This was the day we were to leave, for sure! So. . .everything was saturated from the night’s rain and we would be packing up wet again. But at least it wasn’t a morning with a heavy rainstorm going on, and the morning sky looked promising, indeed.

We were dismayed to find a hole chewed in our food pack, which was tied up in the tree. Either our little friend Chippy or the resident squirrel had finally found a way into the side pocket of the pack. Rats! Or should I say, rodents?!

We took a leisurely pace this morning, waiting for the tent and tarp to dry out in the sun. It isn’t like we had a deadline—we were still leaving the BWCA two days earlier than our planned exit date! But somehow five nights at one campsite seemed like enough for one trip. So we had eggs and hash browns, and drank our usual Tang, followed it all up with a cup of hot chocolate, and sat around awhile with our books. I lay on the rock shelf looking up at the blue sky, and photographed the trees from a different perspective:

So what if the food pack has a hole in it and one of the zippers has broken? So what if my back hurts and every step I take sends pain down my hip and leg? So what if Spartan1 has learned that he isn’t Superman? So what if I am almost 65 and I have yet to see the Northern Lights? So what if we have just taken a canoe trip and not gone anywhere? Or had a campfire? Or seen a moose?

We came to the BWCA again. We are portaging out on our 28th canoe trip together. And, God willing, we will come again. What is it Anna says? Forget the bad and focus on the good. I think I’ll do that.

At 10:30 we were on our way. The sky was blue with all kinds of clouds, just the kind of morning we needed yesterday. But then, if we’d had it, we wouldn’t be here today!

We paddled through the “mine field” at the narrow end of Cross Lake without touching even one of those boulders.

We stopped for lunch at the Ham Lake “fire” campsite, and ended up packing out a trimming saw that someone had left there by the sitting log.

I photographed a few flowers at this site, sort of as a “last hurrah”.

And we completed all of our portages this time, without any missteps, “shortcuts”, alternate paths, etc. Somewhere along the line we saw a nice big garter snake, but it was shy about being photographed:

And I got the Canon camera out one last time to try to photograph this little waterfall at the end of one portage.

Finally we reached the last portage.

Notice now that we are leaving how beautiful the weather is turning out to be?

I managed, with an escalating pain level, to do all of my carries except the very last one. While I was waiting for dear Spartan1 to finish that for me I kept company with this nice dragonfly

We paddled around through the correct channel this time and ended our trip at 3:25 on June 28th, under sunny skies. The temperature was 64 degrees, but it felt warmer.