Kickin It in the BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area)

Last week Jim, Erin, and I packed up a few days worth of food and clothing, threw the canoe on the car and headed up to the BWCA.  Our jumping off point was the Moose River.  We were a little concerned about the water level.  In the fall there seems to be considerably less water than in the spring, so we weren’t exactly sure if we were going to be able to make it into Moose Lake which was our goal.

We started paddling on the first section of the river and things went really well.  The water level was high enough to clear most of the hidden rocks and lily pads.  After about 45 minutes of paddling we made it to the first portage.  A portage is where you carry your boat and gear between two bodies of water.  The fist portage was about 160 rods, a rod being 5 1/2 yards which made the portage about half a mile.

We made the little hike quite nicely getting all of our gear and the canoe over to the next portion of the river.  This one however didn’t have quite as much water to speak of.

We started paddling and soon were pushing and pulling the canoe through the ummm swamp.  Erins dad ended up almost losing his sandal a few times in the muck while trying to get the canoe pushed along.

It took us a long time to make our way through the shallow river and ended up at the second and final portage of our trip in.  This one was about 60 rods so it was a much quicker trip on land.  This dumped us on the edge of Big Moose Lake.

We set up our tents, did a little fishing, of course a some swimming.

The trip was very nice.  To be off the grid and relaxing with Erin and Jim.  I am looking forward to our next trip into the BWCA.

New Home

The day we drove back from Wisconsin to Cook we picked up a u-haul and as soon as we got home loaded it all up.  The next morning we were up at 6:30 in the morning and drove all of our belongings down to Baxter.  We met property manager at 11:00 AM to finish up paperwork and to pick up our keys.  We had all of our stuff moved into the apartment by 12:30 and were on the road again to a furniture outlet in St. Cloud.  We found a superb deal on a couch and a love seat which we promptly bought.  We had to go over to the distribution center to pick them up.  We had both pieces of furniture stuffed into the empty u-haul and back to Baxter we went.  Erin and I managed to get both out of the u-haul and up the stairs into our apartment.  We spend the evening putting things away and making the place look somewhat presentable.  We then invited Mike and Axton over for a little dinner.

Here are a few pictures of what the place looks like now.

There is also another spare bedroom, but it had boxes in it right now, so I’ll post pictures of it when we get it somewhat setup.

Wisconsin Trip

Well, last week we headed over to Door County in Wisconsin to visit Erin’s relatives that live out there.  It was a pretty jam-packed trip.  We left Cook around noon on Wednesday and drove the 8 hours out there pretty much straight on through.  We stayed the night at Erin’s cousin Mark’s house which is very big.  Good thing too because there were 14 of us staying there including his family.

We got up the next morning and headed out to a park nearby for a little bike riding.

We went about 10 miles that afternoon on the bike trails through the forest.  It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air.  Jesse and I headed to the “off road” trails while the rest of the crew stayed on one of the main loops that go around the park.

We all ended up meeting up at a beach where we took a little rest and then headed back to the car for some frozen custard.  That evening we relaxed in the sauna in the house and had smores out by a campfire in the back yard.

Friday we went out for lunch at a restaurant called PC Junction.  Its a little place on the side of the road that has a train track around a circular bar in the main room.  A model train cruises the tracks delivering you your food.  Its a fun little place to go.

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After lunch we headed out to a cherry orchard where we loaded up on tart cherries.  Two huge bucket fulls for 10 bucks . Not to mention the few that made it into our mouths in stead of the bucket.

That evening the boys headed to the races and the girls went to a movie called Hairspray in the theater.  The races were fun, I’d never been before, so it was quite the experience.  No real big crashes, but exciting none the less.  On our way to the races we stopped off and bought Payton, Jake, and Eric some candy to eat while they watched.  Well Jessie and I snagged Payton’s skittles and were playing a game of keep away from him.  This was all fun and games until the bag literally disappeared.  We looked all over for them and couldn’t find them.  Crazily enough after watching the races for a couple of hours we were walking back to the car and found them on the ground.  So Payton was in luck after all and Jesse and I were off the hook.

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After the races we took another sauna and headed to bed.

