Just got back from a week in Playa Paraiso south of Cancun on Saturday.
This trip we used a park and fly, Home 2 Suites in Eagan. $250 for room and weeks parking and uses their own shuttle. No issues in the few times we’ve stayed here.

Going to Cabo for a week over New Years, and are park and flying at Best Western Dakota Ridge in Eagan. They use Uber, so no waiting for a shuttle, just call and they order the Uber for you both there and back from the airport. $210 for stay week and weeks parking.

Heading to Cozumel in late March and will be using Shepard Road parking. Have used this place quite a bit and very impressed. For covered ramp parking its about $110 total for a week, and their shuttle is prompt. Dont think we have waited more than 10/15 minutes at either terminal for pickup.

About a 3-4′ gator on a small pond at my in-laws retirement park near Sebring, Florida.
Was casting a frog Jitterbug from shore and half way back it just stopped. Thought I’d hooked a stick and gave a quick jerk and it was in the back of the gator who must have been just below the surface.
Luckily it got off after about a 20 second fight but for a moment I was really wondering what I was gonna do if it got all the way to shore.

More info this morning in this article here, inflatable was on and he was not towing the othre boat:

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/10/07/voyageurs-national-park-ranger-dies-helping-stranded-boaters-rough-waters

Just a terrible, sad tragedy. After seeing his picture I remember meeting him and another Ranger a number of years ago at our campsite on Williams Island. They were checking out the condition of docks at campsites and we had a nice chat with them both. So sad.
I’ve camped on the East end of Nam over the years and with a W/NW wind that end can get very rough. We came back from Kettle Falls one trip not realizing how much the wind had risen while we were gone, and the ride back to our site on Rainbow island was sketchy in our 1850 Tyee as we got down to Mitchell island.

Prayers for him and his family.

Spent 3 nights in the State Park this weekend, and while I left the shotgun at home, we saw lots of grouse on the trails in the park that we walked.
Not much for color, more leaves coming down from being dry.
A buddy who lives in Tower said that this is gonna be a good year for birds up there. I’ll be back up to hunt a few days with him mid-October once some more leaves come down.

I live here and only will stop in for lunch during the week when they run their daily specials, and that’s only a couple/three times a whole summer.
I just shake my head when I pass by coming back home on a Sunday from up north and see the lines of cars/folks outside.

Reef W wrote:

Look on the bright side, you get some time without bugs in the morning.

August was actually really nice up north bug-wise where we’ve been. Had very few up on Namakan over 5 days second week of August, virtually none up at McCarthy Beach state park the next weekend, and very few around home the last 2 weeks out by the firepit.
The last issues I’ve had with skeeters, was on a week-long trip to Namakan the last full week of July. Earlier this summer was horrible tho.

Heading up to the Ely area this weekend to camp, and seeing 34 for a low Saturday morning

Of course it’ll be back up to 75 by the time we leave Sunday afternoon.

I have had one on my boat since 2000 (got it more for Superior) and have used it in VNP, but with the the better cell coverage (have ATT) and having Canadian cell coverage included in my plan, I really dont use it much anymore up there.
I have the same 8′ Shakespeare 6225, but I really don’t know how far it would transmit from the middle of Namakan? My antenna mount is on my Lund sporttrack so it can come off easily.

Many of the resorts and houseboats use a channel, and I used to use it to radio Kettle Falls to request a portage. Somewhere in my boat glovebox I have a list of all the channels each uses. Channel 16 is monitored by the Park Rangers.

Scott,
I have not, but a good retired buddy up there does all the time and is is generally better fishing than the US Side, but the nicest thing is very little pressure from others. The whole bait thing for me would kinda suck (Im a hardcore leech rigger LOL) but he does well pulling spinners and gulp worms.

I dont mind the higher water, more just hoping we can use the dock at our site since its not a “floater”. Most evenings we go cruise shorelines and toss cranks along them and usually catch a good mix of smallies/pike and a few walleyes mixed in which is fun. With the high water might be a few more eyes now.

I’ll wave as we pass the cabin Grubson, should be around 11am saturday morning, weather is looking really nice right now! Good chance we’ll head into Frontier on tuesday for bingo night, as the FW’s aunt and uncle are staying there this and next week.

