I woke up before sunrise and laid there hoping that I would be able to sleep some more. But I couldn't. I probably got 7 hours of sleep and that was just fine. I couldn't get comfortable anymore and my arms kept falling asleep. My fingers were also extremely swollen! I knew I would be sore this morning because of the new muscle movement. But it still sucked! And no ibuprofin for me. ::sigh:: So I just waited. Lorrie woke up about the same time the sky started to lighten. She gave me a little hug, then crawled over me to get up and out of the tent. She went off to have some alone time. I got up a few moments later and went a different direction to read by the water. The temperature was great for shorts and a sweatshirt, which is perfect! We met up a little later and spent some time together before Amy got up. She slept 'til about 7am! lol We came back up to camp and started getting some of the things together and bringing down the food bags. Amy got up about that time. She made Trail McMuffins this morning. They were awesome.... yes, even with salami. Is salami the same as summer sausage? The Italian would know this but I don't! So I use them interchangeably! I apologize if this offends anyone! lol Basically she mixed bisquick in a bag and then used the bag like a baker's frosting tool. No, I'm sorry, I don't know what that is called either. So you figured out I don't spend a lot of time in the kitchen! lol Anyway, that's how she made the muffin part. Then she used powdered eggs and we sliced the salami. Simple as that! And it was awesome! Could be that I was really really hungry! But whatever, it tasted great! We worked together to get the rest of camp taken down and cleaned up and were back on the water by about 9:30am.
Lorrie started out in stern (rear) position steering and Amy was in bow (front). This worked for me since my arms wer
e killing me. Lorrie took us in 2 or 3 circles before we got going forward! heheh We basically had to head straight across the lake to a beach area where there was a little inlet into our next lake, Little Gunflint. We weaved and circled our way over there. Lorrie was trying to decide if she should keep trying to steer. But when we got to the entrance to the inlet, she said, "No way!" lol It was really narrow and windy. I guess she figured we'd be bouncing back and forth from shore to shore like a pinball. I probably would have peed my pants laughing so it was a good choice! lol So Amy went to stern and Lorrie to bow. I stayed at Duffer. Great for sightseeing, I gotta tell ya. Although being in bow is great too because stern does all the steering. So you can just paddle and not worry much about where you're going... unless there's a rock or something in the way. Maybe that's only the case when you have a guide! lol If we were out here alone, we'd both have to be paying close attention! (= Anyway, lots of swampy beauty here. Gazillions of lilypads. Amy and Lorrie had a discussion about which lilypad was edible on top. One they agreed was edible at the root but neither were sure about the top. I just thought they were pretty. I'm pretty unlikely to dive down to the bottom to dig up a root to eat at this point. Maybe that information will come in handy in the future! Little Gunflint was definitely a little lake. Within what seemed like a short time we were heading into our next inlet. This one is extremely narrow and often has too little water to paddle, which would mean our first portage. There seemed to be enough water so they were going for it. One interesting thing was that it was "flowing" like a river against us. Amy gave us the disclaimer that "campers" are not supposed to go on white water at all. This was far from white water but she was covering her ass. She told Lorrie to speed up her strokes so they could paddle against the current. Immediately upon entering the inlet we hit ground. lol It bears mentioning that feeling the rocks on my ass was pretty funny! Perhaps I was just giddy this morning! A
definitely possibility! ANYWAY, Amy told Lorrie to get out so they could pull it. I started to get out and she told me I could stay in there! HA! So Princess Jennifer was pulled through this gorgeous inlet by two women in life jackets! The photo shows my view. I did a few "float waves" and then settled down. Like I said... giddy! We made it out of the inlet without issue and were into Little North Lake. We circled around the entrance a little. Apparently there was a train station there at one point. We saw the platform under water but couldn't make out the tracks. That was pretty interesting. Something about our logger history and everything ending up under water once the ice melted. Apparently in the winter, they would build tracks on the ice to transport logs and such. We crossed Little North Lake and it seemed like we were getting more into the wilderness like we wanted. Before we would see people periodically and now it felt like we were totally alone. From Little North Lake to North Lake there was an 80 Rod portage. 1 Rod = 1 canoe. Lorrie decided there was no time like the present to learn how this whole thing works. So we heaved the canoe onto her shoulders and off she went! AWESOME! Amy carried the lighter Duluth Pack and the day pack. I carried the heavier Duluth Pack, a paddle and the Nalgene bottles. I was directly behind Lorrie and 
I have to say that it was amazing to see her carrying the canoe like that. We had practiced taking steps with it at Camp Menogyn. But that is completely different than carrying it on a trail, with rocks and such. Just amazing! And she just did it. No comment, no question, no whining. Done! lol She did the whole thing then bridged at the water so Amy could put it in. It was extremely rocky there so I would say an excellent choice to let the guide do that part. If it was just us, we would likely have set it down then carried it upright with each of us on one end into the water. Amazing!
