Monday, June 03, 2013 I wake up an hour or so later and decide to pack up and head towards my car. At this point I still had not decided if I would go all the way out or not. As I pack up I get ready to start boiling some water for my chai. (I have chai tea for breakfast every morning) I find it too has been contaminated. That is the last straw and makes my decision to leave for me. Seems like it takes forever to get packed and loaded but at last I am on my way. I guessed that it was mid-morning at this point. No navigation issues now as I head back thru lake #3 then #2. I am always surprised how things can look different when traveling in the same area but from a different direction. I make it the portage just as a group from Kansas is departing. It was perfect timing. They had never been up in the BWCA and were very impressed with its beauty. They were only staying one night as they said the weather was going to be cool and rainy after today. As I attempt to unload I find my shoulder is becoming more and more worthless. I can barely get the packs out of the canoe. Again I take the boat over 1st and tie it up off to the side with the back in the water as the rear pack will be the 1st to come across. When I come back with the pack I find my path blocked by a different family just arriving. I ask to play thru? Then the dad of the group tells his kids to move their boat out of the way. I march into the water with my pack and load it in the canoe. Just as I am detaching my bottle from the pack one of the young men falls into the lake with a pack on his back and is sitting on the rocks with water past his belly button. Ouch! It had to hurt. As I get ready to go back for my final pack I ask if I can take one of their packs. The mom remarks that people are so nice up here. The dad hands me a very old Duluth pack. I could not get my bad shoulder inside the strap so the daughter assisted me. I head across and then the young man that had fallen is running back across in rubber boots. I hope he does not trip in those clunky boots I thought. I load my pack and as I reach my boat which I had turned and still had all the way off to one side but all the way in the water I met another group. This group also blocks my path to my boat an actually ran into it. There was plenty of room not sure why they were crowding me but I figure not a big deal. What I assumed was the leader starts directing the others and leaves there boat in front of mine making it difficult to leave. A women was holding one of boats parallel on the end of the big rock and just as I was leaving I looked over to see the boat drifting away while her tippy toes were on the edge of the big rock and her hands were on the boat, then splash, in she went. Water was deep enough to be past her waste. What was strange is she made no sound as it happened and it happened in like slow motion. I had to laugh a bit or a lot. She seemed ok but those canvas shorts she was wearing would be wet all day. It was nice out but not that nice to be in wet heavy shorts the rest of the day. The next portage was not nearly eventful. After my 2nd and last portage my shoulder is very sore and hot to the touch. I make it the entry point with no navigation mistakes. Unload and just then CCO pulls up to drop a few guys up so he takes my rental back. I get back to Ely and settle up the bill. I find out the engine noise I kept hearing at camp was the mating call of a grouse. Never would have guessed that. Gassed up and hit the road. Hit the cities at 4:30 and made it straight thru 35E no problem tell I got thru the downtown area. Then a few stop and goes and all was good. Then I start to see the signs stating that 35E south is closed. Well with traffic and no one to navigate I did not understand exactly how far ahead of me I would be forced to detour. I thought no worries I will follow the detour. Well the sign states to find alternate routes. It dumped me off onto 42 which I took west assuming it would take me over to Hwy 52 sooner or later. Then after a few miles another road closed ahead sign which thankfully turned out to be false. The rest of the trip south was uneventful. Weird thing is even with the detour it took me 8hrs flat to get home.

Lessons learned on my 1st solo: 1. Bring ear plugs so all the creepy sounds don’t keep me up (Assuming I ever do a solo again) 2. Don’t be cheap and get fresh food supplies even if they are dehydrated. 3. I enjoy the company of others. Looking back now, over a year later I am starting to consider a solo again but will keep it planned for a short trip. I did a trip with my Dad and his wife labor day 2013 and went self-contained and got many more bugs worked out on that trip. It was not technically a solo but I was completely independent with all my stuff as if I was solo.