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7/5/09
It took us five hours to go north of Minneapolis. It’s only a two hour drive from home! It’s been a tense, stressful day instead of a fun, carefree, exciting one like I hoped for my first day of vacation. I think fish jerky is a joke. One of those things someone tells you to “pick up” so they can giggle behind your back when you go from coop to organic market to hippie basement on a wild goose chase for something that doesn’t exist – like a buffalo with wings.
And bear bells. I didn’t even look for those because that can’t be for real…
On our packing list, our preparation guide listed food/leeches. FOOD/LEECHES. I’m scared enough after Stand By Me to go in any non-chlorinated, non-cement lined body of water. Now I have to pack the leeches with my food? No, I like those little, feathery yellow fish hook things instead. That’ll do just fine!
We had fabulous pizza at Sven and Ole’s, drove even further north, and stayed overnight in a bunk house to prepare for the big day of canoeing, portaging, and camp set up!
Day 1
Big breakfast at the Trail Center. Tempted to canoe out every morning this week to eat the world’d largest pancakes (eat three, get them free.)
Bumper stickers lined the bar stools of the restaurant:
Urban sprawl: cutting down all the trees, then naming streets after them.
The last time we mixed politics and religion, we burned people at the stake.
I love cats. They taste like chicken.
From the menu: Trail Center: serving 30 to 500 people daily.
We loaded up the canoes and the guy at the outfitters was making fun of Jason and I because we put everything in garbage bags and covered it with a tarp. Of course it was funny because we hit the first portage after being in the water for like ten minutes, so we had to take everything out and hike with it. Well, tarps and garbage bags aren’t conducive to easy hiking. Next time I’m going to risk having a wet sleeping bag and pack for convenient hiking.
After scouting a couple places, we found a good spot for us.
The day was spent setting up camp, four college graduates trying to figure out where and how to hang a bear bag from a tree. We ended up hanging all our food in multiple wet bags named Lucy, Janson, and Moose.
I figured out that camping isn’t really just time to relax and be bored. At home, you waste time: watching TV, using the computer, working, cleaning – occasionally you spend a few minutes to make a quick dinner. Out here you spend all your time on food. Get it down from the tree, unpack, start a fire, filter the water, boil the water, cook the food, eat the food, pack the food, wash the dishes, hike, rehang the food. Snacking is not so easy when you have to hang all your food in a tree all day and night. “I really feel like some trail mix…oh…wait…it would take me fifteen minutes to hike, untie that rope, lower the bag, find the mix, repack the bag, tighten and tie the rope. Kitchen cupboards are far too convenient.
Day 2
Slept well. Cool morning. Oatmeal never tasted so good.
We had a great day out on the water, canoeing. We went to Horseshoe Lake where there had been bear sitings yesterday. Instead, we saw two loons and two moose!
We sat and watched a female moose for a long time in the water. Then suddenly we looked over, and within throwing distance, was a baby! The mama got out of the water and came closer to us. We’d been so careful not to get too close, and all the time we were close to the baby! We stopped for lunch at a cool picnic spot, gathered a lot of wood, and came home.
We collected a lot of water, made a great dinner of lentils, rice, potatoes, tea, cocoa – good stuff.
Day 3
We stayed at the camp all day. Sun, reading, snacking, games, swimming and bathing.
Hung a kitchen tarp. Better fire success. A swim in the lake with no leeches.
I’m cold now though. Gloves on.
Here’s the thing –
all day long at home when it’s nice, I think “I should go outside for a bit” -or- “I wish I could go outside.” But today, it was so nice to be outside, do everything outside and to know that’s how it is and to never once think, “I wish I were inside.”
Day 4 (this is the day Megan and I wrote a joint entry, swapping every other sentence.)
We slept in super late. Megan made the most AMAZING pot of coffee and oatmeal hotcakes for breakfast…it gave Stef gas. When we first went out in the canoes for our day trek, we saw a mama and following of baby loons (or ducks.) It was so windy today, I can’t believe we even decided to leave camp…Stef’s gas propelled her boat so they were ok; Pat and Megan had a hard time…again. Megan planned the route, pointing out we’d be taking the two “shortest portages we’ve taken yet,” but they were also super rocky, super skanky, full of millions of mosquitos, and sandwiched a swampy stream we had to then canoe through twice! Stef whined like a baby the whole way – “too many bugs, too skanky” – but she made it like a champ in her little purple crocs that match the color of this pen exactly…weird! We couldn’t stop and picnic on the planned island because stupid people already had a camp there, so we turned around to come home, Megan’s bottom lip getting bigger and bigger with every row as she pouted about not getting her way.
We came back, Stef and Jason stopped to gather wood – saw the hugest spider ever – came back to camp and ate lunch. It was super windy and very overcast so we spent the afternoon reading and sleeping in our tents. Everybody’s stinky farts and gas were running full steam ahead today!
We came out to make spaghetti dinner at seven. The wind had died down but then it rained for the first time on the trip. Not too bad though. We had hot drinks, played Uno, had more S’mores and hit the hay after watching the full moon rise.
We also had another loon and beaver sighting!
Day 5
We canoed again, and made it beyond the spot where we saw the moose on the beginning of the trip. We picnicked and came back to camp where we spent the rest of the day packing up and trying to eat all our food! A turtle circled our tent and then proceeded to lay her eggs right outside it.
Day 6
Our last day! We got up very early, packed up and canoed out. It was a very tough canoe. The wind was so strong, and we were rowing right into it. We were going over whitecaps, and it was even a little scary. But we made it, and it felt really to good to have survived and relaxed in the wilderness, away from technology, the real world, and with three of my favorite people in the whole world.
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