joked that the windchill made it below freezing! Shawn had to hike back to the car for extra layers.

But, we had a great time just relaxing and sifting through the rocks on the shores of the world’s largest freshwater lake. (And, as Mason loves to point out, a lake so cold that if you’re shipwrecked in it, you don’t rot!)



Mason beach combing

Next was a pitstop at Gooseberry Falls. Sometimes, like a lot of travelers this time of year, we only stop long enough to do our business and then push on. This time, however, Mason and I decided to make the short trek up to see both the high falls and the low falls. Shawn, meanwhile, saved her knee (which is mostly doing well, but technically still in recovery,) for the next beach and hung out in the gift shop looking for, among other things, sweatpants for Mason who—for reasons all his own—decided not to pack any pants for the trip. Only shorts!

Gooseberry Falls, in my opinion, is almost always worth the detour.



Image: Gooseberry Falls

I only remembered after we’d left that I forgot to get my State Park passport stamped! We decided, however, that we would stop in as many State Parks as we could on our route back. Mason and I are also planning a day trip out to Devil’s Kettle, so I have be sure to remember to bring it with me to that hike!

I had advocated for a stop at Iona’s Beach this year but changed my mind after experiencing the wind at Flood Bay. Maybe the weather will be more cooperative on the drive home. Instead, we decided to pull in at Silver Bay to get a gander at "Rocky Taconite."


Image: Rocky Taconite at Silver Bay.

Our last beach of the trip up to the cabin was Cutface Creek Pullout (14 miles north of Lutsen, mile marker 104.) This beach is famous for its thomsonite. Again, I have no idea what thomsonite looks like in the wild (although this might be the year I may have found a piece. I’m going to try polishing it up when we get back home), but this beach generally has cool rocks because it has a ton of mini geodes.
Again, we dawdled. I have no idea how long we spent combing the beaches and listening to the waves. This beach was less windy; it was much more of a natural windbreak/cove.

We managed to miss official check-in at Bearskin (6 pm), which we often do (even leaving the Twin Cities at 9 am), and so followed the instructions to get the cabin key for check-in the next morning. It was still light enough out that Mason and I made the walk up to the Lodge to pick up the aluminum canoe that they on the beach for us out for us. We paddled it to our dock, bungied it up to our private dock for the night, and then settled in for a dinner of brats on the grill.

I fully failed to make a decent fire our first night, but luckily both Shawn and Mason are better skilled at this than I am.

This morning (Sunday) we woke up to rain.

Shawn and I walked down to the Lodge to check in. Because of all of the forest fires that are active in Minnesota right now, the Forest Service has been doing a lot of clearing of what they call “ladder trees,” but also underbrush. The place looks… a little devestated. At least in comparison to what we’re used to. I have been excited to resume my hiking of the ski trails this year and so I wanted to be sure to ask the staff about good trails for less… husbandry, we’ll say. They nicely pointed out where on the map they thought the Forestry Service hadn’t gotten to yet. So, after a quick jog back to Cabin 1 to make sure I had my inhaler, I headed off. I’d intended to slowly get my “sea legs” back, but I missed a turn off and hiked all the way to Rudy Lake. 


Image: a pristine lake (Rudy Lake) in the middle of nowhere.

Oops.

It is cool, however. Like, this is a lake you simply can not get to without walking to it. There are no roads to get you here. 

However, I am a little sore and may have overdone it already on day one. Hopefully, with a bit of rest and Aleve, I’ll be back at it in no time.



Image: trout lily

Image: white lilac

I'm at least always reminded on a Wednesday that maybe I should go on over to DW and at least drop a line about what I've been reading. As has become typical of me, I will also attempt to catch you up on the rest of my life. But first, since it's probably the least interesting, I'll start with my reading.

This has been a banger week for me.

I finished Nghi Vo's The Chosen & The Beautiful, which I probably would have appreciated more if I were a fan of The Great Gatsby, which I am not. I didn't hate Vo's book, however? I liked the magic far better than any of the people, but I'm pretty sure, given what I know about The Great Gatsby, that was likely by design. Then, I have been absolutely CRANKING through The Singing Hills Cycle, which is Nghi Vo's loosely connected series of novellas about the wandering scholar-priest Chih, whom I adore. This week I listened to The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, and Into the Riverlands. I have Mammoths at the Gates queued up and ready to listen to! I don't even know how to explain how awesome these novellas are, but if you are at all a fan of C-Dramas I guarantee you will *love* these. I could not be happier to see that another in this series is up for a Hugo this year. Thank all the gods my friend naomikritzer is up in a different catagory or I'd have a real connundrum on my hands.

