Saturday, July 14, 2007 We woke up at 6AM and I discovered my sunglasses were broken in half. Nothing a little duct tape can’t fix. Jamie had fun with that for a while (at my expense). We broke down camp and packed everything up while boiling water for coffee. The sky is overcast. We want to get an early start because Ensign is a busy Lake and it’s Saturday. Also, we have a couple of major league portages on either side of Vera. VNO told us the first portage (into Vera) was muddy, and that was before 2 pretty solid days of rain. We’re a bit apprehensive about what we might find there. We leave camp at 8:30AM and see our first glimpse of the sun in a while. We troll shad raps as we travel. We each catch a smallmouth en route. We find the portage trail and I help Jamie with one of the packs, then I hoist the canoe and we take off. Jamie surprises me when she pulls out her cell phone and I find out she downloaded my favorite CD (You & Me by Joe Bonamassa). I know many people frown on music, etc. on a trip like this, but it sure put a spring in my step. The portage is muddy in spots, but not too bad, The first half is pretty much uphill. I think I remember reading that it rises something like 100 feet over the first half of the portage. I hear Jamie up ahead of me say “You’re kidding me!”. I look up and see a very steep rise (50 degrees or more?) that we’re going to have to climb. Tough footing because everything is wet, but we make it up. We walk a bit and everything seems to be leveling off. Jamie has a great idea to drop our gear at the perceived halfway point and go back for the rest of our gear. This way we can cover the tougher part of the portage with relatively fresh legs. On the way back, we find a patch of blueberries and pick a couple handfuls. Jamie has a black and yellow snake cross in front of her on the trail. We reach Vera in roughly an hour, without incident. Jamie is really invigorated. I’m so proud of her and she’s feeling proud of herself too. The sun is finally shining so we decide to take a swim. We load up and paddle Vera, seeing two other groups on our way to the portage to Ensign. We reach the trail and stop there for lunch. The weather is alternating between periods sunshine and overcast. The portage to Ensign is tough, but not as tough as the one into Vera. This one is muddier though. It’s probably 2PM when we reach Ensign. As we start for a couple campsites recommended by VNO, we notice a lot of sites already taken. We troll as we go and I catch a nice smallmouth just off one of the islands. The two sites VNO marked at the east end of Ensign are occupied and we head further east to check out a third. That one is occupied too. We reel in our lines. This is no time to fish, we need to find a site. There are only two other sites to the east, so we make a decision to head back west, where there are many other sites. We are seeing lots of sites occupied, but finally see a site directly on a point and it appears vacant. We start paddling in earnest and as we get closer confirm that the site is open. Very nice site, so we unload and set up camp in a light drizzle. This time we set up the tarp. It starts raining harder around 4 PM and we cook/eat under the tarp. We’re a bit tired and decide not to fish that night. The rain sends us into the tent and we’re asleep by 9:30PM.