I spent August 1 to August 4 at The Cabin. Originally this was envisioned as an extended trip where significant progress would be made on fixing the kitchen walls. Sadly this didn't come to pass so in the end I went up by myself. The full story (at least of the first day) is contained in the log book.
After getting a much later start than desired and expected I got on the road from Grand Rapids at about 7:30PM. The drive up went smoothly. I did see a number of deer north of Seney off M77. This is a common experience at night. On the trip in past Nawakwa I saw no one, as would be expect at 1AM. On McCloud Grade I didn't even see signs of people having been down the road. Thus it was quite a surprise when I pulled up to the cabin, had the headlights trained on the kitchen door, and saw that it was open.
It being 1AM there seemed little recourse but to explore the situation. It didn't really help that my pulling up disturbed a couple of bats that were roosting inside and I could see them flying around. It was all particularly surprising given that I recall Jon locking the door after our winter trip. Grabbing a flashlight I warily approached the cabin to survey the situation. From outside I could see the lock was indeed still in place; the latch had been pulled from the door with the screws still on the floor where they had fallen. I could also see that one cupboard door was opened, though this isn't that uncommon. Upon entering the cabin I found no signs that anyone or anything that could have forced the door had been in the cabin. Nothing was rifled through, nothing was damaged. All in all a very strange situation that I never did get to the bottom of.
Being foolish as I am this was sufficient for me to continue opening up the cabin. By 4:30AM I had enough and was ready for bed. The long day was not sufficient to overcome the "excitement" of my arrival so it took awhile to get to sleep and, even then, I didn't get that much sleep.
After waking I was still pondering the earlier events but there were other things to do. In particular I wasn't able to get the refrigerator lit so it was clearly necessary to head into town to call Jon. On the first trip in I encountered a black bear near the Tin Shack. It wandered onto the road and stood there for awhile before noticing me driving toward it. At which point it crossed the road and went on its way. In town there was a downed wire and one hanging low. They had been getting rain and more was on the way. In fact it started raining again while I was in town. I left a message for Jon which must have been a pleasure to receive.
Waiting out a good thunderstorm back at the cabin I made headed back into town, talked to Jon about the state of the cabin and learned the magic for getting the refrigerator going. Since things were finally calming down it was clear it couldn't last. I had been surprised that I had seen/caught no mice during the trip so far. After the rain, I guess, a couple decided to come in so I took care of them. After dealing with the second one I came back in and a small gray squirrel decided to make its presence known. I have no idea where it went after it ran into the main part of the cabin. Naturally this got me all excited again just before bed.
Regardless, I went to bed, it had been a really long day. The bats were back and really never left. We seemed to reach an agreement. I left them alone, they left me alone.
It dawned to a beautiful day. The morning was spent cleaning out and taking an inventory of the pots, pans, and other things in the kitchen. The brief report on this is there are a lot of frying pans up there.
After lunch it was off to town to rest on the beach. The weather was great, a bit of breeze but sunny and even the water wasn't that bad. Town was quite busy, even so there was plenty of room on the beach.
The rest of the evening was spent around the cabin. In particular I replaced the latch on the door. The rest of the time I took it easy. When I had gotten back from town I noticed that the log I had stuck in the large hole by the door had been pushed out. It must have been done by something rather large.
It was another very nice day so I spent most of the day at the Falls and the Dunes. I took a very long walk along the beach, then found a nice (steep) place to climb up the dunes. It left me in the middle of nowhere so I wandered around until I found a good trail leading back to the falls.
There were lots of people at the falls and on the beach. I was surprised to see how much erosion there was at the base of the falls.
I had originally intended to get a lot done while I was at the cabin. Since that wasn't happening I decided it was best to head back. Despite the interesting events it was good to get up to the cabin. I'm already looking forward to the winter (we better get snow).
In case you haven't seen enough pictures already I have thrown the rest of the pictures on a separate page without comments. You can probably figure out when they were taken.
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craig@copi.org
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