Boundary waters

Yay! We survived our boundary waters trip!

I put all of our pics online here.

The last day (when we had to leave), it was absolutely beautiful. The lake was calm and clear and just gorgeous. I think that was nature's way of making sure we come back again next year.

I would love to go on another trip next year and try out another route. This year's route was challenging, but it was fun. We did the following:

Day 1: Enter at Round Lake in our canoe with all our gear, paddled and did 8 portages (where you empty out your canoe, carry all your gear and the canoe through the woods on a hiking trail to the next lake, where you put all your stuff back in the canoe and paddle to the next portage). Arrived at camp at Gillis Lake around dinner time. Ate, set up tent, read and slept. Here are Eric and me at our first campsite.

Day 2: We stayed at this same campsite and fished, ate, read, explored any paths around the site, relaxed.

Day 3: We left our campsite on Gillis Lake and did 1 portage to Crooked Lake, and then carried our canoe and gear over a beaver dam to get to a kind of hidden campsite. Here is me on a portage walking through what Eric calls an enchanted forest. And here is Eric's senior portrait. :)

Day 4: We left our hidden little campsite and did 2 portages to Tuscarora Lake (a pretty big lake). This was the first day that the wind calmed down and the clouds finally left! It warmed up a lot..... and it was perfect timing cause we found a campsite with a sand beach! Here is a pic of us watching the sunset on our very own private beach campsite. Ahh.....this is what Minnesota summer is all about.

While watching the sunset, we were also lucky to see a group of 9 loons (the MN state bird, for those who don't know what a loon is). There were adult and baby loons, and they were all fishing together, flapping their wings and making loon calls. It went on for about 15 mins or so and was amazing. There are a bunch of pictures in the link above, but here is one of my favorites.

Day 5: Slept in because the previous night, it was so nice and clear that we thought it was a good idea to leave the rain fly off the tent so we could see the stars while laying inside the tent. Yeah, it ended up being so cold (apparently it was in the 30s!). So we slept in a bit, ate breakfast and then packed up and left our beautiful campsite. We did one portage that one mile long (longest one of the whole trip!) -- but we do double portages, which means you carry half the stuff on one trip and go back and get the rest for a second trip. So total, we walked 3 miles just for that one portage! Then we paddled a bit to our last portage of the trip, which was long, but not quite as crazy long as the first one. Then our trip was done! We drove back to Grand Marais, showered finally, and then went out for burgers, fries and cokes with Eric's mom.