Something I have been doing for the past umteen years is to accompany the senior high group on a trip into the Minnesota Wilderness called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A great place to go an spend time reflecting on the great places that God created for his humans to enjoy. Each year, as I prepare to go I wonder how many more years He will allow me to go. This year was no different. I love the trip and enjoy it more and more each year. I enjoy being with the kids and sharing my knowledge and love of the out of doors.
We left from church on Sunday, July 20th, to travel as far as Mink Lake Camp for an overnight stay and to pick up the rest of our gear (our canoes, tents, cooking supplies, etc.).
On Monday morning we headed out to start our journey on Sawbill lake.
After canoeing the length of the lake we found that the campsites that we had planned to use were filled so our group backtracked and found a site for the night.
After setting up camp and the students taking their tread test
(they have to be able to tread for 20 minutes or they were a zipped up life jacket at all times) it began to rain. But in spite of the rain we had a great evening and awoke to a wonderfully beautiful sunny day. Chuck had told us that Tuesday would be a hard work day so we prepared ourselves and set out on our adventure. After the first portage, an 80 rod one, we had 3 more to go.
We missed the second 80 rod portage and took a little detour through
the marshes and over a beaver dam but ended up on the lake we were supposed to end up on. The next portage was to be a 110 which ended up to be about a 20 because the water was high and then the 180 rod portage. This was the one we really worked on for the day.
We ended up on Cherokee lake for the night and did a little swimming and laying around.
Our
site was up on a little incline and had a
beautiful view of the lake.
Wednesday dawned again with beautiful sunshine and the steam rising from the lake was a sight to behold.
We had only 3 portages this day and should have been a piece of cake. The first was a killer one and seemed to be harder than the 180 but we made it and the next was shorter and a little less of a work out.
The third took us by
some of the area that was affected by the blowdown. It was an amazing sight to see.
We stayed that night on South Temperance
and Chuck's group stayed on North Temperance.
Thursday was a little cloudy and rainy but we headed out for our last big day of canoeing.
We had a 10 rod portage passed a small waterfall
and then into Brule Lake. The lake seemed to go on forever but we finally made our campsite just before the wind picked up and the lake got a
bit choppy. We had plenty of time for naps and cards and farkle. On Friday morning we headed in to the landing where we met Steve who returned us to Mink Lake to clean up and head home. As always I was amazed at how much I could do and how fast the week went.
But again God is Good -- I made it without too many bumps or bruises!
Before Danya came home from the hospital a year ago we took a three generation picture and hope to take one every year as close to her birthday as we can. Here is this year's picture.
On our last evening together we decided we would take Danya and introduce her to carousels (Gary's grandmother loved to ride the state fair carousel when she was alive.). 
At first she wasn't sure but by the end was enjoying it (the lady running the ride allowed us to take two turns for the price of one -- it was even better when mommy could join us on the ride).
Laura and Danya have been here since Friday afternoon. We have spent a lot of time getting re-acquainted with our granddaughter and hearing all of the "mommy" stories from Laura.