I’ll leave the decontamination issue to others LOL, tho its only Rainy to Nam. Havn’t been thru it myself, the last few times we did East Rainy we boated down from the NPS dock in Black Bay.
Good fishing to all this next week!!!

Hey Scott,
Good to hear you had a great week up there. When we’ve stayed on the far east end we’ve always stayed at Logging Camp, another nice site but only has the 2 tentpads/lockers. The portage is pretty cool, done it about a dozen times and its funny to see your “trail” on the GPS.
Dutchboy you must be thinking of Squirrel narrows, just before Kettle. To the right is Canada and the left is US. There used to be an Arrow sign pointing left up on the rock face there, but a few years ago it disappeared??
Netboy, we are heading up on the 20th also for a week, but camping on Namakan at Mica Island just a couple miles from Kettle. Water is about 2 feet high right now so I’m hoping it drops a bit in the next week. We were at Mica the same week last year and had really good fishing, had planned to portage over but never did with the success we had on Nam. I’ll also be on mid-Namakan for 5 days mid-August so might get over to Rainy then too. Good luck on your trip!

I had a group I used to go with each year on Park Point. We’d all get to the “tot-lot” early and had 3 Christianson nets with the sock to pull with. Boy we’d get alot of smelt some nights. Those Christianson nets were awesome. A PVC pole on each end to pull with made for a slick rig once you got it down.
Most of us used a pair of scissors to clean them, snip the head off slit the belly, squeeze the innards out in one pail and rinse in the next one and into ziplocs. Some we’d just freeze whole for pulling meat rigs for lakers in summer.
My first smelting trip was an after-bar trip from Silver Street in Hurley, WI to the mouth of the Montreal river in 1986. I was in college and I gotta tell you that was one crazy scene. 55 gallon barrels with fires going in them on the shore, folks mostly dip netting from the river mouth up to the powerhouse, and all night parties going on all over the whole place. Great memories for sure!

Back on track here…….
Lake Superior.
St Louis river will be pretty crazy so I’ll stay out on the lake for hopefully early season shallow water trout and salmon.
Can always give the harbor a few trolling passes on the way in to try and pick off an eye or two.

Just outside Cloquet it was 7″ on the level this morning at 7am when I shoveled the deck and snowblowed the driveway (and of course the plow waited until I was back inside to go by), and 15-25 mph NE winds right now.
Another 8″ predicted by the time it finishes up tomorrow afternoon, and by the looks of it we will probably get all of that.

Dusting here in Cloquet. Just got this on my phone:
WINTER STORM WATCH
ISSUED: 8:53 AM MAR. 22, 2024 – NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
…WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY MORNING
THROUGH TUESDAY MORNING…

* WHAT…Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations of 10 to
25 inches possible. Winds could gust as high as 40 mph.

* WHERE…All of east central, north central and most of northeast
Minnesota and all of northwest Wisconsin.

Weather Underground has us predicted for 16″ which I would much prefer to be all rain at this point but thats not gonna happen with our temps predicted to be at or below freezing until Tueday afternoon. Those heavy winds off the lake would make this a nasty one for sure

Nodakk wrote:

Over the last handful of years I’ve tried different methods of “summerizing” my artic cat 570 2 stroke.

I had the same motor (had one 2010 T570 for me and an F570 for the FW) for 10 years and thru the season I used regular 97 and then in the last couple runs of the year I would run non-oxy with an ounce of seafoam per gallon in the sled. Greased all the zert’s good and lubed whatever else I could (usually duct taped the exhaust port closed also to try and keep mice out). Pulled the belt off and
put in storage in April and pulled it out in November, and it always started right up. I had two Polaris Trail’s we bought new in 1995 that we ran until we got the AC’s in 2011, and followed the same program. Never had an issue with carbs for fall start-up.

I owned two 2013 King Quad 500AXi with power steering. Never had a bit of trouble with either. Sold mine in late 2019 and just sold what was my wife’s in December for $5500 (only had 300 miles on it, she just never got into it).
I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another one.