Saturday Jim, Jesse, Mat, and myself joined Erin’s cousin Craig on his boat out on lake Michigan for a little salmon fishing.  Craig has a very nice boat, and was a gracious host.  We were out on the water for the entire afternoon and evening.  We ended up with 2 salmon and 3 trout.  We lost about that many through out the day from broken lines and other mishaps.  It was very nice to be out in the sun on such a nice day.

Sunday we drove the 8 hours back to Cook.

Cabins and Baptisms

Erin and I had a few days to rest after our Ireland trip.  Last week Wednesday we drove down to the cabin in Cass Lake to meet up with my mom.

We had a nice few days relaxing and reading intermixed with some biking, swimming, and hanging out with family.  Zac and Bunny (my aunt and uncle) came out a couple days.  Bunny brought with the scrapbook she got for her birthday this year.  The pages were made by family and friends.  It was fun to look through all the pictures.

My Grandma even came out for a little barbecue.  Erin and I picked her up from Bemidji and drove her out to the cabin.  She was out for the afternoon and we had her back home in time to watch the Twins game on T.V.

From the cabin Erin and I headed to Brainerd.  Our friends Mike and Amanda were having their new baby boy Axton baptized and they had asked us to be the godparents.  We were very flattered to be given this honor.

It was a fun weekend of spending time with family.  We played a little bocce ball and grilled up some burgers on Saturday and then had the baptism on Sunday morning.

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We spent the rest of the day hanging out.  It was very nice to catch up and spend some time with the new little one.  He is a very calm baby.

When we left this morning Mike and Axton were participating in the normal morning ritual of sleeping on the couch.

We are back in Cook for the evening and are leaving for Wisconsin Dells early tomorrow morning.  Not much down time for the two of us.  We should have posts up from the water-park excitement.

The end of Ireland

After staying at the Galway Hostel we packed up our backpacks and caught a tour bus out to the cliffs of Moher. We had a very cool driver named Paul. We were able to put our big backpacks under the bus which was really nice. We weren’t sure what were going to do with them while we were out hiking around the countryside.

Paul drove us out of Galway and into the Burren Mountains. The area is covered in limestone both rocks above the top soil and the base below the top soil. It was impressive watching Paul drive through the narrow roads avoiding oncoming traffic, the rock side walls, and talking about the local sights all at the same time.

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He dropped us off with a guy named John.  His family owns a farm in the Burren region that goes back many generations.  John had received a degree in Geology and had started up a hiking tour through his farm land to show off the unique region they lived in.

He took us up into the mountains and talked to us about the plants that lived in the area, and how the land was formed by it being under water a long long time ago, and then was carved out by glaciers only a long time ago (not long long).

On our way back down from the hike he brought us to a sliding stone.  It is a very large rock that has a smooth side that is flush with the ground.  You take another piece of lime stone, sit on it and then slide down this big rock.  John said it was something that the boys growing up in the area had been doing since his great great grandfather.

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We hopped back on the bus and Paul took us off to grab a little lunch and then to the cliffs.  It is pretty amazing seeing them drop dramatically into the ocean.  They had this set up a little different then the cliffs on Aran Islands.  They had barricades up that didn’t allow you to get to the very edge which was fun to do on the islands.  So I think if I were to give recommendations I’d say to go to the cliffs on the Aran islands over the cliffs of Moher.

Part of the reason they had the cliffs blocked off was to help maintain the puffins breeding habitat.  We thought it was just because too many people were falling in.

So we hiked around for a little while checking out the sights.  Then we got ice cream and headed back to Galway.

We got back into Galway around 5:30 and headed immediately over to the train station and got inline for the 6:05 train to Heuston Station in Dublin.  The train was a little late getting going and we had some really obnoxious kids sitting next to us with just terrible parents so the ride back was an extra long 3 hours.  We crashed in the hotel when we got in, were up at 5:00 AM the next morning and in the air heading back to the US by 9:30 AM.  Our two flights in the states were delayed.  The one from Chicago to Minneapolis was really delayed over 3 hours.  We finally made it to Minnesota around 8:00 P.M. to find that our bags had been lost between customs in the JFK airport where we rechecked them and Minnesota.

We were exhausted when finally made it in since we had been up for almost 24 hours so we grabbed the nearest hotel to the airport hoping to get some much needed sleep and that our bags may make it in over the night.  We are off to find out now.

The long bus ride….

