Jaryd and I were both up early and weren’t very hungry, so we broke camp and were on the water by 6:15. We paddled to our first portage of the day, which was the longest of the trip–240 rods. It actually wasn’t that bad, just long. I mentioned earlier that we thought about trying to float the river, but decided the portage was there for a reason. Definitely the right move. The portage parallels the river and you can see that even at high water it’s shallow and clogged with timber, and has a series of small, staircase-like rapids. Weather that morning was beautiful, but we would see later that it can change in a hurry. There were one or two more portages before Weird Lake–no problem. We wondered how that lake got its’ name...do weird things happen here? We arrived at Jack Lake and still hadn’t seen anyone...just a canoe on a site at the north end of the lake. Paddling down Jack Lake and just before we could make it into the portage into Kelly, a nasty thunderstorm hit. We were just a few hundreds yard from the portage we would find out later, but we had to get off the water fast and throw our rain gear on and wait it out. Thunder, lightening and, of all things, hail (pea to superball size) came down on us. Jaryd and I just laughed. We were experiencing all that the BWCA could offer. After getting bonked on the head by some big ones, we threw our lifejackets over our heads and waited about an hour till it stopped. We were once again on our way. I thought that in my hurry to get to shore before the storm hit I had missed the portage, but after closer inspection of the map I could see it was just around the corner. We portaged into Kelly and by the time we were halfway down the lake it was getting hot and muggy. Jaryd tried some fishing here, but it was more an exercise in frustration. Back on our first day, Jaryd had lost his pole in the lake on the first cast. Poor guy–he was miserable. He was so looking forward to catching some fish and using his new floating pliers to unhook them. He must have just sat there for about twenty minutes in silence. That left us with just my two spinning outfits, which Jaryd doesn’t do well with. He had trouble keeping the line from tangling. It was also pretty shallow and he kept hanging up lures. We paddled down Kelly to the portage into Burnt...”the big one”. Yes, I know I said before that the Temperance River was the big one, and it was the longest. This one was actually ten rods shorter, but very narrow and somewhat hilly. Since it had rained earlier, half the portage was a running stream. No fear! My man, Jaryd, kept on encouraging me that we could make it–and we did. We leapfrogged this portage as well. This technique works great on long portages. We were packed efficiently: two personal packs, one food pack, paddles, lifevests and fishing poles. My lifevest has a lot of pockets, so I eliminated the need for a tackle bag by putting all my fishing gear in it. We made it through to Burnt, then the 90 rod from Burnt to Smoke, so tomorrow we’ll have just one 100 yard portage to Sawbill and we’re back where we started. We took the first campsite closest to the portage on Smoke. This is a very spacious site, but somewhat abused. There were woodchips scattered everywhere, halfcut logs. We tried to clean up a little bit anyway. The bugs, in my opinion, haven’t been bad at all, but this site was definitely the buggiest of all. You could hear a constant hum of the hordes of mosquitos. It was like being in a production plant and hearing the constant buzz of machinery. But we were good...just wore a bug net and a BuzzOff hat that I got for Christmas. (Thanks, Jon!) We set up camp and since it had rained most of the wood was wet. Dad decided to show Son how to build a fire when all the wood’s wet. We found some nice pieces of cedar and pine to split up to get to the dry part of the wood. I split the cedar into kindling, shaved off some tinder the slick way Cliff Jacobson does. The fire started going and so Dad says, “See, Son, that’s how you do it.” However, the fire just couldn’t seem to keep on going. It would burn good and then just die out. The only way I could keep enough heat to cook was to feed it birch bark. We got most of dinner cooked, but I finally broke out the stove to finish up the job. We had eggs and sausage for dinner because Friday Jaryd had knocked our shells and cheese into the dirt while it was cooking and we had to use an extra meal. It’s funny now. After dinner Jaryd read his Gentle Ben book while I did dishes and put away the gear. After dusk we went down to the shore since the bugs had abated and watched the stars come out. I just sat there in silence stargazing and asking my Lord, “Why is this place so compelling to me?” There’s something about the wilderness that can’t be explained. When I look at these stars tonight, Psalm 19:1-2 come to mind: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” What a beautiful last night!