Success!!!!!! Strap in for the longest blog post of all time

Well. We made it there and back. Alive. No casualties. Unless you count the little red squirrels, who I am sure died from eating/stealing all of our snacks.

There was very very VERY minimal complaining. I think Miles said he was bored once in the canoe. And that was because Ryan and I kept talking about some kind of weird plant. Which I found out later was a Pitcher plant. AND it's carnivorous. So...once we told him the plant ate bugs and stuff...the bitching ceased.

There were several stops along the way. Duluth's pier to skip rocks. Two Harbor's lighthouse to walk onto the lake. Etc.

This is out on the walkway. Our friends the Stewart's joined us for the trip.

Once we set up and got our dinner out of the way, the fire was going, and then....boom...thunder. And then rain. Not downpour rain like folks in the cities got, but rain. And camping+rain+kids=meh...

We all went to bed. And then the rain really kinda kicked in. The first morning, Claire and I woke up at 4:00. Don't know how that happened, but it did. Not that I'm completely sure about that time because as anyone who camps can tell you, camp time is different than real world time.

Either way....no one else was up and Claire didn't want to go to the "outhouse" alone. (Geez wonder why? Couldn't have been her father's verbalization of his MAJOR fear of falling into the hole. Thus being covered head to toe in shit, and not being able to get out. The girl hung onto me for dear life each time. Thanks honey.) So we meandered down to the lake and looked for the loon calling out. It was a beautiful morning. And Claire loved the quiet time with me.



*Creepy side note...on the way back to camp, we passed some dude at a vacant site. He had a car and a huge duffle bag. No tent. I asked him what time it was and when he looked up, I wanted to run, but that would have left Claire to fend for herself, and that made me a bad mom. But the dude was creepy-kill-you-in-the-woods-and-bury-you-in-the-Boundary-Waters kinda dude. Oh it was 5am by then.*

Thus began the day of rain rain rain. It rained steadily all day long. We were wet. Soaked all the way through. But you know, once you're wet, you're wet and then who cares. Until you try to go to sleep and warm up. Now that's a bitch.

We took the kids on a "nature hike". There was not much else to do. We hiked all over the place. We hiked until we couldn't follow any trails anymore. Which was nice. The kids just played together the entire time. There were a lot of stupid songs made up.....example..."cha cha cha cha cha CHA! We are big fat people!" I didn't care for this one by the way. Also there was some kind of Gummy Bear song. I don't remember the words, but there was something about a gummy bear coming to kill you with a knife. All courtesy of the Stewart kids. Cause you know I don't teach my kids that shit. We're more of a bodily function song type of family. All class...all the way.

Well the day progressed with Glenn singing the Black Eyed Peas, and Ryan trying to eliminate the song from his head by telling everyone they had the "Final Countdown" in their head...and as soon as that happend.....we all busted out with ...do do do dooooo doodle do do doooooooo. Annoying. But constant non-stop rain can do that to a person.

I'm not kidding check it out.

In the evening the rain stopped and the sky cleared. And it was glorious! By the following morning, we did pancakes and the youngest Stewart was pacing back and forth yelling, "CLAIRE!!!! CLAIRE!!!!! ROCK!!!!" He's 2. And Claire was the last to wake up. Lorien was the only one who could get her out of bed by promising to make her Minnie Mouse pancakes.

We finally got to canoe. The kids were really excited about it. Glenn and Lor brought their own, we rented. We spent several hours on the water and then their youngest and Claire fell asleep. And the winds picked up. Makes for difficult canoeing when you're paddling against the wind with many kids in a canoe. But they loved it. Claire sat in front with me and told me, "she never wanted to stop." Miles on the other hand was itching to get back to his friends in the other canoe.


Just after portaging and the kids are waiting for Ryan to get in.

The Stewart family!

We ate lunch on a little island and the guys stayed in the canoes. There was no place to dock them. So we counted on them to hold the canoes in place. Aren't we nice?



We did pretty well canoeing wise. The kids seemed to be much happier when they were ALL in Ryan's and my canoe. I mean...I imagine we were sitting pretty low in the water.

That night was nice. The kids did a lot of playing together...and the adults, well, we tried to get ready to go. The kids were obsessed with the lightsabers and the bakugan games. Claire and E were reading the princess magazines too. And the littlest Stewart was over the top with the cleaning of the big rock at our site. He wiped the bird poop off the rock multiple times.




There was also an attempt at swimming, but once Ryan and Glenn got off the rocks and sunk shin deep in muck....the skirts came out and they were all, "Oh my God! Ugh...this is gross. Everyone out!"

We then showered after making dinner. Cause 3 days of bug spray and sunblock made for a very greasy looking SJT. It was NASTY. Upon arriving at the showers we ran into tons and tons of Chinese teens. I swear I was transported to Disneyworld with how many Asians were there. Who knew the hot spot for Asians with cameras was Disney and the BWCA.

On Sunday it was time to go. Ryan and I packed up super fast because we noticed the clouds were rolling in. And sure as shit...it started to rain as our friends were starting to pack up. Thankfully Ryan and I were done, so we were able to help our friends.

On the road again headed home. Everyone stunk and was tired. But we had 2 way radios and there was monkeybusiness to be had. Apparently we weren't the only ones with them. And we ended up offending some dudes with boats. Really. Lor and my conversation "upset" them. Seriously. And apparently they didn't care for 5 year olds asking each other, "What are you doing?" over and over again.

I have to say..the trip was amazing. Claire cried that we left. She didn't want to go. She's going to be our outdoorsy kid. Miles cried because he was lonely for his friends.

Two tips when travelling to the BWCA...when it rains there are few bugs and ticks! Win!!! And on the way home, it is imperative you stop to have lunch/dinner at Pizza Luce in Duluth. That or Hell's Burgers. Both delish.