Packing up

     Well, I'm more or less all packed for another summer road trip. It's an even year...which means heading west, even if barely. Kate is stuck with online grad school, so I'm going to get out of her hair for a while and head to the alluring Northwest part of our grand state; the last section that I've really never been to.
     We've already had a couple of barriers to the original plan. First an foremost, the Canadian Border remains closed due to COVID. This nixed our Winnipeg plan and put our goal of Angle Inlet on life support. There's still the unlikely chance that we boat up there if the opportunity arises. We'll see.
     The Kettle Falls Hotel is also closed for the pandemic. This was another blow as I really enjoyed going there with Kate a few years back. We will booked a campsite on an island in Voyageurs though, so that one feels like less of a blow.
     By and large, we didn't do a lot of reservations for this one and I honestly haven't thought about it a ton leading up to it. I think the fact that it's all taking place within our state makes it seem like we got this with minimal planning. I've kept an eye on availability at a few of the state parks and we did end up booking the last canoe-in site at Scenic for tomorrow night. The forecast initially was calling for lots of rain tomorrow, but as since backed off, so here's to hoping for a nice evening on the lake.
     From there, we'll head to Voyageurs, and then onto International Falls, Lake of the Woods, and the wonders of Kittson County in the very NW corner of the state. I have slight aspirations of seeing an Elk or a Great Gray Owl, but know realize that both are kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack up there.
     Other than a backpacking trip in late May and a couple trips up to the Duluth area, I haven't been on a proper vacation since fall break, and even that was only to Trempaleau. It will be nice to hit the road again and change it up.