Well Erin and I packed up our little camp and said goodbye to Killarney as we trudged our way the 1.5 K back into town to catch a bus to Galway.

Looking at the map and basing things on our bus ride from Dublin to Cork I figured we’d be driving for about 2 maybe 3 hours to get to Galway.  After the first two hours here is how things looked.

We switched buses in Limerick and finished out the 5 hour journey pulling into Galway around 7:00 P.M.  The weather was beautiful, and after checking into our sweet hostel we headed out on the town.

We walked around for a while and ended up sitting down by the waters edge, which happened to be a very popular place to hang out.  We saw jugglers, musicians, and the occasional group emptying their beer cans.

After watching the swans and ducks swim by for a while we headed back to the main street looking for food.  We found a little pub promising live music and bar food.  Well….. The bar food had already ended for the evening and the live music wasn’t going down for another hour, so we sat down, ordered a drink, and visited till the band showed up.  It was fun to get a little listen to the local music.

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We were there for a short while and then headed back to the hostel for a couple of reasons.  One was to use the free wifi which is made available in the kitchen area.  Second if I had kept drinking and in the dark I don’t know if we would have been able to find our little abode.  The truth of the matter was I was lost anyway and had to rely on Erin to bring us home.

Well we are off to the Cliffs of Mohre this morning.  We need to find a little grub for the trip.  So we are off to pack up our bags and get on the road.  Hope to update you all this evening from the hotel.

Killarney or bust

We left our little bed and breakfast yesterday and found a little wifi hot spot at the steps of the court house.  We were able to push some photos to the gallery.

So we went down to bus station from there.  Took the bus from Cork to Killarney.  It was about a 2 hour drive.  We made it into town about 2:30 in the afternoon.  Caught a taxi to our campground about 1.5 killometers outside of the city center.  We got our tent set up grabbed a little lunch at a little cafe by our campground, and then walked into town.

On our way to the city center we came across this little park on the side of the road that went down by the river.  They had a little windy path through flowers and bushes that ended at a bench.

We headed the rest of the way into the city center which is jam-packed with shops and pubs.  There was a big game on tv not sure exactly what its called, but its a cross between rugby and soccer.  Really fun to watch. We stopped into a little pub to watch the end of the game.  Dublin was behind and then took the lead, and at the very end the game finished with a tie.

After the game was over we headed back out on the streets to look around town.  All of a sudden coming down the street was a line of tractors.  They were raising money for cancer research.  I guess they had traveled 260 K.  They were honking their horns and followed by people with buckets for the donations.

We explored around town for another couple hours and then headed back the long hike to our campground.  We ended up eating dinner at a little restaurant adjacent to our campground.

This morning we got up and headed back to the little cafe for breakfast.  Erin had a scone and some tea.

I had a “Full Irish Breakfast” minus the pudding because well thats really not very good.

After we finished breakfast we rented bikes.  Killarney is located right on the edge of a very large National Forest.  Our ride was about 12 K long and took us around a one of the lakes in the park.

The scenery was very beautiful.  The area is surrounded by mountains and lakes.   It looks like there are a lot of hiking and biking trails you can spend some time on.  Definitely a place to visit and spend a few days if you enjoy getting out for a hike.

We kept seeing signs to this waterfall and arrows pointing in the direction to find it.  So at one point we ditched our bikes and headed up a little trail that promised the waterfall at the end.  After about 15 minutes of hiking we were brought back to the road by which we left our bikes.  So we hiked back down the road the way we had come and picked up our bikes and then biked back the way we had walked.  After a little while more of biking and about three more signs claiming the falls were this way or that we came to the actual trail head to the falls.  We ditched our bikes once again and headed up the trail.

This time we had found the correct trail and found the falls just a few hundred yards/meters up the trail.

The forests are all very green and the trees are covered in moss or little vines that climb up to the top.  It is very pretty.

Since its been so sunny the last two days I am starting to get sun burned.  I had to buy a hat so the top of my head wouldn’t get burned to a crisp.  Unfortunately Nike was my best option at the moment.

Well Its our 2nd anniversary today, and we are going to go grab some dinner.  I need to get a shower taken and maybe find some “clean” clothes so I’m somewhat presentable at the dinner table.

