White Iron Lake Paddle

Today we visit our new friends Don and Chris on White Iron Lake, just southeast of Ely. They have just completed their new garage (with apartment upstairs!) and horse stable at the lower end of a beautiful twelve acre plot situated near the end of a long, isolated bay.

Their setup is just about picture perfect, homesite looking over the bay, nice boardwalk across a deep green marshy area, and almost complete separation from the main body of the lake. It's early evening here, with the sun's golden hue shining across placid waters of the bay. As I help Kim launch and look out across the narrow waters, I know this will be a nice relaxing couple of hours.


Chris is last to launch in here Wenonah Prism, a favored solo boat here in the Boundary Waters.

I'm in the front of our big Clipper tandem, a perfect spot to enjoy the scenery and take a few pix.

Once on the waters, Don and Chris glide across the ripply surface as we ease slowly along to visit their favorite spots along the opposite shore.
A mile or so down, we spot a lone deer swimming across ahead of us. "Paddle faster Kim, let's get close for a picture!" doesn't seem to produce much extra energy,


Kim just laughs as I watch the large doe disappear into the thick cover.



Farther along we reach the mouth of the Kawishiwi River, noticing a series of glistening rapids a few hundred yards ahead. As we turn to float back on the gentle current, Chris waits patiently in the narrow opening back into the lake.


I marvel at the pristine beauty of this part of the country, and wonder why it's taken me the better part of a lifetime to discover it's beauty.
We spend another hour or so returning, and top off a wonderful eve with a sparkling glass of Shiraz, a warm fire and interesting new friends!

ELY! - Steve's Cabin

We leave Duluth early with anticipation as we head north to Ely, a special town nestled on the edge of the Boundry Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota. The mornings rich, warm sunlight combined with nature's awesome display of wildflowers along the way made the drive a delight. Every roadside, every field brushed in colors of spring! (yes it's spring up here!)


Kim's favorite is the lupines and I enjoy the fiery colors of the Indian Paintbrush....


A couple hours drive and we arrive at our good Louisiana friend's cabin situated within the town of Ely on Miners Lake. As we exit the Dodge and walk into the "back yard", our first view of the Lake, down the hillside confirms that the flowers abound here as well as on the highways and byways.
 

Steve and his family have done a wonderful job creating a charming place to enjoy our stay here in Ely. From the old canoe within the entry to the greeting of the wood stove, one feels welcome upon entering the massive stacked logs, handcrafted by "Stevo" Jr.


No detail was spared in using the big white pines to dress and frame every doorway. A quick glance at the staircase shows that an enjoyable winter was spent here just months ago.

The upstairs bunk room continues with a rustic theme, and boasts a fabulous apex through which one has a nice view of the lake.

Our favorite spot is the back deck, we spent many an hour out here just enjoying the view, warm sunshine and an interesting book or two. The property was buzzing with bees and chirping with birds, so Kim took advantage of the nice viewing area almost every morning.

And, for those who would prefer a more rustic experience, Steve moved "Old Log" over from Wolf Lake. I'm not sure of it's age, but from the looks of the fir and finish on the original logs, I'd say it's well over fifty years!

Amateur Radio & Field Day!

Thanks to Kim's friend Jim, we have a beautiful "base camp" here in Duluth to locate the trailer. Since we'll be here for a few weeks, and there's plenty of room, for the first time I set up the new vertical antenna with all of it's "radial wires" for great performance. It's been a little over two years since I've gotten back into amateur radio, a hobby I've enjoyed on and off since I got my license to operate at age nine. Earlier this year while in Florida, I treated myself to this new antenna, and a "new" (actually slightly used) ham radio. It certainly has been a positive decision and experience. In these few short months, I've enjoyed talking to other "hams" all over the world! One of amateur radio's primary roles is to act as an emergency radio network in cases of national emergency or disaster. In fact, hams played a crucial role during Hurricane Katrina, being one of the only reliable communication systems that prevailed throughout and after the storm. In order to test the readiness of hams all over the country the ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League http://www.wedothat-radio.org/ ) has a yearly event called "Field Day". The idea is to operate stations remotely, from a non-permanent location solely on emergency power (solar, battery, generator, etc). http://emergency-radio.org/

To make the event more interesting and challenging, the ARRL sponsors a contest for a 24-hour period during the yearly weekend. The goal is to make as many "contacts" with other stations as possible. Scores are assigned to each contact depending on the type of station used and it's location.

