Today is our last day here. We wake up to rain sprinkles, so no hot breakfast this morning. We pack up, load the canoe and start on our way out. The wind is calm and by the time we make it to the first portage out, the rain has stopped, but the skies remain overcast. We hope it stays this calm when we hit Agnes and as it turns out – we end up paddling against a light wind across Agnes. The trip is uneventful until we hit the 97 rod portage to Nina Moose. As we make the first trip across the portage, there is a gentleman who appears to not be feeling up to par. Turns out – he is spending two weeks in the area and is just taking his time. We help carry his gear to the side we just came from as we had to go back anyway. Just before we get to the end of the portage, we hear the sounds of “creatures” in the woods. Just ahead of us is a female grouse scratching for pebbles and just inside the woods is the male – all puffed and fanned out. Dang – the camera was taken across with the canoe and is at the other end of the portage. I hate when that happens. We stood and watched for about 5 minutes and the male hardly moved. I don’t think he appreciated us being there. We continued on, dropped off gear, load up and start to make our way back. We turn around and see a gentleman about 80 years old reaching the portage and wonder where he came from. He had no canoe, just carrying paddles and small pack. A little further up the portage, we came across a man about our age (45-55) JOGGING the portage carrying a canoe over his head. Yes, I said jogging. It appears he is with the elderly man we just met – he had to change his socks, got behind and was trying to catch up. We carried on, loaded the canoe back up and headed towards “home.” By the time we got to the last portage, we seemed to have picked up speed just a bit – we were so close, yet so far. As we hit that last portage and carry the first load to the parking lot, we reflected on these past few days. It was decided that we enjoyed this experience so much, we will do it again and talked over the things we would do different and the type of gear we would need to acquire. And as we made our way back with the second load, just before we reached the end of the portage, Lari reached for my hand and said “we started this adventure together, we finished it together and I want to hold your hand coming out.” I about melted – I guess I’ll keep him around for the next trip.

As we look back and reflect on this trip, we realized that we still work well together as a team. We are also more aware of our limitations in what we can and can’t do and will learn from this as well. For us, this was a trip of a lifetime and look forward to our next BWCA adventure. As my dear hubby said on the way back to Ely, “I’d be more than happy to go paddling with you again.” We are now starting to plan for the next trip.