Wednesday, August 19, 2020 Checked weather : Chance of rain at 10:00 a.m.. We headed out to Meeds about 11:00.

We fished for awhile on Caribou no hits no luck. Checked out several camps, they were all busy. Did the portage from Caribou into stream which is 2 portages like 12 rods. Very Rocky! One portage to the next was a stream of low water with lilly pads and lots of rice grass. I hate paddling thru that stuff, quite a work out. We headed into Meeds. Checked out a campsite for lunch, met some college girls on the portage between, they had camped at Meeds came in thru Poplar, told us they did the huge portage. They were headed to Horseshoe. We took a swim at the campsite cool water but refreshing. We need that after those 2 portages. Dan caught a small mouth base on Meeds, we tried and tried no other fish. There was two other canoes fishing also. We could hear Thunder and the sky was looking like rain. While we were fishing Dan mentioned why he sat up the other night when I said it was thundering, he said he heard wolves, that is so weird because I also thought I heard wolves but neither of us said anything until then. We then decided we better head back to camp. Thank God we didn’t move camp this am and do this.With not much sleep I am beat. It was a leisure paddle from Caribou to the portage going, but coming back we were trying to beat the rain. We didn’t make it. It sprinkled on us on Caribou about the time we got to the portage to Horseshoe it really let go. Dan stood the canoe up and leaned it against a tree so we could all stand under it for awhile, Lil didn’t understand what we were doing. We had our rain gear but we were already wet. It was a cool rain, but the temp must have been around 75. Sunny most of the day. We waited out a couple more down pours and then headed to our camp on Horseshoe. We couldn't see from where we were standing in the woods but behind the trees there was a a wall cloud, we put the canoe in the lake and loaded and then the wind caught our canoe and blew us across the lake and it opened up just as we got to our camp. There are jagged rocks all around our landing to our campsite, the wind was pushing us right into the rocks. It was all we could do to paddle the canoe and make that turn into our campsite landing and avoid the jagged rocks. I had mentioned Dan put up a tarp a few days ago so we were able to get out of the rain. It was 6:30 when we got back to camp. We were able to have our Mountain house meal of Chicken and rice and Raspberry crumble for dessert. If you have never tried the Raspberry Crumble you have to it is amazing. The flies were bad on Meed so we were glad we didn't camped there. The loons were at our camp site today before the rain. Dan helped me with the dishes and we got to sit down. Sent out another in reach message home. We had blue sky's for the rest of the evening, but tonight it is cooler/damp feeling. Looks like we have new neighbors right across from us. No body else out fishing or portaging tonight. At this point we hadn’t decided if we were headed out Thursday or Friday. Tomorrow is Thursday. My sister was in the hospital in Columbia Mo when I left on Saturday, they had started 5 day treatment of meds. Hope she is better, praying for her and my niece and my brother they all have covid. It is so hard being out of touch with everyone. That is what we like about the In reach, they can send us a message and we can message them each day where we are and how we are doing. I had made arrangements with my other sister that she would send a message if things got worse.

I don’t’ know how my husband does the portaging with carrying a canoe on those dang rocks. He is amazing. I still have trouble with different canoe strokes, and Dan puts up with me. I pretty much paddle on one side until I get tired, then I switch, and then he switches, he does the steering. I do understand and get how to back paddling without being told. Like I said Dan is amazing and very patient with me. I am tearing up tonight thinking, just tired and lack of sleep and worrying about my sister.