Wanoka Lake, Chequamagon National Forest

After posting the blog yesterday, I stopped at the Mellon Shell station to use their facilities and to buy water.  While I was at it, I bought a scratch off lottery ticket and won $50!

When I met brother Carl at the Breakwater Restaurant in Ashland for supper, I figured I should pay for the meal. We had a good time catching up.  In my family, everyone thinks whatever I am doing is insane...then they go and do the same thing.  Carl, not learning from my mistakes, ran for Ashland city council and won and now is getting the same kind of results with people coming to the meetings to complain.  Carl is a retired minister and remarked that in his previous occupation, people were always nice to him, so he's not used to the insults.  Like me, he's planning on being on the council for one term only.

Afterwards, Carl showed me the artesian spring at a park at the edge of Lake Superior.  I filled up a gallon jug with water for the campground. 

I camped at Wanoka Lake in the Chequamagon National Forest.  The campground is right off Highway 2 which will lead me to North Dakota.  I didn't need anything but the camping facilities, since I would only be there a night, so I selected a spot farthest away from other campers.  There were only two other campsites filled so that was easy.   The wooded spot was so isolated, I could wash up and change clothes with no observers save for a pileated woodpecker who kept hammering overhead.

I took time to walk around all the loops of the campground to get in some exercise.  I took a look at the 15 acre lake, pretty small but Carl had assured me that trout fisherman have great success there.  There was a small beach, but I was already dressed in cold weather clothes.  No swimming for me this time.

 

This lake was once the site of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp from 1933 to 1942.  There's nothing left of the structures but I think about the young men who once lived here.  So many of them went off to fight in WWII.  Did they come back?  Very few of them are left. They did good work, wherever the CCC went.

With rain forecast, I didn't pitch the tent but crawled in back of the station wagon to sleep on the bed Gary had already late out for me, sweet man.   There was no rain, and I slept solidly through the night.

I got up this morning, started a small fire in the fire pit and started to boil water for morning breakfast when the first rain drops hit.  I threw everything willy-nilly in the car, splashed water on the fire, and made tea at the back of the wagon, taking cover under the raised car door.  Then I set off again.

I took a wrong turn at the entrance and was on a forest road.  I had to drive a ways to find a place to turn around, went over a hill and came upon a black bear, first of the trip.  He was ambling along and at first paid no attention to me.  I looked for the camera but it was underneath all the stuff I'd thrown in the car.  He glanced over his shoulder, shook his head in disgust, and turned into the damp undergrowth. 

Readers will have to take my word for it that he was really there. 

Then it was down Highway 2 for a morning of driving in the rain.

Tonight, the Chippewa National Forest in Minnesota.