The Duluth Amateur Radio Club actively participates in Field Day every year. So, I decided to join in the fun up on top of Thompson Hill, a great high location for temporary antennas. It was a dismal and foggy morning as local club members set up two primary stations. This nice motorhome and 60 foot crankup tower array took the better part of the morning to get set up and operating.

At the same time, other club members were stringing up wire antennas in the parking lot, and the Club's emergency "RACES" trailer was commissioned across the lot. http://www.usraces.org/

I parked the Dodge between the two, and with the help of a couple of locals, strung a temporary wire between a light pole and a small tree behind the truck. With a few minutes, I was set up and operating, and although the contest had not officially started, made the first contacts of the morning with my little low power (5 watts) rig in the truck.

By 1PM (official contest start), the club was in action. Doug is shown here to the right, operating in the big motorhome, primarily operating CW Mode (morse code)...while a group of others man the RACES trailer on SSB (single sideband, voice mode).

I came back out the next day (Sunday) to see how things were going. The weather top the hill was much improved, and operators were still at it, having endured the night, working in shifts. The CW boys had a fantastic event, logging over 1600 contacts in the 24-hour contest period. I never found out what the final tally on the voice contacts were, but I'm sure close to a thousand! What a fun weekend, with a great groups of folks enjoying a wonderful hobby!

UPDATED! Trailer Repairs....

While parked for weeks in the Duluth area, I decided to take care of a few "trailer chores" that I'd put off for long enough. More than a few weeks ago, the slide out mechanism quit working. We could hear the DC drive motor running, and manually crank the slide out, so I suspected there was some sort of clutch between the motor & the gearbox that had failed.

I removed the gearbox easily enough, and once the box was open, the problem was obvious, there was metal residue in the grease, and the teeth on a drive gear were completely gone! It took about a week of research on the phone and internet to confirm that the 1998 Alpenlite used a mechanism manufactured by Barker. The Barker folks were great, shipping me the near gear assembly promptly at a very reasonable price, saving a few hundred dollars on a whole new mechanism and a dealer repair!

I also decided to check the brakes and repack the bearings on the trailer. Over the past couple of months, the brakes seem to have weakened, and anticipating the mountains of the southwest later this year, the timing was right.

The first couple of wheels proved my suspicions that the shoes were in bad shape, worn thin with cracking across the linings. Opening the second wheel I had a surprise---the cotter key used on the last brake job was one size too small, had broken off, and that tiny bit of weight wobbling around in the grease cap had caused it to fall off in the wheel hub cover and roll around in there for quite a while. So, impending disaster saved!

The big surprise was in the third wheel. When pulled off one of the brake shoe linings was riding inside the drum, the drum was badly scored, and the DC brake solenoid had grabbed the inner drum surface, bent it's retaining arm, and was badly worn at an angle across it's face. The local folks at Lakehead Brake and Clutch had all the parts, and were able to save the drum.

As I finished up the last wheel with new linings and fresh grease, I realized how lucky we were to have avoided a complete failure somewhere on the road!

When we bought the truck last fall in Portland, the previous owner had passed along a brand new US Brake "D'Celerator" exhaust brake for the Cummings diesel. Another case of procrastination, I had put off this job too long also. So, since the brakes were done, I headed over to Bill's Muffler Shop, and Bill himself did a masterful job of cutting a section of the 4" stainless exhaust pipe out, and installing the new brake mechanism. A little wiring when I got back "home" (the trailer), and we now have a diesel exhaust brake like the big 18-wheelers!

so, if you here that bla-bla-bla big truck noise, it just may be us coming to pay a visit...

July 13th - just got in and installed the new Xantrex C60 Charge Controller which has more capability (up to 60amps) and has equalization for the batteries. The install took the better part of a day, largely due to having to snake larger solar array panel wires through the side of the trailer, and take apart most of the kitchen cabinets to run the small cable for the remote display.

While I was at it, I made the tilt brackets for the solar panels and even this early in the morning here in Duluth, the charging output went from 6 amps to 7 amps, just from tiliting the panels about 18 degrees!