I’m not sure what I said that I was going to do yesterday, but I’m fairly confident that I didn’t do it. I spent nearly the entire day in my cabin listening to podcasts and/or watching a couple of movies. I’d hoped to be able to watch the Falcons game, but my YouTube TV apparently doesn’t get live feeds in this area (one more reason that I’ll continue to experiment with that on a month-to-month basis).
As it turned out, the Falcons got crushed by a terrible Cleveland team, so I didn’t miss much.
I did get a nap in for an hour or so late-morning. Also brought in another load of wood (my third since Friday) and made some very good beef stew. Did that last on my old Coleman stove, which was the first time that I’ve used it at all since arriving here. My wood stove has done an admirable job of heating my water AND my food for the last few days. I stocked up on Coleman fuel for this trip, but it seems to me that I’m going to use very little of it. What I did not stock up on was lantern fuel – and since it’s pretty much pitch black in the cabin by 5:30 at night, that may have been an oversight. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve got a couple of tent lamps, at least one (I think two) head lamps, and a couple of flashlights, so I should be okay. If not, I don’t mind going to sleep when it gets dark.
Should you be wondering why I have so many flashlights and head lamps, it’s because I brought my “brain” on the trip. It’s the little bag that sits on top of my backpack, and I’ve said on many camping/hiking trips that, if necessary, I could live out of my brain for a week. It contains a lot of the ultra-light stuff that I’ve collected in the last 20 years while striving for the ultimate light pack, and usually has a couple of light sources, fire sources, spare food (oatmeal, cliff bars, coffee), water purifiers, various drugs and ointments, a spare knife, and lots of other things that may come in handy in an emergency. My brain only weighs about a pound, but it’s definitely a worthwhile weight for overnight hikes.
I did some snow shoveling this morning. Cleared the sidewalk between the cabin and the outhouse, and also cleared a path between the cabin and the wood shed. Salted everything, and that should take care of any slippery spots for the next day or two. It has continued to snow since yesterday afternoon, but it’s not sticking, so I don’t foresee any problems with actually driving out of here at the end of the week.
I did rouse myself out of the cabin stupor for about an hour late yesterday afternoon and took a rather brisk walk on the beach for about a mile (and another mile in the woods). My plan for today is to make a long loop on the various trails – head to Cheboygan point on an interior trail, circle back and head east on the beach all the way down to Poe Reef cabin, then head south through the woods to the campground, west on the other side of it, then back north through the cedar swamp to my cabin. I’m not positive about the distance, but I think it will be around 10 miles.
Or maybe I’ll just sleep, eat, and watch videos.
I meant to point out earlier that the picture at the top of this post is, I believe, one of loons that were hanging out in my little cove yesterday. There were 6 of them in total. Lots of water birds here. In addition to the (I think) loons, there is a flock of about 20 swans, at least two eagles, ducks, and lots of seagulls.
Later. My 10-mile walk ended up being a little over 6 miles. That’s fine, because my back, quads, and feet really didn’t want to go any further. Between the sand on the beach and the snow, walking was tough!
So that was a couple of hours this afternoon, since which time I’ve made a dehydrated turkey casserole (quite good), listened to a podcast, and played in the wind a bit. The wind has picked back up dramatically, and it has gotten quite cold on the beach. Since the sun is going down in the next hour or so (it’s already pretty dark), I think I’m probably in for the evening.
Loving that wood stove….