Voyageurs National Park Adventures

 On Sunday morning after our fishing trip, we were supposed to pick up the pontoon boat we rented and then head out to our campsite on an island in Rainy Lake. On our way back from the fishing trip on Saturday evening the battery light came on in the car, which either means something is wrong with your battery or your alternator. We were hoping for the battery, but turns out it was the alternator. It kept running long enough for us to get to the O'Reilly's where they diagnosed the problem for us, but it was Sunday so there was nothing we could do about it at that point. Nothing was open. So we bought a battery jumper, and managed to jump our way (about 20 times) back to the boat launch with the pontoon boat. We loaded up the pontoon boat and headed out to our campsite. It was starting to look like rain, but we were hoping to beat it to the site. Alexia was our navigator on the lake. We knew generally where the island was, but we didn't have coordinates. She read the maps well and tracked all the different islands we passed until we got to ours. But we didn't make it before the rain. It started pouring on us right as we arrived. Chris and Alexia attempted to put tents up in the rain, but I decided to wait it out under the canopy of the boat. Addi was very upset about the whole ordeal. Once the rain blew over though, it was a beautiful evening, and we took the boat out in our little bay and did some fishing and watched the sunset. We didn't catch any fish, but we perfected our casting.

 

The next morning we got up early to call the two mechanics in International Falls about our car. We had just enough cell signal to make the call from the island. The first one couldn't help us, but the second one found a part and was willing to shift some things around to get it done that day. So we hopped into the pontoon, drove back to the boat launch, and then had to beg the local houseboat operation to let us borrow one of their battery chargers to charge up the battery enough to get us the 12 miles back to International Falls. We spent about 40 minutes waiting for the battery and barely made it to the shop. We left the car at the shop and walked to the little International Falls downtown to have some lunch. While we were having lunch the power went out for the entire town. We were starting to wonder if we were sucking the energy out of everything around us. After an hour or two the power came back on. We wandered town for a while, Alexia got her picture with a giant Smoky the Bear, I slept under a tree near the mechanic shop and Chris and the girls explored the river bank and found some Orchids. The car was finally done by late afternoon so we had an early dinner in town, and then headed back to the boat and our campsite. Sadly we had just wasted our nicest weather day at Voyageurs waiting for our car, but it was the summer solstice so the day was long. We decided to do an evening boat trip so we rode out to one of the National Park trails where Alexia and I hiked to an inland lake and bog, and Chris and Addi did some fishing in the bay. It was an absolutely beautiful evening. The calm before the storm. 

We knew the next day was going to be a rough one. It was predicting 30-40 mile an hour winds and 2 inches of rain, and it started around 5 am. We woke to a lot of wind, thunder, and rain with the tent essentially blowing flat on top of us. The wind basically demolished our other tent and tarp, and we spent most of that day trying to figure out how to keep most of stuff from being completely soaked. The wind and rain were intense and there was no going anywhere that day. But things started to clear by evening and we got a very nice and soggy sunset. The next morning we did out best to pack up our wet camp to head back to International Falls. We were heading to Thunder Bay, Ontario for the night. Voyageurs was beautiful, but Rainy Lake lived up to its name. It isn't the easiest place to visit.