Also, because there was a day when I could not get the next Singing Hills novella, I listened to Remote Control. another novella, this one by Nnedi Okorafor. I have to say? These two hour audio versions of stories are amazing--like popcorn for the brain! 

The rest of my week has been a lot. Much of it fun stuff, but a goodly chunk of it being preparation for heading East to watch Mason graduate from college. (I know! It doesn't seem possible to me, either!) To be fair, Shawn is doing most of the actual planning. But my job is often to do much of the fetching, as it were. Plus, with this crazy heat (it's been all the way up to 90 F / 32 C), I've been trying to keep the ground moist for my baby seedlings that are coming up in the boulevard garden. My bouelvard, like anywhere that I attempt to "grow" grass, is an absolute nightmare. I would be summarily kicked out of any gated community for my inability to keep grass of any sort alive. However, I am attempting to make up for that this year by having a stunning boulevard garden. So in amongst the perrenials, I dumped a literal ton of "butterfly garden" seeds. Things seem to be emerging? Of course, we are also poised to be out of town for a week and a half. So, I may come back to a lot of dead things. 

Which I guess also goes with the grass aesthetic, I guess. 

Sigh.

At any rate, the fun thing I did this week was spontaneously go on a "Midwestern hanami" with the above-mentioned Naomi. I have long told her how jealous I am that the Japanese actually make a holiday out of flower viewing (which is what hanami translates to--actually technically it's just "flower" and "to see.") In Japan, of course, what people go out to look at are cherry blossoms. We could do that here, but cherry blossoms bloom when it's still a bit "nippy," as we say here in Minnesota, plus there just aren't a ton of cherry trees to be had. Lilacs--even though lots of other things are in bloom--are really to the Midwest what cherry blossoms are to Japan. Like in Japan, lilacs are not native... but you wouldn't know it. Also, people plant them EVERYWHERE and when they bloom, you can smell them on the air. Just like in Japan, you can, if you know where to find them (and I do,) walk through a kind of tunnel of lilacs in bloom.



Image: On Summit Avenue, there exists a secret tunnel of lilacs two blocks long....

Naomi and I have long talked about doing a lilac hanami, so we finally did. On Tuesday, we set off to Summit Avenue just east of Lexington where exists a lovely, two-block long tunnel of lilacs. It was a perfect spot, actually. Public, but still a little private. 


Image: A silly otaku (me) enjoying a picnic under the lilacs.

We spent the time snacking on sushi and fantasing about a Minnesota where everyone has the week off when the lilacs come into bloom. We imagined all sorts of lilac "flavored" treats people could sell, including some "Minnesota State Fair"-inspired things like a corndog with lavender/lilac-colored mustard artistically droozled to look like a lilac. It could be a thing!

Minnesotas could all wander around with phones and camera out, trying to get the perfect quintessential lilac shot.

 
Image: Virginia bluebells 2024 garden

I took some pictures of my garden today, but they are all EXTREME close-ups because if I zoom out at all, you see leaf litter, bare patches, and the kinds of crap that master gardeners seem to be able to turn into compost, but which, in my yard, just rots and becomes slimy. 

On the other hand, I managed to frame this picture just at the right angle so that the garden visible behind the bleeding hearts doesn't manage to reveal the rest of the garden crap.


Image: pink bleeding hearts, well-framed.

Today has been a bit of a crazy day. Shawn woke up feeling terrible from a lack of sleep. but I managed to get her to work on time. We have a house guest for a few days, our dear friend John Jackson. I had INTENDED to pick up Diet Pepsi for him at Kowalski's on the way home, but I did all the rest of the shopping and completely forgot the soda. I got home, did a bit of writing on the new book, but then when I was out in the garden my dad called. He and I did a feature for his vodcast Talking Smart and he needed a better biography and I noticed that the list of my books that he'd gotten off Wikipedia was... weirdly wrong.  Like, the citation was to my Tate Hallaway blog, but somehow there were a bunch of things out of order. This sent me into a tizzy, because, of course, authors aren't supposed to edit their own Wikipedia pages. So, I enlisted John's help, but that was a hitch in the day that I wasn't expecting. 

I went back outside with the intention of trying to rescue our front garden... and I got pretty discouraged pretty quickly. I was outside muttering under my breath, "Buy a home, they said. It'll be fun, they said. You can plant your own gardens..." :-)

But at least my ONE jack-in-the-pulpit keeps coming back.


