Dates: 9/8/21
BWCA Day: 5
Miles: 7 paddling
Portages: 4
Weather: Mostly to partly cloudy, some wind

For the first morning we woke up with dry tents. It felt like a good omen, and we hoped to all things holy the rest of the day would be dry as well.

That morning I also decided I needed an attitude adjustment. At work I’m usually always in a good mood because being in a bad mood doesn’t make work any better. I finally decided to apply that same theory to the canoe trip.

There was lots of paddling that day, and just enough wind to make it tough. My canoe mates and I also noticed that all three of us had to paddle for our canoe to keep making appreciable progress. Whereas are two-person canoe friends could have only one person paddling and be fine.

Early in the afternoon we pulled over at a campsite to take a break. With the wind we were all tuckered out. The plan was to keep paddling, but it looked like a storm was blowing in. Instead, we decided to set up camp before the sky pissed all over our parade.

We ended up with another cuddle puddle in our tent watching Hunt for the Wilderpeople again. For here on out we all quoted the movie and laughed out asses off the rest of the trip.

At some point, a bunch of yahoos decided to swim to the island (naked) across from camp. They thought they were swimming to Canada. In fact, they were swimming to a US island with a US marker on it.

It never did rain us. But we could see it raining down the lake where we would have camped had we kept paddling. Everything worked our perfectly.

Reflections Boundary Waters camping canoeing exercise fitness journal paddling