outside by the non-existent fire and Lorrie called me down to the lake. The sun was just rising over the bluff on the other side of the lake. It was gorgeous! Amy got up a little later, actually a lot later, and apologized for not waking up in time for sunrise at the waterfall. Said either her alarm didn't go off or we didn't hear it. We decided that she was already starting her crash from the summer since we were so much easier to lead than 12-year-olds. lol She was sleeping at least 10 hours a night! I doubt she was doing that with the kids. It was interesting how we developed a routine so quickly, just 2 days. Since Amy was always the last one awake, she got all her bedding and such packed up and taken care of before she came out of the tent. We would be outside milling around and then would start taking the food down from the tree branch and start untying the bags of food. She would come out and start working on breakfast. I would go into the tent and pack up Lorrie's and my bedding then Lorrie and I would start taking down the tent. We basically packed everything up and put it together but then left it next to the Duluth Packs for Amy to pack. This morning breakfast was egpocheese, which I'm sure you can guess was eggs, potatoes, and cheese. I liked it, Lorrie thought it was okay. Nothing special
but I'm easy to please when it comes to food! Breakfast done, Lorrie did dishes and I piddled around getting things packed up. We all put off as long as possible getting back into our wet clothes. Brrr! But once they were on it wasn't too bad. It's true about wool, it stays wet forever but it still keeps you warm. My socks never dried but my feet were always warm. Next time maybe I'll just wear wool all over! (= Got everything down the stairs to the canoe, which was a little challenging with the Duluth Packs. Going up seems to have been easier yesterday. You can see in the photo, not only the lovely cyclist's tan, but also a bit of the Duluth Pack and the steps I had to walk down. We paddled about a mile to the next portage, which would take us up to the waterfall we missed this morning and then on into Rose Lake. The plan was to take every up up up, then down to the other side, then to come back up to see the waterfall. I think it was an 80 Rod portage but what I do know is that there were gazillions of stairs, rocks, and roots. There was one step that was about 2 feet high. No big deal... unless you have an 85 pound canoe on your shoulders or a 50 pound Duluth Pack on your back! We elected Amy canoe carrier for this one and Lorrie and I took the rest. It was humid and sticky, my clothes were still wet, and we climbed. FUN!!! lol It was definitely difficult! But it's why we were there. There were several different groups on this particular portage. Probably the most people we had seen at one time the whole trip. One of the groups was a Menogyn group with 2 male leaders, 2 12-yr-olds, and a 13-yr-old. One of the kids was coming down where we were getting ready to go up. He had a Duluth Pack on his back, which was more than half his height. He was bent over at the waist... and he was flying with the force of gravity!! lol It was so funny. But he did it! And that was cool! Another kid came down with his pack and the guides sent them both back up to help out the third boy. Once their packs were off, they walked with this cocky swagger! I assumed that the successed they were experiencing was increasing their confidence and I thought that was great. Hell, I felt the same way! But I can control my 12-year-old swagger... usually! (= I don't think Lorrie enjoyed this portage as much as I did. But she finished it and then was fine. As we were walking up toward the waterfall, Amy was coming back down and asked if we wanted to earn some trail karma. To do so, we had to walk back where we had just come and help others portage their gear. Lorrie and I just looked at each other and followed her... with Lorrie flipping her off, with both hands!, for a few feet. lol Doesn't she know we're old!!?? Anyway, we did offer to help but they had everything carried already. Phew! (= So back
up toward the waterfall. Finally! If I hadn't heard them, I could have begun to think they didn't really exist since we seemed to keep avoiding them. But there they were! It was really beautiful! A little smaller than I expected... though why should I expect anything!? There were quite a few people in there so we waited a bit for it to clear out then jumped in. I'm not good at not showering. I can do it and I can handle it. But if there's an opportunity, I'm likely going to take it. We didn't use soap or anything but just to stand under "running" water felt so cleansing! I sat there for a long time just letting it run through my hair and over me. Lorrie used the taller stream.... she's a little smarter than me! lol But the photo was too dark. )= Stupid disposables. She was naked too. So, unless you were there, you missed out! (-; Afterwards, we climbed up above the waterfall and laid in the sun on a rock to dry out a little. What a view of Rose Lake! Wow! Neither Lorrie nor I wanted to be right on the edge so we found a big flat rock a little away from the edge to hang out. It must have been about 45 minutes that we sat there. I actually felt a little bored at first and just wanted to keep moving. But I took a couple breaths and realized I was there to slow down too. So I laid back and ended up falling asleep! Amy showed up eventually and off we went. I was feeling a little groggy! Good thing we weren't near the edge. Once we got down by the canoe, we decided to eat there rather than canoe to another campsite and unpack again. So we sat there and ate what was left of our lunch compilation. Actually we didn't even finish everything! Lorrie preferred the pemmican and Matt food. I tried to eat the dried fruit but it was much too hard. So I went back to hummus and salami or tortillas. The food that we didn't eat goes into a "seconds" bin, which Menogyn staff can use on their personal trips. I thought we should have gotten it since we paid 
