We drove up the night before our trip from the far southern suburbs of Chicago. My wife's nerves were on edge as she had never spent the night camping ever before. She agreed to come on this trip with me because she knew I loved camping in the BWCAW. I recently began taking our children with me last year and so she wanted to get a feel for it to see if this is something she would like to do with my children and me. This trip would allow us to spend some needed alone time together. So I planned a trip for the two of us as a way to ease her into it. I settled upon base camping on Disappointment Lake. We took the scenic route up Hwy 1. Even though there was a detour we were in no rush and enjoyed the scenery and the time to talk with no children in the car and the radio off. After arriving in Ely we drove to Jordan's Canoe Outfitters and checked into our bunkhouse and picked up our canoe. I knew I was in good shape when my wife kept commenting how nice the bunkhouse was. We had an enjoyable talk with Mark the owner and he went over the maps and he gave us some fishing tips. We then reorganized our gear and my wife volunteered to carry the food pack, that a girl!! No complaining from me. We had a nice dinner and then settled in for the night at the bunkhouse dreaming of our trip ahead.