After that, we were going to have lunch but decided to cross North Lake first and eat on the other side. I took over the bow position with Amy still at stern. We, by Amy's report, crossed the lake at about 3 mph, which she basically said was unexpected for a couple of old ladies! lol She was more diplomatic than that of course! I felt stiff for just a few moments and then seemed to loosen up pretty quickly. It almost felt better to be moving my arms again than it did for them to be still. We crossed over the lake and went for a little beach in the calmest clearest water I have ever seen in my life. We could see what I think were walleye swimming around near the bottom among huge boulders created by glaciers. Just amazing! We pulled onto the beach then. I should mention that one of the Menogyn rules is that the canoe bottom does not touch the ground. So the person in bow position has to jump out into the water before the canoe gets close enough to touch rocks. Basically our feet are always wet. That's not such a big deal. But it's difficult getting used to jumping onto uneven slippery rocks. The general tendency is to set one foot out and try to stop like that. But there are lots of potential "splitting" injuries that can occur that way. So the best way is to jump out, both feet first, and just grab the canoe. I have NOT perfected this move by this stop! lol So it feels very uncoordinated.
But I do get out and I do keep the canoe from hitting anything. I have done my job! (= This beach and campsite and beautiful! I almost wished we were at the end of the day so we could just stay here! We were getting a little loopy by this time. We were all hungry and definitely thirsty. I, for one, should have been drinking more water. Then Amy said we all should have already drank 1 Nalgene bottle. Oops! I don't think any of us had drunk even half. Not good. Dizzy giggly women trying to park a canoe on slippery rocks. Hmm! For lunch we had a conglomeration: Matt food, chunk of chocolate, hummus, pemmican, cheese chunks, tortillas, dried (rock hard) fruit, salami cut on the paddle, and trail bread. The trail bread was given to us, and everyone else going on trail, yesterday. It's a bon voyage tradition. The hummus was fun for me! It was dried so we just had to add water into the plastic bag. Easy right? Ha! Remember... I don't spend much time in the kitchen! lol I dumped what I thought was a little bit of water in the bag. I look up and both Lorrie and Amy are laughing at me. I don't get it! lol Amy said that I had put the exact right amount of water in there but that dumping it in all at once was not recommended. HA! Well if it's right, it's right! (= It actually did need more water. But it was pretty good. That might have been my favorite part of lunch. Lorrie's was the chocolate! lol The bread and cheese were good too. I have to mention that we brought 3 big chunks of cheddar cheese out here. Whoever said that cheese has to be refrigerated!?? lol Not so! It gets a little slimey after a couple days. But still tastes good. Apparently they eat it out on their very long trips as well. I would really like to see that! Amy said if we do that not to touch the cheese because it feels gross and maybe that it does something to the cheese. I can't remember. I'm sure it's extremely slimey! lol ANYWAY, we finished eating and were feeling a little less loopy. Amy was going down to the canoe to get something and she slipped on one of the rocks. She hit her lower back on the point of a rock. Ouch! I know that bruised! I, of course, laughed! What is wrong with me!!?? So then we had to explain to her my "laughing when others fall" disorder. It's from watching too much "Jackass" and "America's Funniest Home Videos!" As we got ready to leave I couldn't find the "biff." In that case, we take a little shovel and dig ourselves a little hole to bury everything in. (= Nice eh?!
