Goin' long....um...again

[tuned]

Heading out on my yearly sojourn to Kettle
The place is magical, deep in the heart of Voyageurs National Park. About 20 miles by water on Southern Route. My Northern Route is about 40 miles by water. NO ROADS. The hotel is on the historic register. Used to be full of prohibition rum-runners, hookers and gold-miners. Check the review http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review ... esota.html
This weekends silliness will be the Kettle Falls Regatta. All the sailor boys will be out. I am flying chase-boat on big Al (along with a couple guitars and a couple bandmates).
We'll spend Saturday night singing dirty songs on the docks and staggering up and down the crooked floor at the bar. When I say crooked, I MEAN crooked. They added the bar on to the hotel about sixty years ago. Unfortunately, they didn't put in decent footings and that whole section of building gradually sank several FEET
The pool table is about at your knees at one end and chest high at the other end The drunks have a real problem with these concepts. I have seen several roll down the floor to pile up in the low end of the bar
When the Park Service rebuilt the whole thing in the eighties, they weren't allowed to make substantial changes to the 'flavor' of the historic building. So they put in proper footings and rebuilt the bar floor with the existing slant, locking it in place FOREVER
I'll try to take lots of pics...off I go, wish me luck

[evinrude2stroke]

Sounds like it will be a good time! Enjoy.

[redbeard]

Good luck and have a great time I know you will, just bring back pics please.

[rbiederwolf]

Sounds like a lot of fun. Love to do a boat trip/overnight. For now just the daily excursions

Cant wait for pics

[tuned]

Lots of random shots from the trip. My head still hurts.

These geese are beautiful, but they like to poop on my dock


My date from Friday night


After dropping off rest of crew, we had a nice romantic (ahem) sunset.


Leaving dock. It's been a busy summer, what?


On the road...Bushyhead Island Gold Mine in the background. Yep we had a little gold rush way back when


Some of the fleet dukin' it out in the Brule Narrows. The Brule has the ability to strike fear in the heart of the saltiest of boaters. It sort of divides Rainy Lake into two halves. It is a couple of miles long, LOADED with rocks and markers and motor parts A stiff NW wind can really funnel waves from ten miles away into the mouth. Couple that with severely shallowing water and the waves can easily and often reach six foot or better. Fortunately, winds were fair and favorable.



The east end is big. Really big.


The east end is deep. Really deep.



35 miles from dock. Kettle River. Lots of rocks, markers, twists and turns. A few spots where a houseboat can sneak through with only about a foot on either side



The fleet pulls in. It was a photo finish. 'Salty Dog' pulls it out at literally the last second


Aaaaand the pre-party begins


Managed to pick up a date right on the dock. It didn't take long to realize that this chick was plumb crazy, overly wasted, and way too loud and demanding. So I had one of the other Captains give me a quickie divorce. It was fun while it lasted tho


Hopefully this isn't too racy to post here. Every boat should have hand bras....and coconut bras.....and....well you get the idea


Well that gets us to the BEGINNING of the party. Stay 'tuned'. More to come

[badmoonrising]

[Capt Sully]

That looks like fun keep us posted with

[tuned]

Movin' on.
The hotel is tucked away on a hill about a mile up a network of gravel trails and wooden walkways. Actually it is only about a third of a mile but has been known to grow after dark (especially if a wrong turn is taken)




I didn't get any shots of the 'Grand March' through the trails to the hotel, as I was busy playing drums for the bagpipers. The tradition has evolved over the years, starting with some of the Canadian sailors also being members of a bagpipe troupe (gang?). They played all the way to the hotel and into the bar. When they march in parades, they have a bass drummer with them. I ended up playing that part on the back of my guitar. Somehow I did manage to shoot a short video of our entrance even whilst playing. Note at the end of the clip that the crooked floor has already claimed its first victim I guess that guy realy was ROFL
Please click on the following. Experimenting with photobucket video


As pictures often don't show a true sense of angle, we took a couple shots to give you an idea of how crooked that floor really is




Of course if you are going to play pool, you need to try it with the Diamond Willow cue


Then the music really began (after a nice meal in the extremely classy dining room). Once I started playing, the camera kind of got shuffled to the back seat of priorities. There were three of us, all stage pros for years. We sang in the bar. We sang in the dining room. We sang on the huge screen porch. We sang in the trails. We sang love songs. We sang dirty songs. The pipers knew a ton of Irish Drinking songs, so we sang them too. I lost my partners around the time the bar closed, but managed to find an afterparty at one of the villas that they built for large groups, so I sang there too. In total, I sang from about six p.m. to about 4 a.m. I was horse when I stumbled to the boat.

After an hour or two of shuteye, I needed to get up and offload some beer. The sun hadn't even broken the horizon and I had a fantastic 'nature moment'. It was so nice that I ended up sitting out there all alone for about an hour. Got a swim in too


Looking due SOUTH into Canada. One of only two spots in the lower 48 that you can do this


A little breakfast and a long slow troll home. Then I actually slept.

[curtiscapk]

Todd that thing turned out awesome!!!! What a shot with the sunrise!!!

NIce trip and lots a revelry!