Friday, September 02, 2011 It all started at the beginning of august. I began to get those pre trip jitters where you cant think about anything else but that day you enter the BWCA. Suddenly I was less productive at work, spending far too much time on BWCA.com (im a recent and enthusiastic member….) Thankfully I don’t think anyone at work noticed too much. Which may say something about my job…hmmm. But that’s neither here nor there. Finally Friday, September 2nd arrived. 6 of us left from the Chicago area at around 130. Made the 6 hour haul to St. Paul where we scooped another member of our trip at the airport, followed by the final four hour trek to Ely where we arrived at 1 am. We went immediately to our place to stay for the night and got a quick four hours sleep and were up by 5.