The portage from lunch was about 1/2 mile so I paddled over there. Then I carried the canoe on the 60 Rod portage. It was up and down, rocky, and the worst, roots! I hate roots on mountain bike and now I hate them on portages. They get so slippery and there's no rhyme or reason to them. It was pretty difficult. I rarely use my shoulders in that way so I was dying by the end. Even when I work out I am weak on shoulder lifts. But now I know the importance of working harder on them! (= I also need more experience in getting it well balanced. I know it would have hurt less had it been in the "sweet spot." But it wasn't and I still made it. I did the same thing at the end and let Amy portage it into the water. I don't feel sure-footed enough to take that on in the rocks and such.
Lorrie took over paddling duties in the bow position. Poor Amy, she was still in stern. That's why she gets paid the big bucks I guess! (= Just as we were pulling out into the water, Amy or Lorrie saw a moose standing right by the entrance. It was amazing! He was younger and had no antlers. But I could still see his power. He just watched us... seemingly to make sure we kept going away from him. But continued eating and never really flinched. Wow! I believe he was on the Canada side. My first moose!! We also saw a huge number of loons. This is sad since I grew up in Minnesota and they are the state bird... but I did not know that they could dive and swim under water. Amy said they also have some difficulty flying compared to other birds. Hmm! We also came very close to a Blue Heron, who flew away quickly. Lorrie was extremely happy about that one! (= As we paddled along, we ran into another guide from Menogyn who was on a personal trip with friends. We let them pass and they stayed ahead... further and further ahead! lol After crossing North Lake, we had a 4 rod portage into Rose Lake. We tried to just pick up the canoe with everything in it. Futile! LOL It must of have looked funny! So we unloaded most of the stuff and then just hauled the canoe, upright, over to the other side where we re-loaded it and were off. Seems like it would be easy... and I guess it was but it was a pain to take everything out for such a short portage. About that time, clouds started rolling in a little. Nothing too scary but definitely noticeable. Not far off shore and a light sprinkle started. That turned into rain. Then Amy told us to turn around and look back at the black line on the water coming our direction. That was a downpour making it's way toward us! lol They paddled over toward the shore so we weren't out in the open for lightening. Thunder was incredible. It was crazy watching that line come at us and then it hit! Holy crap it hit! It was beautiful! But as duffer, I froze my ass off! It was basically Jennifer soup in the bottom of the canoe. Eventually my body temperature warmed up the water in the bottom on the canoe! lol But my exposed skin was cold and I was starte
d to chatter. We came across a "not so great" site that we decided to pass up. But that was not before Amy ran up to grab more camp booty... 2 towels and a water container. We put the towels, wet, over my legs and I felt 10x better! Back to paddling toward the "best" site. We finally got there and the other Menogyn guide had taken it! Doh! So off we go again. At this point we were on the opposite side of "Bottlecap Mtn," which incidentally looks a lot like a bottle cap! We finally got to the second campsite, which was unoccupied. Thank God!! The rain had stopped some so we got unloaded. I was soaked! Once everything was up at the campsite, we were able to get into our warm clothes. Immediate warmth! What a relief! We got the tent up and started getting things organized for dinner. Amy put up and extra rainfly to cook under in case it started raining again. We didn't end up needing it but it was useful for the clothesline it provided as well. All our wet things were hanging up there... unlikely to dry completely of course. Amy made shepherd's pie for dinner, which was incredible! I am loving trail food on this trip! We were pretty hungry so she made popcorn first as an appetizer. For the shepherd's pie, she used the same bisquick trick, hydrated some dehydrated potatoes, mixed vegetables, and peas. Layered it all and voila! I'm sure Emily (English friend) would not have been very impressed. But for a camping American, it was great! We had hot chocolate afterwards instead of the apple pie, which was on the menu. We were all too full! lol Lorrie and I took care of the dishes and 
Amy did some organizing and hung the food bag. We watched sunset and spent some time together exploring a little. The view from this campsite is INCREDIBLE! It's elevated above the water and the view is framed perfectly by trees. We didn't see any, but there was evidence of beaver activity. That would have been an interesting animal to see in the wild! We'd seen numerous dams but no beavers. /= We're
in bed at 9pm as we plan to get up very early to hike over to Rose Waterfall and watch sunrise from there. Before going to sleep, we talk about our high point and low point! heheh My high point was my successful portage. I was pretty proud of myself!
