15 December, 2005

From Brule

I am coming to you from lovely Brule. The DNR service center is on a hill next to the Brule River. Here's a map for ya:



That's the Brule in blue that I painted in while the DNR center is the green blotch at the end of Ranger Road. The town of Brule is not even a mile to the northeast, as the crow flies. Snow was forecasted for today but it's been gorgeous. It's probably just above freezing. Since the weather was nice, I went out for a walk earlier and took some photos which I'll have to post after I get home. (The Duluth area west of here got pounded - 14" of snow, I hear.) I went down to the river and then walked up the road. I moseyed around the picnic area and canoe landing before walking a trail which led up a hill. It was amaziningly peaceful and quiet. As I stood on the trail to take a picture, at one point, I heard a wooshing sound all around me that sounded like it was really close. I looked up and saw what was probably a hawk flapping its big wings. Further on up the hill, these small birds started to land on the branches of trees around me. They had black heads and dark cream-colored bodies. A couple of them were chasing each other up and down this big pine tree so neither stood still long enough for me to take a picture.

I highly suspect that we'll be staying overnight here as one of the laptops has a bad hard drive or bad IDE controller. It is interminably slow and you can hear the drive chugging along rhythmically. It had this problem yesterday but I figured it was a virus and that wiping the drive clean would help. It didn't. A process that should take 10 minutes has been going on for nearly an hour...

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