In to Every Life...

... a little rain must fall... and such was the case on our boys' trip. It rained three of the six days that we were in the boundary waters. Our first day of paddling was cut short when mother nature decided to test our meddle with a little precipitation.

You should realize that on our first day, we were in our worst shape physically, and it had been about a year since any of us had paddled, so our technique was a bit rusty as well. Our journey started with a 1/2 mile portage to the entry point. Since we were carrying a week's worth of gear, we were already a bit fatigued by the time we hit the water. But we were also in high spirits, so the fatigue quickly wore off, as we paddled our way down the river that led to our first lake.

The rivers weren't really rivers in the traditional sense... no current to speak of. They were simply shallow, winding bodies of water connecting one lake to another, filled with river grass and lily pads. The first river had a couple of spots that were impassable by canoe, which meant that we had to do a grand total of three portages during our first day... the aforementioned 1/2 miler, followed by a couple quick hundred-yard jaunts. Nothing serious in retrospect, but again, we were a bit out of shape, so these portages took a toll on our old, out-of-shape bodies. After about 90 minutes of slow paddling, we hit our first lake.

We'd been on the lake for 15 minutes or so when the wind picked up and the sky grew gray. Intuitively we knew that we were in for a shower. Just as whitecaps began forming on the lake, the wind started blowing us toward shore. Providence kicked in and the shoreline happened to host a camp site. We really wanted to continue paddling, but after conferring for a bit, we decided that seizing the campsite was the wise thing to do.

We got our gear out of the canoes, quickly donned our rain gear, and got the tents set up just as the rain started in earnest. After the paddling, we didn't really want to huddle in our cramped tents, so we decided to tough things out in the open air. Fortunately there was no lightning, and we all had good rain gear. Everyone that is, except for Darin. Darin seemed to have misplaced his rain coat and was stuck with only rain pants. On the good side, I had an extra rain suit that was "one size fits all." Unfortunately for him, he was a bit too large for that raincoat. It took him several minutes to even squeeze in to the thing. And when he finally got the raincoat on... well, suffice it to say that it was more than a little snug. Furthermore, it was a cheap, non-breathable raincoat. Darin spent a considerable amount of time whining about this. In fact, he was even saying that he was thinking about going back to shore to make sure that he didn't leave HIS raincoat in my truck at the put-in point.

After about an hour, the rain let up a bit, and we put our sleeping bags and cots in the tent. That's when Darin found his raincoat. All was right in the world. Greg and Bill spent a few hours fishing. Bill got skunked, but Greg caught a good-sized Northern Pike, which he filleted and grilled up, despite all of the bones. Overall, the day was a little shorter than we'd have liked, but it ended well.

Here are another couple of pictures...

This is a shot of Darin in my raincoat. As you can see, he's none too happy about his clothing situation.









Here's a picture of my canoe going through the lily pads...









Here's a snap of Bill taking shelter in a hollowed-out tree. Lucky for him, there was no lightning.