Put the picnic table in the marshiest part of the camp site. We’ll just dump some gravel in the mud underneath the table. It’ll be fine.

The only time I got rained on while I was visiting Isle Royale was on Friday morning. Once, well before sunrise while it was still pretty dark, I heard the tickity-tick-tick of a few sparse rain drops on my rain fly. I held my breath, waiting for the rain to intensify, then drifted off to sleep when it didn’t. A few more rain drops fell just before sunrise while I was laying in bed thinking about getting up. And after I packed up and hit the trail, I got rained on twice, but again it was only a passing shower that barely got me wet.

The rain clouds passed over, but the skies didn’t clear. A grey haze hung over the island in the early hours of Friday morning. I found out later the haze was smoke from the wildfires in Alberta, Canada. I had smelled wood smoke the night before and told a park ranger about it when I got to Rock Harbor. I thought they might want to know if there was a fire on the island somewhere.

There’s a campground in Rock Harbor with tent sites and shelters, just like at Threemile, Daisy Farm, and Moskey Basin. There are also cabins, running water, and, to my great surprise, SHOWERS! I took a shower almost immediately after getting there. It was one of those showers I had to buy tokens for, and the price they charged for tokens would’ve been grand larceny any other time, but right then and there I felt so sticky and smelled so bad that I was willing to pay the price. And they knew that, hence the highway robbery prices.

Oh yeah, almost forgot: it was a cold shower. Didn’t care. Felt so great to be clean again.

There was a concession stand across from the ranger station that sold soda pop and junk food. I had Chex Mix and Mountain Dew for lunch. The price for that was probably extortionate, too, but I didn’t even look. Nobody did. All around me, other hikers who had just come in from the backwoods were wolfing down Pop Tarts and Pringles and washing it all down with can after can of soda pop. I heard there’s a restaurant across the harbor where hikers usually converge to gorge themselves on hamburgers after they emerge from the back country, but it wasn’t open yet this season, so everybody had to make do with the concessions. Kinda funny how we go into the wilderness to get away from modern life, but the minute we’re back, we pig out on junk food.

After showering and gorging myself, there was nothing to do but lie in the sun, wait for the boat, and chat with the other hikers.