Wednesday. Up at 5:30 after sleeping surprisingly well. The lake is misty and beautiful and we admire it with Smokey. Ray and Sue are not going to be willing early risers.

After the egg accident, we had a total of nine eggs scrambled with added bacon, and some fry bread. We sat and admired the misty view as we ate our breakfast.

We were on the lake about 9:00. Very calm, great reflections.

Long up & down portage into Kiana Lake, mosquitoes bad.

Lunch on Thomas at a point campsite. Neil and I stayed here while the others scouted out a campsite that Ray had used before (around the point and down a ways.) After getting the sign from them we follow, and as we approach the campsite in a sheltered bay, Sue is motioning and "hushing" us as she is busy photographing a huge bull moose on the opposite shore. We can see the top of his rack--he is lying down in the weeds. We all paddle over and take photos, and Neil and I get really close. He is cooperative and poses beautifully. [How I wish I had had a telephoto lens back then!]

We made camp, swam, cleaned up, washed a few clothes, napped, etc. Smokey fished. The moose made a second appearance later in the day.

After supper Ray, Smokey and I went "moose-hunting" in the canoe. No luck.

While Sue was on the biffy Keelee spotted 5-6 deer in the woods and chased them in her direction. There was some yelling; lots of excitement.

DAY TWO: SUE

Paddled 9 1/2 miles. What a day we have had! At 5:45 AM Neil was up and building a fire. Then out came Lynda, while Smokey grumbled and groaned his way out of his little blue dome tent. They all kept exclaiming how gorgeous it was out there while I tried desperately to ignore them. Not an early riser, I vainly snuggled deeper into my sleeping bag. Somewhere down in the toe of my bag I heard someone mention mist on the water. Up I popped, peeked gingerly out the screen of the tent, and nearly dropped my jaw. Before my eyes was the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen in my life! Mist fog shrounded the small island across from our campsite and the sun peered over the pines of the island in a blaze of early morning glory. The lake was glass still and mirrored the islands in great detail. I grabbed my camera and the blue filter and captured the scene exquisitely. . .(You guys should see the enlargement of this!)

We had a fine breakfast of fresh scrambled eggs with bacon bits, and fry bread baked in the pan and topped off with butter and syrup. A lovely morning to sip coffee and contemplate the coming day.

We were on the water by 9 AM and headed across glass-smooth Insula. The reflections in the morning calm were perfect. We took our longest portage (179 rods) from Insula into Kiana. Ray remembered the portage as being low and flat. It turned out to be a gradual small mountain. Well, so much for dear Ray's memory! As Smokey says, "These things happen as you get older.) But the portage wasn't all that bad anyway. We just had to give Ray a hard time about it.

I wanted to paddle on Kiana. I had always wanted to see this lake, mainly because I love its name. And it turned out to be every bit as gorgeous as the name it carries. Wild, free, no campers, no other paddlers. Nice high cliffs. We had to traverse a beaver dam into one arm of it, and from there we portaged 20 rods into Thomas.

[This is the only photo we have that includes the little dog, Keelee.]

We were near starving, so we ate lunch at the first campsite we came to. After last night's near-miss of a campsite we seriously considered keeping this one, but Ray had ideas of one he had camped on several years before. So the Childses stayed with this one while we three paddled on to find Ray's site. We did find it, and it was just perfect, so we dumped our gear, Keelee and me on the shore while Ray and Smokey went back around the bend to signal Neil and Lynda. While the guys were gone I perched myself on a nice rocky outcropping. Everything was so quiet and gorgeous. I gazed out into the bay to the distant shoreline. Suddenly I heard a great lot of sloshing about, and--lo and behold!--a great big old moose came out into the marshgrass just across the water from where I was sitting! I quickly grabbed my camera and prayed that he would not recede back into the forest before I could get a good shot of him. He didn't, and I did! Several shots, in fact! Then he laid his big self down in the grass. I silently hoped he would stay there until the rest of the gang came along.

The moose did not move, so when Ray and Smokey came I jumped into the canoe, armed with camera and telephoto lens. On our way over to see the moose, we headed off Neil and Lynda coming our way and we all made a beeline for the moose, still lying down. We got closer and closer to the big moose, but he made no move to get up. Soon Smokey started to call him with his special moose call: "Moosie-poo, Moosie-poo" followed by a little whistled tune. Over and over Smokey called the moose, as we drew nearer. The moose ignored Smokey's efforts to rouse him. In fact, I do believe the moose thought he was hiding from us silly intruders. Little did he know that his great antlers were waving around above the tall grass. "Moosie-poo", Smokey called to no avail, so we started to bang the canoe with our paddles. All the while, I am poised for the perfect shot.

Out of the water he rose. Huge, magnificent, incredible, WOW! He turned his massive head toward us with a look of disdain. How dare we interrupt his peaceful afternoon? He let us view him for a short while, then slowly moved back behind a big bush. There he peered out at us and snorted.

He didn't move any farther, though we couldn't make him come back out either. So we turned our canoes around and headed back to camp.

But wait! He is coming out into the grass to resume his grazing. Back we went, to again see how close we could get before he retreated. Neil and Lynda zeroed in on him at about 20 feet and got a great picture. We waited around for him to appear again but this time he was going to stay just out of sight until we left the water.

Later as we prepared supper he came out again and spent a good part of the evening grazing across the bay from us. Smokey was out fishing, and from time to time we could hear the strains of "Moosie-poo" come across the water. The moose didn't pay him any mind. In fact, he swam across the narrows over to our side of the bay. After that we didn't see him, but we kept wondering if he just might make a sojourn through out camp sometime later that night.

After all the dishes were done, Ray, Lynda and Smokey went out in the canoe to do a little moose hunting. Neil and I stayed in camp. Neil to tend the fire, I to write this. Both of us finished off the marshmallows. It's not good to have bear food around camp, you know!

PS: While on the biffy later in the evening I nearly got the juice scared out of me. Five or six deer came crashing through the brush right behind me. I thought for sure it was "Moosie-poo" and yelled "WHOA! What's going on here?" Neil and Lynda came running somewhat haltingly lest they catch me with my pants down. They needn't have worried about that! I wasn't about to be caught in a compromising situation, though later I found that I had tied my sweat-pants drawstring in such a tight knot I could hardly get it undone. Was pretty scared back there!