Image: Jack in the Pulpit

 
Image: blue iris growing in my boulevard garden.

As previously discussed, my attempts at gardening this year feel very... fail. Thanks to the timing of our trip to Connecticut, I didn't get a good head start. There are a lot of leaves still in the beds, and at this point it might be more disruptive to try to move them. I am trying to see what leaving the leaves in the woodland garden does, but the others? Not so much. 

But, what's that (in)famous line from Jurassic Park? Life finds a way.

It's also been really dry here in Minnesota. I believe we are officially in a drought (again.) We had just gotten out of it after the snow melt, and yet now we are this very strange position of having parts of the state flooded while also being in a drought. When Mason and I were driving around Fort Snelling State Park yesterday, there were roads we couldn't take due to high water. Even though, as I drove us there, I could see several burned out lawns already.  Worse, it always seems like it might rain every morning, but the haze in the sky is actually from the Canadian forest fires, not potential relief. 

Yet, my peonies are out there in my backyard doing their best. Likewise, the Solomon's seal and bleeding hearts.


Image: Variegated Solomon's Seal. 


Image: bleeding hearts and hostas

The other big news around Chez MoreRounds (or, if you prefer, Roundhouse,) is that we got a new stove/oven. I guess in the US they always come together, so maybe I should call it a "range." But, it's that thing with which you cook and bake things. We opted for a new gas oven, so that was extra exciting because as part of the installation we had to have a gas technician do the hook-up. Mason, when we were prepping the house so the delivery people could get it through the door, asked nervously, "Should we even BE here if they're screwing around with the gas??" I mean, I kind of don't blame him for this sentiment, but it's actually a fairly simple hook-up. I just have this rule about handiwork I will do, which is "call a professional for electricity and gas." My feeling is that while, yes, water can do a lot of damage to a house, not hooking it up properly will not immediately kill me. So, I have done some plumbing? And props to all of you who rewire things? I won't argue with you if you suggest to me that some rewiring is not only easy, but fun. I'm just not that brave. I won't work with things that can murderize me if I make a small mistake.

 
Image fancy new oven. (Our floor looks filthy in this picture, but the tiles are actually grey with black "marbling," trust me, I also hate them. They are very retro, but never look clean.)

Anyway, this is the new beast. Today is the first day I will be making anything on it. The delivery came late enough in the day that we had all pre-agreed that it was a pizza day.

I have a couple of cute stories about the install itself. First of all, the guy who was our gas technician was named Lee. We hit it off immediately because he was very chatty... possibly the first person I have met in a long time who appears to be more extroverted than I am, more about that in a second. I actually started to get out of his way, so as not to hover over him while he worked, and he said that the company was actually appreciated, but then said, "Unless you're an old, white guy in boxers who insists on standing right in front of me while I'm crouched on the floor." Which, I laughed pretty hard at that. So, we fell into talking a bit and I did the Minnesotan thing about apologizing for the state of my kitchen, etc., and he said, "Oh, this is nothing," and then proceeded to tell me about his FIRST DAY on the job where he and his partner were called to an actual hoarder house. They're hauling out the old oven, when, out from the warming oven, scurries an entire family of RATS. One of which, in sheer panic, crawls up his pants leg and tried to hide in Lee's jacket. He's so freaked out that he dropped the oven and they ended up leaving a dent in the floor. Somehow, he not only STAYED WITH THIS JOB, but also apparently didn't get fired. 

But, at one point, I did leave him because he was struggling with removing the old hose (did I mention that the other thing I learned about Lee was that he is younger than our previous stove?) which had corroded over the 30+ years that we owned the previous stove. And, I was surprised to hear him talking to someone. Apparently, Lee is enough of an extrovert that he called one of his friends to chat with while he struggled with my appliance.

As an uber-extrovert, I found that deeply charming. 

I gave him very high marks on the review that the company sent along afterwards. 

The other big news from yesterday is that there is some progress on my novel. My editor, who is very savvy like this, has suggested that it "WOULD BE NICE" (hint, hint!!) to be able to put out a press release for my lesbian space opera during Pride Month. Seeing the brilliance in this, I have agreed that I will spend the next couple of days really looking at what I have left and make some educated guesses as to when I can deliver it to Wizard's Tower.

On top of that, of course, I finally need to decide on a title for this thing. Currently, I am in the "there are no wrong answers" phase of this process, but I'm going to have to narrow it down to something serious soon. Likewise, Cheryl Morgan has asked me for a blurb to sell "what it's about" to people, and so that's another project I'm tackling.

The good news part of this? I will definitely have a book out this year. 