I'm also supposed to note Lorrie's fall when we were unloading the canoe here. )= I laughed like an idiot. My stupid disorder! It's like Tourette's or something. She was bruised a little but not injured. Phew! Can you imagine if I laughed and she got injured. What a jerk!
Lorrie started out in stern (rear) position steering and Amy was in bow (front). This worked for me since my arms wer
e killing me. Lorrie took us in 2 or 3 circles before we got going forward! heheh We basically had to head straight across the lake to a beach area where there was a little inlet into our next lake, Little Gunflint. We weaved and circled our way over there. Lorrie was trying to decide if she should keep trying to steer. But when we got to the entrance to the inlet, she said, "No way!" lol It was really narrow and windy. I guess she figured we'd be bouncing back and forth from shore to shore like a pinball. I probably would have peed my pants laughing so it was a good choice! lol So Amy went to stern and Lorrie to bow. I stayed at Duffer. Great for sightseeing, I gotta tell ya. Although being in bow is great too because stern does all the steering. So you can just paddle and not worry much about where you're going... unless there's a rock or something in the way. Maybe that's only the case when you have a guide! lol If we were out here alone, we'd both have to be paying close attention! (= Anyway, lots of swampy beauty here. Gazillions of lilypads. Amy and Lorrie had a discussion about which lilypad was edible on top. One they agreed was edible at the root but neither were sure about the top. I just thought they were pretty. I'm pretty unlikely to dive down to the bottom to dig up a root to eat at this point. Maybe that information will come in handy in the future! Little Gunflint was definitely a little lake. Within what seemed like a short time we were heading into our next inlet. This one is extremely narrow and often has too little water to paddle, which would mean our first portage. There seemed to be enough water so they were going for it. One interesting thing was that it was "flowing" like a river against us. Amy gave us the disclaimer that "campers" are not supposed to go on white water at all. This was far from white water but she was covering her ass. She told Lorrie to speed up her strokes so they could paddle against the current. Immediately upon entering the inlet we hit ground. lol It bears mentioning that feeling the rocks on my ass was pretty funny! Perhaps I was just giddy this morning! A
definitely possibility! ANYWAY, Amy told Lorrie to get out so they could pull it. I started to get out and she told me I could stay in there! HA! So Princess Jennifer was pulled through this gorgeous inlet by two women in life jackets! The photo shows my view. I did a few "float waves" and then settled down. Like I said... giddy! We made it out of the inlet without issue and were into Little North Lake. We circled around the entrance a little. Apparently there was a train station there at one point. We saw the platform under water but couldn't make out the tracks. That was pretty interesting. Something about our logger history and everything ending up under water once the ice melted. Apparently in the winter, they would build tracks on the ice to transport logs and such. We crossed Little North Lake and it seemed like we were getting more into the wilderness like we wanted. Before we would see people periodically and now it felt like we were totally alone. From Little North Lake to North Lake there was an 80 Rod portage. 1 Rod = 1 canoe. Lorrie decided there was no time like the present to learn how this whole thing works. So we heaved the canoe onto her shoulders and off she went! AWESOME! Amy carried the lighter Duluth Pack and the day pack. I carried the heavier Duluth Pack, a paddle and the Nalgene bottles. I was directly behind Lorrie and 
I have to say that it was amazing to see her carrying the canoe like that. We had practiced taking steps with it at Camp Menogyn. But that is completely different than carrying it on a trail, with rocks and such. Just amazing! And she just did it. No comment, no question, no whining. Done! lol She did the whole thing then bridged at the water so Amy could put it in. It was extremely rocky there so I would say an excellent choice to let the guide do that part. If it was just us, we would likely have set it down then carried it upright with each of us on one end into the water. Amazing!After that, we were going to have lunch but decided to cross North Lake first and eat on the other