Day in the Life of an Idiot

Luck is a funny thing to determine.

In the pouring rain, as we headed out to our family vacation on the Gunflint Trail, I found a penny. There’s a saying that goes: “Find a penny, pick it up; all day long, have good luck.” As a kid, I also understood that there was an unspoken corollary, it’s only REALLY good luck, if you find it face-up. The one I found was showing tails. What I have done since I was ten, is flip it over while it’s still touching the ground, and then pick it up.

Is that good luck or not?

We had rain most of the way to Duluth. Because it was Grandma’s Marathon, we decided to go up a kind of back way that involved highway 61 and a bunch of meandering. Other than the persistent rain that dogged us, it was a pleasant drive.

In Duluth, while trying to skirt around downtown the car started making A NOISE. No one ever likes hearing car NOISES, but when you’re on the very first leg of a two-week trip that’s going to involve a lot of driving? We pulled over and considered our options. Luckily, Shawn has a lot of data on her phone, so we were able to discover a repair place that was open… several miles back.

With much reluctance and a lot of holding back tears of despair (and a couple of wrong turns), we found the repair place. Miraculously, it was attached to a Ford dealership and not at all busy. They said they could perform a break check (which is what the creaking NOISE initially sounded like) in fifteen minutes.

The repair shop was across the parking lot from a DSW and a Barnes & Noble. Seeing that, I sent my wife and son off to their two favorite shopping experiences and sat down in the ‘lounge’ to watch Disney’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” which was playing on the TV, a show I have never seen, because I tend to avoid all musicals like the plague.

Minutes later, we get the prognosis: sorry, lady, your instincts are wrong. It’s not the breaks. The breaks are in great shape.

Even though that was good news, in a way, I was still leery of driving into the ‘no services’ great north woods with an unidentified undercarriage creak. I asked them if they wouldn’t mind a quick check of the underside. They were happy to.

More singing hunchbacks.

After they drove the car themselves, they determined, particularly given how loaded down with supplies our car was, it was probably struts. Bad news, since that’s a big, many hour repair; good news, because none of the mechanics thought that the NOISE was that bad and were willing to recommend that we could drive many hundreds of miles before we needed to have the work done. In other news, we could go on our way, so long as we took the car in at our earliest convenience.

They charged us nothing. Zero dollars and no cents.

Good luck or bad luck?

We’d called ahead to let Bearskin Lodge know that were were on our way, but delayed. They said they’d leave the door to our cabin open and we could come in any time, even after midnight, and we could check in in the morning.

With the time crunch gone and, even though we all felt a little frazzled from the unexpected repair detour, we were determined to enjoy the rest of the trip north.

As soon as we left Duluth, the sun came out.

Superior kicked up a ton of fog/mist, but, in large patches, we had brilliant weather. We have a favorite agate hunting beach, Flood Bay, and we stopped to do a little rock sifting. Both Shawn and Mason found agates, something none of us has ever done on this beach, despite it being famous for its agates.




We also stopped at Gooseberry Falls, which we tend to stop at every year. I discovered that they sold international stamps--and then later realized I forgot ALL my international addresses. Another good luck/bad luck moment.



Another first for this trip: Split Rock Lighthouse! Shawn, being the state archivist of Minnesota, was able to get us in free, which made the experience even better. The view was fantastic.



At this point, however, we started to get a little anxious about arriving before dark, so we skipped several of our usual favorites and headed straight for Grand Marais and the Gunflint Trail.

We saw a ton of deer this trip. At least one turkey hen crossed the road in front of us.

Was it a lucky trip? Yeah, I’d say, in the end, it was.

Other than a stop for food (at a McDonald's, I think) we continued the rest of the way to Bearskin Lodge without stopping. We talked about places we wanted to go on the way back: Iona's Beach and the Split Rock Lighthouse (which I have never seen). But, we were starting to get anxious to arrive before the sun completely went down.

We got there around seven and checked in. Bearskin Lodge is about thirty-miles up the Gunflint Trail and pretty much delineates the "Last Homey House." There are flush toliets, running water, and showers in the cabins. You can gave motor boats on parts of East Bearskin Lake, but the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) is just around the bend. A lot of people rent a cabin at Bearskin but use it as a place to take off from and come home to. We like to just call it "home" and do very short trips into the wilds.

Each cabin comes with its own, private dock. Inside are all the amenities including a kitchen (we packed all the food we'd need since the nearest store is MILES/hours away) and a fireplace. This time we took full advantage of the fireplace. It got very chilly late at night, so the fire was functional as well as fun.

Here's a blurry picture of me roasting marshmallows for our champaign and S'mores honeymoon feast (yes, you read that right. We had champaign and S'mores for our honeymoon):



Here's a better one of Mason doing the same thing (you can kind of see the main room of the cabin in this shot, too):



We had for the most part really good weather. As we left at the end of the week, Bob, the owner, told us we'd hit the "weather jackpot" and I think he was right, especially since we've come home to days and days of seemingly unending rain. While we were up there, both Shawn and Mason managed to get sunburned. For reasons of Bizzaro-World, I think, I managed to be the one who remembered to reapply my sunscreen early and often. I am a bit browner, but I managed to not get scorched. To be fair, I may have gotten burned if I'd brought more than one book to Bearskin, because this is what my family did most nice days (which is to say, sit on the dock and read):



I love to read, but I'm bad at it. I'm easily distracted partly because reading has always been a bit of a chore for me thanks to a mild case of dyslexia. Plus, I'm that person. Last time we were at Bearskin, Shawn teased me because I was always the one up at 6 am ready for a hike deep into the underbrush. At the time Modern Family had just had its Hawaii special episode and there was a funny bit about the two dads and how one of them preferred to relax and sip Mai-tais and the other wanted to visit the obscure lavender farm that had all 50 varieties of lavender. I was the lavender dad; Shawn was the Mai-tai dad.

Mason, too. He could read all day.

But here's my dock queen in her element:



Okay, I think that's it for tonight. My internet has been very come-and-go thanks to all these storms we've been having so any more pictures might break it. More tomorrow.

Also, if you're curious how my class went today, the answer was very well. My lecture started out a bit rough, but I could see it hit some of the students because I watched their gears turn and eyes light up and suddenly people had things they wanted to share. I love moments like that. Plus, we had this one as well: http://tatehallaway.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-dragon-of-awkward.html.