There are more photos up in the Ireland area of Erin’s gallery if you’d like to see them.

Off to Cork

Erin and I packed up our backpacks hopped a taxi to the main bus station in Dublin and purchased two tickets to Cork.  Cost 10.50 Euro each.  This will come up later.  We immediately got in line for the bus which was rapidly getting longer.  Apparently it doesn’t matter if you have a ticket, its first come first serve for the seats.  So it pays to be in line early.

The bus was completely full. Our backpacks were put in a compartment under the bus.  The trip to Cork about 4 and half hours.  The bus ride was very nice.  The weather outside was beautiful and it was fun to see the countryside.

We made it into Cork just fine, grabbed our backpacks and picked up a taxi.  A short taxi ride through the city center with a very nice driver who gave us all kinds of information about what to do.  We arrived at the Crawford House.  A bed and breakfast we would be spending the next couple of nights at.

The place was very nice our room had its own bathroom and was just what we needed for our stay in cork.  Another interesting thing was the amount of bed and breakfasts that were on our street.  It seemed like the cool think to do.

We dropped off our stuff and headed out for a walk into the city center.

The city center seems to always be busstling with people.  There are stores lined up and down the street, with one side being full of French shops and the other well not being French shops.  It was fun to walk around and see all the different stores.  It was a bit overwhelming to have all those people swarming around.

There is a place just off main street called the English Market that seems to be under a whole city block.  There is a maze of walkways through little butcher shops, cheese shops, olive shops, chocolate shops, everything that you can think of.  They aren’t seperated by walls, they each have their own tables set up.  A very fun place to watch people interact and if you lived in the area to find a good deal on the evenings meal.

The next day we went out looking for the movie theater because thats what we do on vacation.  We had ran across it the day before and since it was raining today seemed like a good idea.  So we walked all over town unable to find it again.  We stumbled across a little street market that had fresh pastries, olives, cheese, and other tasty treats.

We finally found the theater and went to see Pirates of the Caribbean which wasn’t the greatest movie I have ever seen.  Erin really seemed to enjoy it though  ;)  j/k.  It was almost 3 hours long which seemed like an eternity.  After the movie finally finished we stopped off at a little tea and coffee shop for some tea, scones, and croissants.

For dinner that night (last night) we went to this little wine bar situated right on a river.  There were a few swans swimming around and fish touching the surface making ripples all around.

We had a very nice dinner and a tasty bottle of Malbec.

Today we bought bus tickets to Killarney which were 15 euro each.  Crazy right?  The trip from Dublin to Cork was over 4 hours.  This one will probably be less than one, and the price is way more.  Oh well.  Well be staying at the Flesk Caravan and Camping Park.  We’ll keep you posted on how that experience treats us.

Check our Erin’s gallery for all of our Ireland pictures.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

Yesterday was a full day. We got up at 5:15 A.M. and caught a taxi to the Heuston train station. We had a little bit of a wait before we were to check in for our trip to Aran Islands.

After checking in we were taken off to our waiting train. We would be traveling for 3 hours on our way across the country to Galway located on the west coast of Ireland. There were a bunch of new fancy trains, but the one we ended up on seemed kinda old and run down. Ours is the one on the right side of this picture.

We piled into the train and got a little overview of our trip from Vincent our “tour guide”. We found out that Vincent would only be accompanying us on the west bound train portion of the trip. Our care changed hands quite a few times throughout the day.

The train ride was beautiful. The countryside is very green, and traveling from one side of the country to the other we saw the landscape transform from trees and hills to flat countrysides covered with rock fences. We did come across a few big churches that were very castle looking.

When we finally made it into Galway. We were taken to a little tour bus that would drive us the 17 miles along the coast to the airport where we would fly to the Aran Islands from. So we were handed off to the driver of the bus and we said good by to Vincent forever.

When we arrived at the airport Erin and I were feeling a bit like we had stepped into the Bering Air “terminal” in Unalakleet. We were asked to step on a scale to get our body weight, and how much our bags weighted, and then were asked to have a seat until our flight was ready. We were flying on a BN2 Islander a high wing plane with two engines allowing us to fly over the ocean.

We all were put in the plane which had 4 rows of seats behind the pilot, two seats per row. We lifted off and began our 15 minute flight over to the island. When we landed on the island we were taken into the “terminal” by the airport which doubled as the fire hall.