side. I took over the bow position with Amy still at stern. We, by Amy's report, crossed the lake at about 3 mph, which she basically said was unexpected for a couple of old ladies! lol She was more diplomatic than that of course! I felt stiff for just a few moments and then seemed to loosen up pretty quickly. It almost felt better to be moving my arms again than it did for them to be still. We crossed over the lake and went for a little beach in the calmest clearest water I have ever seen in my life. We could see what I think were walleye swimming around near the bottom among huge boulders created by glaciers. Just amazing! We pulled onto the beach then. I should mention that one of the Menogyn rules is that the canoe bottom does not touch the ground. So the person in bow position has to jump out into the water before the canoe gets close enough to touch rocks. Basically our feet are always wet. That's not such a big deal. But it's difficult getting used to jumping onto uneven slippery rocks. The general tendency is to set one foot out and try to stop like that. But there are lots of potential "splitting" injuries that can occur that way. So the best way is to jump out, both feet first, and just grab the canoe. I have NOT perfected this move by this stop! lol So it feels very uncoordinated.
But I do get out and I do keep the canoe from hitting anything. I have done my job! (= This beach and campsite and beautiful! I almost wished we were at the end of the day so we could just stay here! We were getting a little loopy by this time. We were all hungry and definitely thirsty. I, for one, should have been drinking more water. Then Amy said we all should have already drank 1 Nalgene bottle. Oops! I don't think any of us had drunk even half. Not good. Dizzy giggly women trying to park a canoe on slippery rocks. Hmm! For lunch we had a conglomeration: Matt food, chunk of chocolate, hummus, pemmican, cheese chunks, tortillas, dried (rock hard) fruit, salami cut on the paddle, and trail bread. The trail bread was given to us, and everyone else going on trail, yesterday. It's a bon voyage tradition. The hummus was fun for me! It was dried so we just had to add water into the plastic bag. Easy right? Ha! Remember... I don't spend much time in the kitchen! lol I dumped what I thought was a little bit of water in the bag. I look up and both Lorrie and Amy are laughing at me. I don't get it! lol Amy said that I had put the exact right amount of water in there but that dumping it in all at once was not recommended. HA! Well if it's right, it's right! (= It actually did need more water. But it was pretty good. That might have been my favorite part of lunch. Lorrie's was the chocolate! lol The bread and cheese were good too. I have to mention that we brought 3 big chunks of cheddar cheese out here. Whoever said that cheese has to be refrigerated!?? lol Not so! It gets a little slimey after a couple days. But still tastes good. Apparently they eat it out on their very long trips as well. I would really like to see that! Amy said if we do that not to touch the cheese because it feels gross and maybe that it does something to the cheese. I can't remember. I'm sure it's extremely slimey! lol ANYWAY, we finished eating and were feeling a little less loopy. Amy was going down to the canoe to get something and she slipped on one of the rocks. She hit her lower back on the point of a rock. Ouch! I know that bruised! I, of course, laughed! What is wrong with me!!?? So then we had to explain to her my "laughing when others fall" disorder. It's from watching too much "Jackass" and "America's Funniest Home Videos!" As we got ready to leave I couldn't find the "biff." In that case, we take a little shovel and dig ourselves a little hole to bury everything in. (= Nice eh?!The portage from lunch was about 1/2 mile so I paddled over there. Then I carried the canoe on the 60 Rod portage. It was up and down, rocky, and the worst, roots! I hate roots on mountain bike and now I hate them on portages. They get so slippery and there's no rhyme or reason to them. It was pretty difficult. I rarely use my shoulders in that way so I was dying by the end. Even when I work out I am weak on shoulder lifts. But now I know the importance of working harder on them! (= I also need more experience in getting it well balanced. I know it would have hurt less had it been in the "sweet spot." But it wasn't and I still made it. I did the same thing at the end and let Amy portage it into the water. I don't feel sure-footed enough to take that on in the rocks and such.
