Seeing as I normally wake up around 5am, I indeed woke up about 4am. I tried to stay quiet, but I also needed to do quite a bit of stretching to fix what the ground had done to me. That's when I discovered the mice.
Field mice, I think they were, had swarmed our food. None of the bags had been breached save one: mine. The one with my wife's all natural stuff in it. Everyone else's heavily processed food product substitutes were untouched. (Not knocking it, that's what I had too). The bag itself was ruined, but it wasn't a hardship. The worst part of it for me was that I couldn't really relax and stretch myself out, the mice were unafraid and aggressive.
Becka woke next and joined me for awhile on the rock. A million stars in the sky chased away by a startling sunrise, all shattered by the constant probing of these mice. They finally retreated when others started to wake and the sun took away their stealth.
After some light planning, we broke camp and headed out. We crossed the rest of Alpine and made for Red Rock Lake. The portage was awkward; the trail was very narrow, which was fine when carrying gear, but when carrying a canoe the brush was grabbing you on both sides.
The name of the lake made sense when I noticed many a rock whose color was reddish. (They were closer to orange, but the lake was probably named at a time when the color itself was called "yellow-red" before taking the name of the fruit. Yes, I'm gonna flex my word nerd right now).
It was sunnier that day. Red Rock lake was much calmer. The shoreline changed, the forest fire hadn't reached this area like it did the others. The trees were much taller (as opposed to the glorified saplings we had before), a sight that gave me hope. The dead trees became a rare sight as we headed north toward Red Rock Bay.
This portage was odd. It was basically rocky water. We could pull the boats alongside us once we got out, but the last third we needed to carry them. So we did, gear and all. It was much easier than trying to carry them separately. It was my second favorite portage of the trip.
Further north we found our camp site on Gold Island. We had the island to ourselves, and it was full of very large, sturdy trees. We set up camp for the day, and I finally got to set up my camp hammock. I laid down, but managed to nap. Sleeping on the ground wrecks my shoulders, and paddling a canoe offers them no respite. Dear wife was kind enough to rub my shoulders, but I needed proper sleep.
After two days worth of half meals and snacks, we finally settled down and spent a few hours cooking a large and lengthy dinner. I went back 3 times and even cooked what I would later save for breakfast the next morning. After sunset, we played an interesting numbers game, afterward Becka read us a story that she had written on a previous trip to the boundary waters, ages ago.
As I got settled into my hammock, I noticed that from exactly where my head rested, I could look out on the lake while a gentle breeze caressed me. I don't sleep that well at home.
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