We all slept in really late today since we stayed at the lake so late last night. When we woke up, the sun was shining bright and our tent was like a sauna; we definitely didn't need our sleeping bags anymore! The plan for the day was to ride to the free wildlife refuge campground about 10 miles down the road. We learned that there was an interpretative talk done by a local Native American every evening there. We were all feeling that it would be a good idea to take a rest day, especially since it was a free campground. The Michaels thought they lost their Leatherman back at the lake, so Joey went on a jog to see if it was there. While he was gone, they of course found it, but it was ok because Joey got a nice little 2 mile morning run in. When we finally got all packed up and on the road it was already after 11. As we were riding to our destination, a car passed us slowly and I heard "Hi Emmalee!." It was Tamika, the little girl from Beaver Creek who was at the pool with us! I thought it was pretty neat that we got to see her again! Today was a perfect day for riding, the sun was shining and there was hardly any wind. We made it to Deadman Lake campground early and found a nice campsite right next to the water. We all set up our tents right away and made some lunch. I think that is the first time we have taken our tent down and put it right back up in such a short time. After we had our beans and the Michaels had their rice we relaxed for a while. I ended up typing a little and then taking an almost 2 hour nap! It sure was wonderful. Afterwards, we roasted some marshmallows and walked to the dock to see what was going on over there. I wasn't the only one to take a nap, both the Michaels took a nap too. Joe just laid in the tent and relaxed, but didn't actually sleep. Later on that evening, while we were making the package of vegetable soup that the Ritchie's gave us, we met a guy, Andre, who was on an afternoon ride. He is from Fairbanks but was working down the road at Northway and had ridden to the campground from there. We talked with him for a while before he had to get back on the road. The time eventually came to go to the interpretative talk in the pavilion. The lady doing the talk was Sylvia and she was a Native Athabascan Indian. There was a pretty good turn out since there were about 9 people there. Sylvia talked a little about the great horned owl before she went into talking about her culture and the way they do things. It was really quite interesting. Afterwards, we walked to the dock on the lake for something to do. The volunteer camp host, Ed, was down there along with a nice couple who were also at the talk. The guy was doing a little fly fishing, which was pretty interesting to me because I had never seen someone actually fly fishing. We all got talking there and at one point the couple offered for us to use their kayaks! Since there was 3 of us and 2 kayaks, Ed offered for us to use his single person 12 ft. canoe! The boys went out in the kayaks first and seemed to be doing pretty well with them. However, when they got pretty far out from shore, all of a sudden we saw Michael flip his canoe! He had to swim it all the way back to shore, but luckily the water was a pretty nice temperature. He got back in the kayak and I joined them with the canoe; we had a blast. Later on, the boys came back in and I tried out the kayak and Michael tried out the canoe. I really enjoyed the kayak, especially since it was my first time. You can really get those going pretty fast without a huge amount of effort (of course the lake we were on was nice and calm, I'm sure it would be a whole lot different in Lake Ontario!). Now, kayaks are on the list of things we would like to get at some point when we save us enough money. What a great day off! I can't believe we got to go out on a lake in Alaska each of the first 2 nights we are here! When we went back to camp, we made some ride for a second dinner since we were already hungry. Joe and I played the Farkel game that the Ritchies gave us for a little while before going to bed. We only rode 11.52 miles today.
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