Woke up on the elementary school grounds around 5am to a massive thunder and sheet lightening storm. Huge raindrops pelting the RV and streaming down the windows. Quite something to witness and we were very glad not to be tenting somewhere! I got up and checked on kids and Amelia was somehow between the sheet and the mattress squeezed in like a sausage, fast asleep. Kids ended up in our bed a couple hours later, still storming away outside.
Left Kenora around 9:25am with 106245km on the odometer. Meems giving directions for us via the Garmin she uses in front of her. We liked that she said, "turn right on River Doctor!" (River Dr)... makes sense!
Drove about half an hour to Rushing River... a place recommended to us by the guy at Assiniboine Park during our boomerang session, and also by Nick and Lisa. It had stopped raining for the most part and we paid the $3.00 permit for a two-hour stay to check out the hiking trail to Lower Rapids. The river certainly was RUSHING, and was spectacular to see from the campsites beside it. We followed our Trail Forks directions across the highway and found the entrance to the Lower Rapids trail, only to see that it was closed off and looked like it has been closed for some time - likely due to the high waters they've been having. Disappointing, for sure, but we wandered back and crossed a neat bridge over the water where Ollie made some slow motion rock drop videos, and we also saw an adorable native squirrel with a pinecone in its mouth dodging around us to cross the bridge.
By 11am we hit the road again and it started raining again. Nothing like the thunderstorm, but rainy enough. Saw lots more beaver lodges alongside the highway. It wasn't until we saw signs for Sioux Falls that we realized we were off track of where we thought we were. Turns out we were on Hwy 71 not 17 and we were not going to reach Blue Lake unless we turned around and did 40 min detour back to Rushing River. :(
We pulled over to make some assessments of our situation and figured it was best to just continue on our journey "south" on the 71 and cut across east again on the Hwy 11/Trans Canada Hwy. Stopped in Sioux Falls for diesel (30L for $68.96) and continued on our way down Hwy 71 to see what it had in store for us.
Drove through Nester Falls, and had our eye on pulling over at Caliper Lake, but when we pulled over we saw it was closed. Poor luck once again. Still raining, we saw some cool float planes from the highway, and also some white pelicans in some of the random roadside lakes.
Just after 1pm we were making the left turn to head east on Hwy 11 along the top of Lake Superior. Stopped in Fort Frances at Lillie Park for some lunch (106459km on the "clock"). There was a big field where we could throw the boomerangs, and a playground for the kiddos to explore. We also found lots of good "magic wands" to upgrade the carved ones that that kids made. They were practicing "leveling up" with spells and Jonathan and I got lessons on wizardry as well. I think I have the basic spells dialed and should be leveling up to a bigger wand in the coming days. 😉 One neat thing about this park was that it was on "Rainy River" and across the river was the USA. There was a border crossing just up the road. Across from the park on the other side of the river was a huge industrial get-up that we couldn't figure out what it was. Some kind of processing or production plant? noisy!
3:30pm we left Lillie Park and fueled up at the Husky $131.00. Drove on a long bridge over Rainy Lake! and got to Atikokan around 5:30pm to check out Bunnell Park/Little Falls as a possibility for staying the night. Pulled in off the highway and we drove through the sites. We weren't super jazzed about it and thought we'd try our luck farther down the same road to Chippewa and Ojibway Campground. This campground proved to be much more appealing and was right on the lake. As we crept through the campground, we came upon two awesome sites that were vacant. The site posts showed a receipt for three nights over the long weekend including tonight. We backed into the more level of the two, and examined the receipt more closely. Jonathan ran a few more sites up to see if anything showed availability. Being a long weekend, we guessed it was all full. We also had our fingers crossed that these two sites had been abandoned by the registrants due to the heavy thunderstorm last night, who perhaps were tenting since Friday night and decided soaking wet gear was enough to pack up and go home. We stayed parked, but ready to leave should the person return.
This site was beautiful! it backed onto the lake with a perfect sunset view. The very short trail only a few metres between some trees led to a large granite outcropping that sloped down into the water on a perfect angle. Another little side trail led down to the lakeside to wade in a bit before the drop. Upon checking it all out and wowing at the stunning lake view, I spied something hopping on the trail. Turned out to be a teensy little brown frog. Adorable! Ollie and Meems were over in an instant.
We couldn't let a lake swim opportunity slip by after such along day in the car, and we left a note on our windshield with our phone number and donned our swim gear to go for a swim. This was a perfect end to a strange day where the driving kept going on forever! Kids had their life jackets on because it was so deep right away and they bobbed about happily. Ollie found a little green beetle on the surface of the water which he rescued. He named him "Star of the Show".
After the refreshing swim, we prepped some food (a yummy curry mix I bought from Invermere) and the kids did some carving and chiseling out on the picnic table with the swarms of mosquitoes. Ollie came in awhile later with Jonathan, his hands filled with blood dripping from a chisel cut. It was quite a shock, and when we got him doctored up, the cut was fairly small relatively speaking, but would hurt for a few days.
Later in the evening the sunset was spectacular. Haven't seen one like that for ages. The oranges and pinks reflecting across the smooth glassy water. Amelia and Jonathan went back in for an evening sunset swim. One of my favourite evenings.
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