Not quite at the crack of dawn we’re heading north again. Our two-hour trip to the cabin takes us through Virginia, the county seat of St. Louis County, which includes Lake Vermilion. The region’s economic foundation for many years has been iron mining, and the world’s largest open pit iron ore mine is nearby. We stop at the turnoff to the “Mineview” and check out some mining equipment. The reason this truck is obsolete and relegated to a museum, by the way, is that it’s so small.
And we thought our Subaru was roomy...
Part of the open pit mine...that's BIG equipment out there!
We both feel the pull of Pine Island and rush through our grocery and liquor shopping in Virginia, but we make one more quick stop just before the Rte. 169 turnoff to Ely to visit a geological marker indicating that we’re crossing the Laurentian Divide.
Crossing the Laurentian Divide
A drop of rainwater falling on one side of this line will end up in the Arctic Ocean, on the other side it will flow south to the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. Rozzie never failed to remark on our crossing this Divide when we drove up with him, and we’re keeping up the tradition.
Pushing on to Mud Creek Road, the final 9-mile dirt track which ends at Glenwood Lodge where we store our boat. It’s a beautiful day and the Bayliner is waiting for us at the dock, we load up and head out to the island.
Bayliner loaded up.
Craig at Moccasin Point Marine had picked up the boat a couple of weeks ago to track down a nasty noise the engine had been making. We were prepared for a major repair, but it turned out it just needed the valves and lifters worked on. It sounds great!
Of course once we’re on the way we realize we’re low on gas, and that we didn’t have our 5 gallon bottles to fill with drinking water. A quick unload at the cabin and then we return to Glenwood Lodge for gas and water. Oh, we forgot the 5 gallon jugs! No worries, Dandy (Billie’s hired all ‘round guy) graciously empties the last cup out of a gallon milk jug so we can have water for coffee in the morning.
Moving into the cabin since we had it rehabbed is absolutely painless, no vermin to sweep out, no need to disinfect dishes. It’s practically civilized. We did have one surprise when we went out back – a forty foot dead birch tree had fallen right next to the outhouse, missing it by a quarter of an inch. It demolished a five-gallon pail, but there was not a mark on the structure, a very near miss! Losing the outhouse would not have been good…
Couldn't get any closer!
So we enjoyed our first modest Vermilion sunset of the season with Manhattans in hand.
First sunset.
And the evening and the morning were the first day…