It’s time for another trip with the guys. This year is a repeat for them but a first time for me. We’re headed to the wonderful wilderness of Canada’s Ontario, just spitting distance to the Quetico.

The day started early at 4am to make a 7am flight. Security wasn’t too bad and the wait for departure went by pretty quickly. I met up with one of the guys in Atlanta and the entire gang finally came together in Minneapolis-St Paul. It was great to see almost everyone again after several years of missing our outings.

We boarded a smaller jet for the only flight into International Falls that day and made the last leg of our journey together. Unfortunately, this is where we had our first snag. As the gates to the lone baggage claim were closed, one bag was missing. It hadn’t made the plane. It took a while to sort things out since the Delta crew had to turn the plane around for the return trip before they could assist. Welcome to International Falls.

We met up with Bob from City Cab Company and loaded the van with all of our gear. We headed through International Falls and made our way to the Canadian border. This took longer than it should have since a lengthy form had to be completed to itemize the missing bag. I guess the Canadians wanted to know if he had anything illegal or something. With that out of the way, we headed to our destination for the night in Atikokan, Ontario.

There isn’t much to do in Atikokan, but once we got checked in to the motel (a little rough, but not too terrible), we headed to the local golf course and its restaurant which had been recommended to us by the nice folks at the grocery store. The food was pretty good (we all got burgers) and the onion rings were quite tasty.

We’d all had long days so we headed back to the motel and were all in bed by 8:30. We slept like a log.