We have arrived at our first destination, Voyageurs National Park on the Minnesota border with Canada. This is a unique national park in that all campsites in the park are on islands in the large lakes, and water transportation is needed. The visitor centers all offer boat excursions with park rangers to tour the lakes and 500+ islands, and there are many outfitter places that offer various water craft rentals, including house boats.

After two days of travel without hiking, we were ready for some time on a trail. We are staying at the Arrowhead Lodge and Resort which has a few RV sites. This gives us centralized access to the visitor centers and our boat ride reservations with full hook-ups for Usain so we can run the a/c when we leave the cats behind. The ranger at our closest visitors center on Kabetogama Lake suggested we head to Ash River for must-do trails that wouldn’t be a muddy mess.

Blind Ash Bay Trail wanders across a peninsula that gives limited views of Kabetogama Lake (too many trees-ha ha) and loops around to follow the shore of, you guessed it, Blind Ash Bay. The four-mile hike was humid and buggy. We were just steps into the forest when we were swarmed by mosquitoes. We fought them off and doused ourselves in bug spray to keep them at bay. They would hover, but not land with that chemical protection. We even sprayed our hats to avoid wearing the hat nets which get a little toasty on a humid hike. The southern part of the loop had views of the bay and a welcome breeze through the more open pine forest.

The wild blueberries are more flavorful than the domesticated ones (had to try just one), and we didn’t scare off the mole’s killer as it was still on the trail as we returned to the parking lot.