The bad news? I'm going to finally have to get serious about finishing it!  I mean, I have 70,000+ words, so it is already technically novel length, if not yet "novel shaped." 

 
Image: cherry blossoms at the MN Arboretum 

My friend naomikritzer and I were talking about things we would appropriate from other cultures the other day (mostly, we discussed how much better Jewish people do funerals,) and I brought up the idea of Hanami. What I like about the idea of Hanami is that people in Japan will often take time off work to just go look at flowers (specifically cherry blossoms, but if you read the Wikipedia article, you can see that it really applies to any flower.) We don't have anything like this in the US, possibly because there is no single flower that blooms everywhere in the US, since we're such a massive country. I feel like the closest we have to this kind of thing in the Midwest is leaf peeping in the fall. 

But, so Naomi and I decided to have a day of intentional flower viewing. We'd hoped that there would be enough flowering trees of some sort blooming at the Minnesota Arboretum, but, the cherry blossoms, had not entirely popped yet, alas. 

However, the tulips were in full bloom.


Image: so many tulips!

Naomi brought a picnic basket and had made us both a lovely chicken salad and so we wandered around the arboretum for a long time, checking out the tulip display and some of the other things that were in bloom. Yesterday was a very gorgeous day, with lots of sun (although it got quite warm, into the 80s F / 27 C.) 

This was my second time out at the MN Arboretum and, if you've never been, I have some advice for how best to appreciate it. My suggestion would be to go into the Welcome/Interpretive Center and get a map from the information desk. However, be warned, the maps and signage are fairly terrible. But, they always have a decent seasonal display very near the welcome center (again, ask for directions, because it's not self-evident how to get there--you need to go through the building, up the stairs/elevator, go to the right to get to the door, and once outside go left.) Near here is also the Japanese garden, which, ironically, had no cherry trees, but does have a koi pond.  I would, had I to do this again, wander these nearby gardens for awhile, and then hop back into the car and drive their "three mile road." The drive, which Naomi and I ended up doing at the end, will give you a good sense of what else there is to see in the arboretum. Then, you can decide where you might like to return to and/or hike to.  You can drive the loop as often as you like, so you could go around once just to see what there is to see and then drive it again and park at one of the official stops along the way and checkout whatever interests you. Had we done this first, Naomi and I probably would have stopped to admire the sculpture garden more, the Chinese garden, and the Rhododendron garden. As it was, we tried to walk the three mile walk (not difficult terrain and paved, but... it doesn't have great vantage points, and so) and ended up not seeing the Chinese garden from where we were.  

Anyway, that's my advice. Take it or leave it. If you are a seasoned hiker/walker the three-mile walk is really quite pleasant. I don't regret walking much of it, but I think if I go back I really want to check out the Bog Walk and some of the other less popular destinations. 


Image: pasqueflowers

 
Image: Newly blue bedroom wall, obviously still being touched up with a ladder and paint containers in full view.

The photo does not do this color justice. We have begun repainting our bedroom "Baskerville Blue," so named because of a funny story. The story goes like this. Shawn and I were watching Sherlock on the iPad back when it was popular. We got to the "Hounds of the Baskervilles" episode, which wasn't one of the better ones, BUT as we were watching it we noticed that the Baskerville dude had a LOVELY blue library wall. It is seen, in passing. We must have circled that image several times before finally getting a decent screen shot. I took the screen shot to my local paint store and said, "Match this color." They claim it is "bluebell," but we know this is "Baskerville Blue."

I only did one wall, because I am OLD (and only recently recovered from my back injury). And, because we only had one full day for this project, as we planned to spend yesterday (Sunday) making a fancy meal for Shawn's brother, Keven, who was over for dinner. You can see the old color, which Ralph Lauren called "Kalahari Sunset," but which we have long though of as "dusky rose." We liked the rose color for decades, but we are generally feeling like the house could use a pick-me-up and so it was time to unearth Baskerville Blue to see how it felt. It feels wonderful, so I will be painting the next wall next weekend. 

I am also starting to seriously plan my Lawn2Legumes "pocket habitat" project. As you know, Bob, I got a small grant to do something that would be pollinator friendly in our yard. Today, I went out to take some "before" pictures of the site we are considering. 

We have this hill in front of our house that has been at a loss since we lost the giant pine tree to a storm several years ago. I actually despair to imagine EXACTLY how many years ago, since we have done almost NOTHING to this area since. The one thing we did do is make a path for the postal carrier at the top of the hill. 


Image: The path Mason and I lay at the top of the hill for the postal carrier.

