I'm back from camping with the family. Good news-we got to leave on Sunday night instead of Monday morning! We had an interesting drive through Duluth, as there was a LOT of construction work going on. And while we were resting at a Rest Stop (haha!) I got a horribly painful charlie horse in my right calf. Ouch. Even though we had a difficult journey, we all arrived at Lake Cadotte at 6 AM!
Cadotte is a long and wide, crystal clear lake...with a surprising number of dead crawdads at the bottom. We counted at least 20 by the boat launch. Luckily, there weren't any at the swimming area. We spent one whole day at the beach-Emily and Elias had a blast.
Cadotte Lake Review:
Likes:
1. Large, open, clear lake
2. Sandy beach
3. Lakeside camping site-gorgeous morning view of the lake
4. Close to Lake Superior-allows for a fun day of riding along the north shore and sight seeing.
5. Empty sites-This Cadotte campsite seems very unknown. The campground had over 23 sites, and only about 10 had people in them. Not only that, but less than half the sites are reservable, which worked out great for us!
6. The old school water pump! Emily, Elias, and I all had a blast using the old pump to fill our water jugs and to take a drink.
Dislikes:
1. Open campsites-you can see directly into the campsites around you. And hear every one's obnoxious generators.
2. The dead crawdads in the lake-yuck!
3. Rain-but that's to be expected up north. The weather will change in an instant.
4. My brother Mikey's consistent wining. He decided to be a crab while we were at Cadotte because a) we weren't at Ely, b) more specifically, we weren't at Fenske Lake, and c)he didn't have much luck fishing.
One day while we were at Cadotte it started raining. So we all got into the Excursion and took off to explore the North Shore! We spent most of the day stopping at trails or waterfalls. We even spent some time on Superior looking for agates, sweet rocks that are mostly only found in the Midwest. Agates are somewhat transparent, with lines running through them. I tend to think they look like layers of caramel stacked on top of each other.
Superior Photo, L to R: Emily (in front L corner), Me, Mikey
And on our rainy day we even got to visit Cascade River! Cascade River is kinda special to our family, because two years ago we spent Christmas at Cascade Lodge, which as you may guess, is right next to the river. I think it might have even been Christmas day when we decided to take the hike to the river. So we got to go there again! This time, we went without snowsuits.
Cascade Bridge Photo L to R: Me and Mikey...Greg, Emily, and Katrina (far back)...and Elias (front in brick red shirt).
But then the alternator went out in the Excursion and we lost all battery power. Thank goodness we were parked at the auto shop of Two Harbors!! Turns out they wouldn't be able to get a new alternator and fix the problem until the next day, but they were kind enough to give all 8 of us a ride back to the camp site.
The next day we got the Excursion back, packed up our things, and headed for Ely (aka Lake Fenske a ways away from Ely). The first night there wasn't any sites available in the camp ground, so we slept in the pavilion. And it rained. Then the next night we were lucky enough to have a campsite. And it rained. Then the next day (Friday), Dad said heck with this, we're leaving. And we came home.
Sorry for the short ending...this is a lot of writing and I get bored easily. :)
But since we came back on Friday instead of Saturday (we planned on extending our vacation to Saturday...didn't happen), I got to go to Wisconsin yesterday to visit my wonderful boyfriend, Matt. :D We had a fun time. Matt's brother Andrew was javascript:void(0)visiting, too, and we all went disk golfing. Sad news-I'm horrible at disk golf. Even sadder news-Matt and Andrew are STELLAR at disk golf. I think they got a kick out of my lack-of-skills.
Picture: Matt playing with my webcam in my freshman dorm
So that's the story of this weekend.
Yahweh bless!
Alycia
No comments:
Post a Comment