Lorrie took over paddling duties in the bow position. Poor Amy, she was still in stern. That's why she gets paid the big bucks I guess! (= Just as we were pulling out into the water, Amy or Lorrie saw a moose standing right by the entrance. It was amazing! He was younger and had no antlers. But I could still see his power. He just watched us... seemingly to make sure we kept going away from him. But continued eating and never really flinched. Wow! I believe he was on the Canada side. My first moose!! We also saw a huge number of loons. This is sad since I grew up in Minnesota and they are the state bird... but I did not know that they could dive and swim under water. Amy said they also have some difficulty flying compared to other birds. Hmm! We also came very close to a Blue Heron, who flew away quickly. Lorrie was extremely happy about that one! (= As we paddled along, we ran into another guide from Menogyn who was on a personal trip with friends. We let them pass and they stayed ahead... further and further ahead! lol After crossing North Lake, we had a 4 rod portage into Rose Lake. We tried to just pick up the canoe with everything in it. Futile! LOL It must of have looked funny! So we unloaded most of the stuff and then just hauled the canoe, upright, over to the other side where we re-loaded it and were off. Seems like it would be easy... and I guess it was but it was a pain to take everything out for such a short portage. About that time, clouds started rolling in a little. Nothing too scary but definitely noticeable. Not far off shore and a light sprinkle started. That turned into rain. Then Amy told us to turn around and look back at the black line on the water coming our direction. That was a downpour making it's way toward us! lol They paddled over toward the shore so we weren't out in the open for lightening. Thunder was incredible. It was crazy watching that line come at us and then it hit! Holy crap it hit! It was beautiful! But as duffer, I froze my ass off! It was basically Jennifer soup in the bottom of the canoe. Eventually my body temperature warmed up the water in the bottom on the canoe! lol But my exposed skin was cold and I was starte
d to chatter. We came across a "not so great" site that we decided to pass up. But that was not before Amy ran up to grab more camp booty... 2 towels and a water container. We put the towels, wet, over my legs and I felt 10x better! Back to paddling toward the "best" site. We finally got there and the other Menogyn guide had taken it! Doh! So off we go again. At this point we were on the opposite side of "Bottlecap Mtn," which incidentally looks a lot like a bottle cap! We finally got to the second campsite, which was unoccupied. Thank God!! The rain had stopped some so we got unloaded. I was soaked! Once everything was up at the campsite, we were able to get into our warm clothes. Immediate warmth! What a relief! We got the tent up and started getting things organized for dinner. Amy put up and extra rainfly to cook under in case it started raining again. We didn't end up needing it but it was useful for the clothesline it provided as well. All our wet things were hanging up there... unlikely to dry completely of course. Amy made shepherd's pie for dinner, which was incredible! I am loving trail food on this trip! We were pretty hungry so she made popcorn first as an appetizer. For the shepherd's pie, she used the same bisquick trick, hydrated some dehydrated potatoes, mixed vegetables, and peas. Layered it all and voila! I'm sure Emily (English friend) would not have been very impressed. But for a camping American, it was great! We had hot chocolate afterwards instead of the apple pie, which was on the menu. We were all too full! lol Lorrie and I took care of the dishes and 
Amy did some organizing and hung the food bag. We watched sunset and spent some time together exploring a little. The view from this campsite is INCREDIBLE! It's elevated above the water and the view is framed perfectly by trees. We didn't see any, but there was evidence of beaver activity. That would have been an interesting animal to see in the wild! We'd seen numerous dams but no beavers. /= We're
in bed at 9pm as we plan to get up very early to hike over to Rose Waterfall and watch sunrise from there. Before going to sleep, we talk about our high point and low point! heheh My high point was my successful portage. I was pretty proud of myself!I'm also supposed to note Lorrie's fall when we were unloading the canoe here. )= I laughed like an idiot. My stupid disorder! It's like Tourette's or something. She was bruised a little but not injured. Phew! Can you imagine if I laughed and she got injured. What a jerk!
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