Obviously, the flat section of this part of the yard would be an ideal place to start putting in a pocket habitat. We have a ton of unused space here, with literally nothing except weeds to pull out and replace with natives.

However, I would LOVE to be able to use some of this money to do something with our hillside as well. 


Image: Hillside with our little free library--taken this morning when it is cast in shade.

It might be too ambitious to try to conquer this hill at the same time. However, I feel like the grant is such a good time to consider our options. We've long wanted to add a bit of a retaining wall, and the grant will reimburse us for a percentage of landscaping. As I mentioned, we had Shawn's brother over for dinner last night and we were talking about this project. He has access to a literal (as well as figurative) TON of rocks and boulders which he can harvest from a section of land that he owns just north of here. So, if we could enlist his help (muscles and trailer, or at least just trailer), we could actually get the materials for a dry stone retaining wall for FREE. All we would need to "charge" to the grant would be whatever fill we would need behind the stones, like gravel, sand, etc. We get to count our labor as 'in-kind" donation, so I mean... it's something to seriously ponder. We do need to so SOMETHING about the erosion problem that this hill represents, otherwise we're not really  doing our part to upkeep the natives. Because, you know, with no SOIL, plants, natives or not, aren't really sustainable.

But, the upper section is absolutely going to be doable this year. 


Image: Empty space (8 x 12) waiting for native plants

Shawn would also like a small water garden somewhere in here, if only because out drain pipe really needs somewhere for the water to flow other than backwards towards our house. (We had new drains put in some time ago and they really were not the best at actually angling them in the right direction.) So, now I am thinking about how that might be done, too.

Besides the "usual suspects" like Narrow-leaved Purple Coneflower (Echinacea angustifolia,) Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa,) Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta,) and  New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae,) I am considering:


Purple Prairie Clover


Common milkweed

and nodding onions


Of course, we are supposed to get colder than average temperatures for the next two weeks, so I guess I'll have lots of time to plan???? (<--she says, disappointedly.)  I did make Shawn go with me to Mother Earth Gardens just to talk to the people and see if they had anything out yet (nothing but pansies and a few perennials, of course.)

Anyway, that was me this weekend. I went on one HeyGo tour, but it's nothing to talk about just yet. I will save it for a round-up of any others I might go on this week. 

It's Monday. I've been having a pretty decent day, perhaps DESPITE that fact?

It started out with a lovely chat withjiawen, which I had to unfortunately cut short because our internet at home gets throttled now and again and suddenly it couldn't handle both my convo and my wife's work Zoom meeting. Of course, I had to bow out because... work, but, dang it, we were right in the middle of SOLVING THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS.

This is why we can't have nice things.

If women could just get to finish their conversations, all the answers would be made clear. ;-)

Then, I had to quick eat a little lunch (as we say here in Minnesota) because I had a telephone interview scheduled with a journalist in Montevideo, MN. I have an upcoming workshop there with a mentee of mine who is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board grant. (If you're curious about the event, it is here: https://mefullerwords.com/feedback-matters-workshop/)  We talked about my writing and about what I enjoy about mentoring. I will link to the article when it comes out, if people are at all curious. 

You know, when people talk about doing things "for the exposure," I mostly roll my eyes.  But, I am really hoping that an article in a local newspaper might actually cause one or two people to look me up and buy a few books. Sad, innit?

Otherwise, we are just back from a weekend up at our friends' cabin in Siren, Wisconsin. They have a lovely property and have worked extensively to naturalize the shoreline with native plants.  We, of course, have not seen them since the pandemic so there was a lot to catch-up on. We took a number of pontoon rides around Crooked Lake and, during one of them, we got to see an eagle snagging dinner right out of the lake.  Fairly majestic. The weather was rainy? But, we needed the rain so I am not complaining!



Image: Gerriann told me the name of this flower, but I have forgotten. It was in bloom all along the shore.

Of course, the other excitement in my life is that Kubo Tite just dropped a new one-shot chapter of Bleach in honor of the 20th anniversary. Here's a link both to my review of it (with SPOILERS) and a link to the pirate scanlators that have it up already: https://mangakast.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/bleach-no-breathes-from-hell-by-kubo-tite/

This has required my return to Tumblr to see what people are saying! So, you know, busy! Busy!

How's you on this fine beginning of a week??

 Today (Wednesday) we hiked to Magnetic Rock. Magnetic Rock is one of those official destination hikes like Devil’s Kettle, where we had to get in the car and drive about twenty miles, nearly to the end of the Gunflint Trail.