I was up at 5, quietly photographing a very blah sky. Got down the pack, made myself some coffee and started some blueberry muffins cooking in the Jello-mold oven.

Neil got up at 7, decided we would leave on this day, and started to break camp. Just as he began to take down the tent (the tarp was still in place) it began to rain—hard! He kept on with his task and I called for him to stop. I cooked bacon and eggs in the rain, served them from the frying pan under the tarp, and of course everything was getting saturated again. Neil still thought we were breaking camp and going on our way.

A big argument ensued. He had argued his case to me last night that we needed to pack up dry, as going over those three portages with heavily saturated gear in the packs was the “worst-case-scenario” for our trip out of the BWCA. So here we were, getting ready to do exactly that, to pack up wet, load up wet, paddle in heavy rain, and go over portages already saturated from heavy rains the past few days, IN heavy rain, with one person who was admitting he wasn’t strong enough for what we were carrying and the other person trying to brave it out with severe pain, being pretty sure that she wasn’t going to make the second carry on all three of those portages. And we were leaving EARLY, so there was no one looking for us yet at the other end. We had a comfortable campsite and lots of food. But because he had started packing up, that was what we had to do now! (Man logic.)

I said I was willing, if the tent was now too wet, to just spend the next night sitting up on my stool under the tarp if that was what it took not to portage out in the heavy rain that morning. And I meant it. He looked at me like I had lost my mind, but he finally agreed to stay.

It rained steadily until 11:00. A real soaker.

By noon some blue sky was beginning to show overhead as I had predicted, and our tent might actually start drying out. Since I am known in our family as the diehard pessimist, I was most pleased to have my uncharacteristic optimism rewarded in this manner! You could stand at one point on the rock overlooking our shore and see this:

look the other direction and see this:

and the view from under the tarp was considerably brighter:

Spartan1 stood on the shore and admired the lovely sky. I think even HE was glad that I talked him into staying for another day.

And we were most thankful for our little shelter:

So we dried the tent on a clothesline, and then he put it back up again. And the sky was a brilliant blue, but now and then a little shower would come by unexpectedly, so that you couldn’t quite relax if you were out and about, like photographing a lovely iris in the midst of the forest.

We enjoyed the interesting cloud show, read our books, watched the campsite dry out again, and were thankful for a lovely 75-degree day that just occasionally forgot and wept on us for a few minutes. Our supper was BPP Southwestern Smoked Salmon Pasta with Chipotle Dill Sauce (which sounds pretty complicated, but we think it is one of the best of the freeze dried entrees), and a Packit Gourmet carrot and currant salad that was also fairly good. The salad was quite a surprise, though, as it said it made one serving and I personally think it would have been sufficient for a side dish for four people. I couldn’t begin to eat half of it! We had BPP Organic Blueberry Delight for our dessert and that was another new trial for us that was a surprise—not very many blueberries and a sauce that ended up the consistency of rubber cement! It tasted OK but it really looked funny! It was also supposed to be one serving; however, we found splitting it worked just fine for us, keeping in mind that we had NOT worked all day at paddling or portaging.

I had, by this time, pretty much given up hope of ever seeing my moose, but I did think perhaps a fantastic sunset might be a possibility, given the wonderful clouds we had been seeing all afternoon. Then at 8:20 the rumbles began! Thunder rumbled off in the distance, and storms seemed to be approaching swiftly. We cleaned up our camp and headed for the tent by 8:45. At 8:55 a very scary thunderstorm hit! This included the closest lightning flash/thunder clap I have ever experienced in a tent! I don’t usually yell out in fear during storms, but this one made me scream! The storm lasted about fifteen minutes, and was the only one of the night, thankfully. We did have light rain at 3 AM.