We were then put on another transport fan with a fellow speaking fluent Gaelic over his radio. We drove up into town and were transfered to another van with a different driver. He gave us a tour around town. The community is very compact. All of the houses are pretty much in the same general area. The country side as well as the road is lined with rock fences. Its like a patchwork quilt covering the land. Driving around was a little interesting since the road was very narrow, and when meeting oncoming vehicles you had to drive awfully close to the rock walls.

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We were taken up to the entrence of the hike to Dun Aonghas fort located atop 300 foot cliffs on the Atlantic side of the island. It was raining out and a little chilly, but the hike to the top warmed us up. This is truly an amazing place. The cliffs are spectacular. It is weird getting that close to a cliff of that nature. The water swirling down below and a sheer drop strait down. I contemplated jumping, and Erin was quick enough to snap a picture before I changed my mind.

On our hike back down Erin tried to see what was inside a little house on the side of the trail. She was unable to get the door open, so we hiked back down to a little cafe strategically placed at the trail head where we each had a delicious bowl of homemade tomato soup, a piece of brown bread, and shared a piece of carrot cake. It was all very tasty and the soup was perfect after being out in the cold rain all day. After our little lunch they gave us plenty of time to look through the local shops. We then did the trip back to Dublin in reverse. Van back to the airport, plane back to the main land, van back to Galway, a short wait for our train to arrive. Then a three hour packed train ride back to Dublin. We both took little naps on the train. After our taxi ride back to the hotel we went down to the restaurant in the hotel and had a couple of drinks and appetizers. I had my first pint of Guinness which was okay, but something I’d need to drink more of if I planned to truly enjoy the experience. I was a tired kid by the end of that day and crashed hard when we got back to the room.

Jet Lag

Well, we made it into Dublin and our bags arrived safe and sound.  We made it to our hotel around 10:00 in the morning and our room wasn’t quite ready yet.  So we stored our bags at the desk, and headed to find the city center.  We hopped on Bus 41C a double decker which seems to be the standard mode of transportation for a majority of the Dublin residents.  We were pretty tired and didn’t know exactly what the city center looked like.  So we ended up riding the bus all the way through the city and out the other side.  We got some way out and the driver said last stop.  We stayed on and took the rout back into town.  It all worked out just fine since we were just trying to kill time any way.  We hopped off at the city center and walked around for a little while and then hopped on the 16A bus and headed back towards the hotel.  We weren’t exactly sure where our stop was, and after asking the driver he wasn’t sure where our stop was either.  We ended up getting off the bus about 3 blocks early.  We eventually made it back to our hotel, got checked in, and promptly went to bed.  We slept for a few hours.  Erin dragged me out of bed to go get some dinner.  We had a very nice dinner in our hotel, at a resturant that served asian food.  After dinner back to bed we went around 7:30 PM.  We got up this morning around 8:30.  So we must have really needed the sleep.

This morning we grabbed some food at the continental breakfast and then went for a walk through the park near our hotel.  These photos are on Erins blog as well.

After our walk we packed up our bags and hopped a bus into the city center.  We needed to get to our new hotel, once we got to the middle of town we came across the bus center and asked which bus we needed to take.  We were given a bus number and pointed in a direction to find it.  Well the point was not exactly the right direction.  So we ended up walking around for a while before we were able to track it down.  It was about a 30 min bus ride out to our new hotel.  We got checked in right away, and decided to go out for a walk to the mall near by.  I had to pick up a plug adapter so I could plug in the laptop and Erin needed something to carry her wallet in.  I found an adpter, but Erin didn’t have much luck on the carrying device.  We remembered we needed to call and confirm our trip for tomorrow.  We are doing a train and plane trip to the west side of the country.  We’ll fill you in on that tomorrow.  So back to the hotel we went.  I dropped off the plug and started the laptop charging and called the tour agency so we are good to go for the morning.  We rushed back to the mall to catch the 3:15 showing of spiderman 3.  After the movie we came back to the hotel and have kind of been relaxing.  We need to check in at the train station at 6:45 A.M. tomorrow, so we have an early morning on coming soon.  Its been fun so far.  I am looking forward to seeing a lot of the country side tomorrow.  More pictures and stories to come.