Camping With My Parents

Well it has been awhile since I have written, seeing as everyone else here has decided to pitch in and add their voice to the blog. That being the case I decided I would grab today's slot to write a little bit about my latest trip into the BWCA with my parents. Earlier this spring when I was telling my mom about our days off and scheduling, she decided she would really like to go on a trip into the BWCA with me...My dad was not quite as enthusiastic. Nonetheless we began to plan and decided to head in off Clearwater right after I got off work on Sunday, and stay out for 3 nights. As I have never had dehydrated foods on my trips with friends, I opted to plan the menu and prepared a list of food for my mom to buy and pack. My dad however, fearful that we were going to starve added in plenty of "extras"… I’m fairly certain we could have stayed out there another 3 days on the food we had. My parents came up to the cabin on Friday and came over Saturday afternoon to go sort through gear and food, and make plans for departure the next day. We had some good laughs decided what to bring and what to leave behind. Despite laughter, some bossiness and disagreements, we finally had everything pretty well figured out.
Sunday dawned… gray, overcast, with on-and-off again showers… it did not look like the best day for heading out. My parents showed up, we started getting packed up as it drizzled out, then the sun came out and our hopes went up… however not 40 ft from the dock it started to drizzle, and then proceeded to pour. Needless to say the portages were wet, muddy, and mosquito laden as we made our way to Pine Lake. As we had such a late start, we were all tired, and worried about not getting a camp site, but luck was with us and the first site on Pine was open and we took it as ours.
The next couple days were a lot of fun. We went fishing most of Monday, paddling a ways down pine, and fishing at the worst time of the day simply because we wanted to be on the lake. We didn't get many bites, but my dad did manage to pull in 2 decent walleyes, one got away right by the boat. Tuesday was much of the same; we hung around camp for awhile in the morning, napping in the sun and talking or reading. We decided to try fishing again, along the opposite shore this time, hoping for better luck. Even though it is blasphemy to say this up here, I really don't fish, and had decided to get my fishing license finally before this trip. My dad claims that I had a fish at one point on Tuesday, but me not knowing any better thought that I was getting snagged on a rock and jerked the line right out of its mouth apparently… I'm still skeptical.
Despite my dad’s fear of going hungry, we had some great meals; including camp fire pizzas and BWCA cake from the bakepacker. We also had some really nice little fires in our fire pit. Thankfully because of the rain there are very few fire restrictions this year, and it is wonderful to be able to enjoy a fire and a cup of tea or coco at night.

On one of our forages behind the camp for fire wood, my dad spotted these little purple flowers; we believe they are some kind of wild orchid. Very pretty!

One of our constant sources of entertainment or interest over the 3 days was the loons nesting on the island about 20ft off our campsite. It was very neat to watch the mates taking turns sitting on the eggs, swimming buy our camp site, and fishing right off the point of the island; never far from each other. Their calls at night and in the morning were very soothing and a quintessential part of the north woods.
As morning dawned on Wednesday, our day to go home… we awoke to torrential down pouring rain. Instead of trying to leave we decided to wait it out, added a second tarp to our already built rain-fly, and sat down to eat some breakfast. After a while it lightened up and we headed out. By the time we were on the water the sun was coming out strong. Despite some small hang-ups, like deflating sleeping mats, stuck zippers on tents, forgetting essential pieces of paper, we had a great trip. I know others may wonder at the decision of going on a trip with parents, I always enjoy my parents, they are a riot and I would take them (or rather go with them) any time!



-AJ