My son progressed as he got older as to the variety of sports he played. But he also was in a small school district (Esko, his HS grad class was 88) that relied on multi-sport athletes.
Thru 8th grade it was football, soccer, baseball, basketball and track.
High School it was football, basketball and track.
He is now a Junior in college and runs indoor and outdoor track (hurdles, sprints and sprint relays) for a Division 3 school. Track for him takes up a ton of time at the collegiate level even at a D3 school, as the season goes from October thru May.

I can’t imagine what it would have been like having him only play one sport in high school, but seeing the vehicles parked at the Cloquet and Hermantown rinks year-round, I know there are plenty of folks whose kids are in some sort of hockey program all year long up here. I’m really glad my son got to experience being in multiple sports of his choosing in high school.

Thru out all of it he has continued to hunt and fish with me. His favorite thing to do is pheasant hunt, with fishing for smallies a close second. But the time he has for it now is pretty limited, school breaks and some time over summer. All I’d say to you parents with kids is enjoy and make the most of every minute that you have with your sons/daughters. The day comes for most of us when they head out on their own and those times together becomes much tougher to make work.

Its been 20 years but we stayed in a condo on the north end of Kihei, on Sugar beach for a week, before heading to Kauai for a week.

Do you snorkel? We had some very good snorkeling on the south end of Makeena beach ( aka Big beach, and yes big_g we did climb up the hill and take a quick peek at Little Beach Also did several more bays/spots up north of Kapalua.
We did Haleakala one morning for sunrise which was pretty cool (in both senses of the word). We didn’t make it all the way to Hana, but we stopped at a couple places near and past Hookipa on the north shore to watch the surfers (we were there in November for our anniversary) which was incredible!!!

At the condo I brought a telescoping rod and early mornings caught various fish off a small rock jetty nearby. Met a great local who told me which were good eating and we had several breakfast’s of fresh fish.
We did see a few whales from our condo, but we were a little early for that but that might be an option.
Have a great trip, no such thing as a bad vacation!!!

Chassis/Brakes/Tow package.
I towed my 1700 Pro Sport/90 Honda off and on for 12 years with no issues whatsoever with 2 of my wife’s 4 Runners. With the 16’/25hp you are pulling your options are about limitless for a smaller SUV. Heck I even pulled my old ‘97 Lund 16 foot Explorer/30 Honda tiller with our Honda Civic a few times back in the day

I have a 2012 Lund Tyee 1850/175 Verado that sounds like a very close fit to what you are looking for. I spend most of my time either on Superior trolling, or up on Kab/Namakan and Rainy camping and fishing. When I used to pretty much stay on Kab and Namakan only, I ran a Lund Pro Sport 1700/90 Honda which was fine for 12 years. But when I started heading to the East end of Rainy on a regular basis, it took only 1 trip to know we needed to go a bit bigger (and some days on Rainy nothing is big enough).
One thing not on your list that I’d suggest for family comfort is a full topset (side curtains and front and rear tarps).
The Tyee is a deep boat, making it safe for kids, and it’s big enough to fish 4.
Performance wise, the 175 with stock aluminum prop has hit 50.7 GPS with just me in it, and it will pull skiers/tubes all day long. Been a great fit for us over the years.
When we bought, we also looked at the Crestliner 1850 Sportfish, which was very similar so that might be on your radar also. We just got lucky with the Tyee and got a great deal on an end of season package the dealer wanted off the lot.
Good luck in the search!

Had rain and 45 yesterday here outside Cloquet, and woke to 26 and a light dusting of snow and a few flakes coming down. Looks like the winds are blowing pretty good tho. Cooler for the 10 day and no snow predicted the whole time.
First year ever where I havn’t X country skied and snowshoed up here.

Best wishes to your Buster Brown, Don. Glad to hear he’s on the mend.

I’ve got an Uncle in law that lives just a bit north of you, in Shanagolden township. The wolf pack in his area is notorious in the State of WI for their attacks on hunting dogs and livestock. Not sure if you’re in their territory also, but they have a long reputation for documented attacks.
WI DNR has some good info you can check out:
https://dnr.wisconsin.gov/topic/WildlifeHabitat/wolf/maps
showing where attacks have been reported in the state, as well as compensation that has been paid.
My in-laws live in Iron Belt and have a cabin out on Pleasant Lake, and we see wolf tracks all the time on the trails from their house all the way down to the TFF. The biggest issue around his area is hounds running bear, and when they are training in the summer before season. Lots of dog/wolf encounters with some not so good endings for the dogs.