for it! (= Back in the canoe to cross Duncan lake to our final portage into Bearskin Lake. As we were leaving the portage area, Amy spotted another moose! This one had antler though was apparently also quite young. It's in the photo... I swear! Toward the middle you can see the brown. They do blend well. Next time I will have my own camera so I can zoom. ::sigh:: That was very frustrating. And it was our last photo! Anyway, I did get to see my second moose and I seem to be graduating in size. Maybe I'll see an adult next time! Crossing Duncan Lake was uneventful and we got to the portage with no difficulty. My only thing was that I still can't really see the portage openings when I'm out in the water. I don't see the breaks in the landscape. They're on the maps too but I can see myself missing them periodically. Even Amy mentioned several that they had missed on various trips. Something to work on! Lorrie decided to take the canoe on this last portage. Amy had said it was much easier than the others. Ha! It was still 80 Rods and the terrain was certainly not even. I guess they're all hard right now since we're so new to the whole thing. We were both tired so we had agreed that she would "bridge" about halfway so that I could take it the rest of the way. She ended up carrying it the whole way! (= I took one of the packs and some misc stuff. At the end she bridged and I took it and helped her lay it down. Then we decided to just take it into the water right side up with both of us at an end. We agree that Amy was not far behind and was just hanging back so we could do that on our own. I thought that was pretty good guiding. I'm glad she felt comfortable doing that stuff with us as adults. As she came out into the open, she said we were doing a good job and then walked into the water to dump her pack into the canoe. It was cute. I guess that's how it should work. One person carries the canoe into the water, flips it right side up and the rest follow behind with packs to dump right in rather than having to set them on the ground. Smooth! Anyway, we got everything in. Lorrie had thought about trying to steer again but we all decided it would be bad for her hand. So I decided to give it a shot. It was only about 2 miles so I figured I could handle it. Steering is HARD!! No wonder Amy was so tired! lol It's constant J- and C-strokes to turn left or right. I couldn't quite get the J-stroke at first but started to get the hang of it eventually. The C-stroke was easy but I couldn't just keep doing that or we'd go in circles. We did a LOT of weaving at first but then I got better at it. The funny thing to me was that Lorrie had such strong strokes that whatever I did was exaggerated. So a C-stroke on the right side should turn us left. But we would go WAY left because I didn't know how to adapt to her strength. We figured it out eventually. Basically, I told her to be a little weaker. lol So I finished up the trip in stern with Lorrie at bow. Apparently that's a tradition at Menogyn as well. The guide starts the trip at stern but by the time they come back, they should either be at bow or a duffer. I think that's a good tradition. I had to maneuver around an outcropping and then into the "harbor" where the dock is. Then I had to avoid a rock that sticks out of the water, which they call Kilaminjaro. But I gently got us to the dock... and we were done.We stepped out and unloaded, then got the canoe out of the water to put it on the rack. I couldn't sauna because of the Boba potential and Lorrie chose not to. So we all jumped into the lake to cool off. Some of the Menogyn staff were swimming across the lake from where we had parked my car. Wow! I think they said it was about a mile. That swim was very nice and refreshing! Afterwards we jumped out and started sorting our gear. Lorrie and I did the dishes for the last time. We were laughing because in a normal situation, paying for a guide would mean they take care of those details. We were getting a little snooty! But we went with the YMCA so we got to fend for ourselves! That's okay. We definitely learned a lot. I had take the approach that this was "canoe school" so learning was the whole point. Amy hung the tent and Duluth Packs to dry and air out. The tent looked very cool strung up like that. But I had no more photos left so you just have to imagine it. We got the stuff, our clothes, etc that we'd left behind at camp and went up to the lodge for a proper shower. I couldn't find deodorant or shampoo so I had to use Lorrie's. Thank God she had brought some. She had originally planned to use mine! That would have been awful after looking so forward to being clean. After I got cleaned up, I was out getting some water in the cafeteria when one of the youth workers asked if I was there for the welcome back. I said we'd just gotten in today without finishing that we'd been on trail and they all went on to describe the epic skit they had developed and were planning to perform. At the time, I was surprised that they would do that for us. But Amy had said they always plan some kind of welcome back thing. Lorrie and I had talked about leaving before dinner so we could get closer to or all the way home that night. I went back to the room and told her we had to stay because they were doing some kind of skit for us. Dinner was pasta primavera, corn on the cob, salad, and bread. It was basically just staff there so about 1/4 the number of people as when we first arrived. Much more intimate! Turned out the skit was for the next day when the long trippers come back from their 30-40 days trips. For us coming back... we all got dessert... spice cookies. *That* made much more sense than doing a skit for us. lol Everyone thanked us for coming back so they could have dessert. (= It was cute! After dinner we got our bags together and headed down to the dock for our ride back across the lake. We waited quite awhile because of a potential ice cream run that we were going to catch a ride with. Apparently it wasn't getting organized very quickly! The St. Olaf guy came down while we were talking to the nurse and asked if we were waiting for a ride. So he took us across without the ice cream people.
Back to the car and we decided to stop for our own ice cream at the little stand on Gunflint Trail. Good thing I had my lactaid with me! (= I drove to Grand Marais, about 30 minutes. We stopped there to get Lorrie some coffee so she could drive. I was suddenly exhausted! Sven and Ole's was out of coffee AND cappucino. So she ended up with a diet coke. Yuck! lol She drove to Duluth where we stopped at a Motel 6. Because of the Blues Festival, there were no rooms anywhere! They gave her a couple phone numbers and we ended up with a reservation in Hinckley about an hour further south at Golden something casino. I can't remember. lol All I know is that I was asleep when we pulled into Motel 6, I woke up for approximately 6 minutes, and as soon as she said we were going on I fell asleep again only to wake up once we got to the casino hotel! We were both exhausted so we went inside and collapsed.
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