Saturday, July 08, 2023 Loon - Lac La Croix We wake up today to a nice sunny day! Angelina and Dakota have the fire going, and coffee made by the time I wake up. After coffee and breakfast, we break camp and prepare to paddle north, hoping to make it up to Sandbar Island, or Snow Bay. As we paddle north from camp, I see a bald eagle fly over. Onward to Beatty Portage. Beatty Portage is very well maintained by the folks who portage motor boats with their rail system. It's an easy sandy landing on both the north and south ends of the portage. This is an easy portage gradually uphill most of the way, then flattens off near the north end of the portage. Once across Beatty Portage, we paddle north. We paddled close to the eastern shore, which is pretty rocky. We noticed what we thought were pictographs... On a small island south east of Sandbar Island, we saw a border reference marker, but didn't stop for photos since we wanted to make progress and find a campsite for the night. It has been fun talking with Levi and Dad while paddling today. It's nice to be able to spend the time with three generations of our family, enjoying the wilderness. Levi spent most of the day trolling a copper and orange spoon. Not too far south of campsite #9 he caught a northern pike. The sites on Sandbar Island didn't look that appealing as we paddled by, so we make our way to Snow Bay. We split up to investigate the area, and found several of the sites were already occupied. Lucky for us, we found a very nice site (#10) on an island in Snow Bay. Today was a pretty good day of paddling for us so we decide to make sure everyone hydrates before setting up camp. Joel, Noah and I talk about how this year isn't the same without Colman being in our group. Hopefully he'll be fully recovered from his knee surgery, and able to return next year. He would have loved this campsite. It's on a island, has a great place to swim, and the fishing is very good near by. We like this site so much, we decide to stay for a layover day. Christopher and I, and Noah and Joel go fishing. We've had a couple of pretty long days of paddling for us, so we are pretty tired, and looking forward to a good dinner, and a good nights sleep tonight. We decide pretty early this afternoon to stay at this site for two days and relax and recover a bit before moving on. We make camp pizza for dinner tonight. It's a favorite with our group. I think Dad got the idea from a hiking magizine a few years ago. It's a great morale booster, the younger generation loves it!! Levi wasn't feeling well and said he was cold, so we made him some hot chocolate from some protien powder. Noah gave him his hooded sweatshirt, and he's wearing my jacket to sleep in so he could stay warmer. We used my new solo stove that Ky got me for Christmas this afternoon. It's a really cool little stove. We used it to cook dinner, then we just kept the fire burning and hung out talking and lauging around the fire until bedtime. The boys boiled some water to make Chai Tea, yum!! We were pretty tired this evening, so we all hit the sack pretty early.