Beautiful area up there, one of my favorite webcams to check out especially in fall is this one:

https://lutsen.roundshot.com/#/

Not sure, but that may be some residual smoke down on the shoreline……

Just drove that stretch this past July and stayed in Glasgow at the Cottonwood Inn.
Nice place, clean, and it was only 20 minutes to the Ft Peck marina. We were on our way out to Glacier Park for the week, but we did drive out to the dam just to see it. There were at least a dozen boats in the parking lot the night we stayed there (saturday before the 4th so busy weekend). They also had a small campground with spots for campers/5th wheels right behind the hotel.
Glasgow is only 150 miles from Williston, so just fill up there and your good, there is not much between the two but open praire/crops.
We ate at Eugene’s pizza the night we were there, then went and had a couple cold ones at Sam and Jeff’s saloon just down from there.

B-man wrote:

Our commute to work takes us through the east side of the park where you hike, it’s just a “little” prettier than our old commute to the TC metro

I used to do some deer hunting over near where you are, all along the Wild Valley road to the border. Over the years we’ve covered most all of the park at one time or another, great having it so close and usable all seasons!
Glad you’re all enjoying your move north!

If you are up for a bit longer hike (not really a skiable one tho) the FW and I and our lab Ammo have been doing the Spruce Trail loop quite a bit this fall/winter. Small parking area off of 23 and its just a bit under 5 miles total. Nice area without alot of folks. Hiked it over New Years weekend and didnt seed another soul out there.

We’ve also snowshoed from the swinging bridge to Carlton a few times in past years. Some really cool ice formations along the river usually.
All I could muster yesterday was a quick trip around the White Pine loop trail at Pine Valley with Ammo, was a chilly one for sure.

Ripjiggen wrote:

I use all sorts of different colored hooks. Blue is one of my go to’s on Mille Lacs. No idea why but they like it.

Don’t think I’d tie a blue hook on anywhere else for anything else.

Blue Gamakatsu octopus hooks are about all I use up on Namakan and Rainy when I’m lindy rigging for eye’s

I’ll have to echo what grubson says. I have not been checked/stopped by NPS Rangers in quite a few years, tho I do see them pass by nearly every trip up camping. They have 2 nearly identical Lunds, one black and one red that they cruise around in. The only negative contact in the over 500 nights camping in Voyageurs I’ve had with a NPS ranger was on literally the first day of my first camping trip to the park in 1996. Had a guy come into camp (McManus island site) and rip me up and down for cutting down trees in the campsite and leaving woodchips all over. I told him that I did none of the damage, that it was like that when we arrived that morning, and to search the campsite for any of the cut wood he suspected. He just huffed and stomped around and finally said I guess since I didnt see you cutting it I cant give you a ticket but this is a verbal warning. On our way out at the landing 5 days later, i was talking to a park worker in the lot as I loaded up my boat and told him about the Ranger and he laughed and said that his nickname was “little Napolean” for his height (5’4″ maybe) and attitude.
Since then I’ve had no issue with them at all. In one case we should have gotten a ticket no doubt, but they gave us a warning instead. Nor any DNR wardens I’ve been contacted by on Rainy and Namakan. And that includes quite a few stops by the infamous Lloyd Steen (the retired one from Ray referenced prior). He was always asking how I liked my Honda 90 outboard (this was back in the early 2000’s when there weren’t many around). Last DNR stop was 3 years ago on Rainy over the 4th of July week. Professional as can be.
That said, knowing where this took place, what its like when the wind is blowing that hard and that the older couples were on the rocks there, I find way more fault on the part of the Rangers here. Could have been handled way better on both parts, but I find more blame on the escalation with the rangers in this situation.

Flash flooding in Duluth last night. Half of the fill on the 1st Ave east construction project ended up on Superior street, closing it down for the day.
Storm sewers overflowed and flooded the tunnels in spots. Areas got over 4″ of rain.
Got close to an inch in Cloquet total. And we have a low of 39 forecast for tonight, so we’ve got that going for us

https://www.lwcb.ca/waterflowdata.html

Lake levels are right normal in the rule curve for this time of year.