As it turned out, it was a very quiet night with no further rain. Neil was warm in his new sleeping bag, me, not so much! I had made a fleece liner for my old, thin bag and it wasn't adequate. I resolved to dig out my "Harriet" wool socks (Harriet is our black ewe) and hat for future chilly nights!

I was up at 6:10 (seemed so late; we are accustomed to the long days and early sunrises in the spring). The sky was clear, there was a brisk wind, and a squirrel chattered at us from a nearby tree. Neil was slower to rise, but a blood sugar of 77 didn't seem cause for concern. It was 59 degrees in the tent and 55 outside. We cooked breakfast on the new little stove: cornmeal pancakes, scrambled fresh eggs, hot chocolate, accompanied by the traditional Tang. And, of course, instant coffee. A canoe trip is the only place that I will put up with instant coffee!

The clear sky looked promising, but I did move the rain gear to the top of the food pack, where it would be easily accessible. Our new Gore-tex PacLite rain gear is a big improvement. It packs up very small and I found that the four pieces took up almost no space in the pack. As it turned out we didn't need them hardly at all on this trip; still, it was good to have them handy.

We were packing up and getting ready to move by 8:30. I tried putting the knee braces on the correct legs (kept wondering why they weren't comfortable yesterday :-) ), and we took stock of how we were doing so far. The tent outside flap zipper is non-working. We checked the inside zipper before the trip because we seemed to remember that the reason we replaced the old Winnebago tent with a new one (which we didn't like and didn't bring again) was because of a zipper. But we failed to check the outside flap--the one you really need to close if you want to stay WARM! We have eating utensils "missing". Where would a fork and two teaspoons go, and why didn't I check the cook kit before we left home?

We were on the water by 9:15 and at our first portage at 10:30. It is a very short carry into a pretty little pond. Then there are two short portages to Hudson Lake around some "rapids" which were almost non-existent due to very low water. We shared the portage with other canoes and people; this is a fact to be dealt with when you travel on the "highway" instead of more remote areas. There was a little confusion after the second portage and we took the scenic route, but we ended up back where we belonged and decided to have our lunch at 11:30 before continuing.

This lunchtime included discovery of the most difficult challenge so far! The glass vial of the new insulin (a sample in a pen refill that the doctor insisted would be just fine for travel) had a little rubber stopper that became dislodged in my waist pack, and all of the insulin drained away! Fortunately, Neil had duct-taped an almost-full bottle of Humalog to the canoe, so he decided to try going back to his old regimen with the Humalog. If that weren't successful, our trip would be cut short. Did that scare me? You bet! Realistically, it meant more finger-sticking (testing blood sugar) and not having any back-up insulin if this were lost, broken, or compromised in some way.

We camped at 1:45 on Hudson Lake. This is a campsite that we have visited before. There are big rocks offshore and on the site. The low water is particularly evident at this site, where I remember the lake coming up very near to one particularly large boulder, and I remember one foggy morning when it was a beautiful place to watch the lake. [It wouldn't be prudent to go into more detail, but it was a good memory.] The weather was very pleasant, hot (80 degrees) and breezy, with a bright blue sky and puffy white cumulus clouds blowing by. Neil put up our new tarp for the first time. There were red squirrels running around and scolding, but none visited our campsite as they often do. This was a pattern of behavior for the rest of the trip until our last campsite. My theory is that they were very busy gathering, burying, and eating the foods they will need for the long winter.

We were both tired and rather lethargic, probably because of the hot sun. We had NH Chicken Teriyaki for supper, with added rice. For dessert we tried the NH Cherry Blast and both decided it wasn't one we would buy again. Just too sweet. We finished our meal off with Instant Cappuccinos and coffee. There were rumblings of thunder at 6:10. We hurriedly hung the packs and Neil gathered some firewood.

We were dismayed to learn that our new little Primus stove was going to require more fuel than we had anticipated in order to cook meals. We decided at this point to try a cooking fire whenever possible, and we anticipated a nice campfire for our breakfast the next morning. It was too windy for a fire on this evening. I photographed the sky as the storm was coming in, then took the tripod down on the rocky shore and played with photographing lightning for a little while. At 7:45 the storm hit in earnest--loud and scary--and I returned to the tent to wait it out. We went to sleep to the sound of the rain on the tent and the frequent rumblings after the storm had passed over our location.