Navigating da' North shore: almost done...

At this point we were roughly 26.2 miles or something like that from Duluth, which we held vaguely ambiguous excitement and fear for. Excitement because we would be in the home stretch and fear because Duluth is a BIG city, which does not really house many places to ‘camp’ and store a kayak. As luck would have it we would depart from Two Harbors a slight bit later than we would have liked. When you get into the later parts of September you cannot leave at two in the afternoon and hammer out 20+ miles before the sun goes down like you can in July. Regardless we knew of a few places en route to D-town that may serve our needs. Plus there was the mighty Duluth Tent n Trailer for any weary campers. We paddled toward the city as the sky went from azure to opaque in a matter of hours. Houses jogged by with a higher frequency and we pushed on past Knife Point to avoid any wryly waves, should they had arisen. Somewhere in that remaining stretch, appreciating the geology, changing colors, steam train that was flying by, we accepted the fact we would not make it to Duluth. No worries though, we could camp at the previously mentioned campground right? So we thought anyway.

Its right about here the story starts to get interesting so we’ll ensure it is well documented:

We arrive to the McQuade Safe Harbor, a new establishment created by the Minnesota DNR for boaters. This is a marvelous area for boaters and outdoor enthusiasts, no camping, but a dandy place nonetheless. We hop out at the boat launch and I make a pilgrimage across the highway to find a number for this ‘campground’. You know, make sure that there are sites, as we were entering the ‘fall color’ season. The first place I stop by had no vacancy. So I meander further down the way. A quaint little locale known as the Beachside Cabins, a locale where we would end up staying, informed me that the very campground I had desired to inquire about had, as it were, been bulldozed for condominiums the year before. BUMMER. However, it was better to hear that there, than have paddled an additional mile and a half down the shore get shot down in the end. Fair enough, they rented us a little camper for the evening, heat, electricity- all those things.

I skipped back down to the boat launch did a handspring over the guard rail by the highway… Just kidding, wanted to add a little zest to that. But really, back on track now. I am walking down to the boat launch to see what appear to be authoritative figures… SHOOST! I thought to myself. Not because we had anything illegal about us, but literally two days previous I made some joke about making it the entire way down the MN shore and not having to show our boat registration. (Something all boats must have in MN). But here we were 10.5 miles from Duluth and the law was on a mission, an investigating mission. Now this would not have been such an ordeal, however my boat, technically wasn’t registered. I had a license for my original boat, but since I had swapped that out in Marquette I wasn’t about to pay an additional $24 fee to register another boat. So I held my breath and now was going to pay for it. Alissa did all the sweet-talking she could, but at the end of the conversation I was still in handcuffs and getting finger printed. Then as luck would have it through the mandatory boat search, apparently it is illegal to carry Leinenkugel Honey Weiss in Minnesota. You following that? Well if it held any validity I would have some nice ocean front property in Colorado for you. Catch the drift? So we didn’t get busted for having the boat technically un-registered. Because we were good law abiding citizens and had gone through the trouble to get the registration in the first place they would merely flex their lawful muscles and let us off with a ‘warning’ of sorts. (E.g. you’d better pass along to all your other boating buddies to make not make haste with the boat registration business).

Wiping sweat from my brow I informed Alissa the GREAT news about the campground. As we had no real choice we proceeded to unload the boats, schlep gear, paddle the boat to the other side of the harbor, schlep some more and then carry our boats across highway 61. WEEEEEE!! (Why is it whenever we are really having fun we refer to ourselves in the plural? – thanks Mitch) All righty, so we’re staying in this trailer in some quaint little locale. Cool. We meander to the local eatery and retire to a festive campfire at the Beachway. Owners Skip and Shirley Hildebrandt are notorious for housing campfires every evening for their guests. An event that can draw a diverse crowd to share the warmth of flame and tales of their travels.