The day started smoky! We could barely see across the lake. The loons didnt seem to mind, the went abiut loon business. This morning that was a group of three making loud calls and watching a single. Three is usually parenta and chick, but in this case that was a really big chick for July if it was one. I will post that vid on exit.
The paddling today was excellent with loght winds at our back all day, and by mid day the some had cleared. We ate lunch at a beautiful portage with cascading falls (our only portage so far) that vied for todays pic.
Today pic goes to the blueberries though. We finally hit some patches that were ripe. Flavor bombs not much bigger than a BB. Hope we get the predicted rain to flesh them out a bit (and oh yeah, non burning parks would be good too).
Today we saw one boat, no paddlers. We did see a real nice house and pass under some power line infrastructure. Strange mix of not quite wilderness and might as well be because no one is here.
A beaver spent some time eyeballing us as we set up camp, but didnt give us the tail slape and moved on out of our cove. I wasnt jumping in the water all day today to cool off as the weather turned awesome. But I did get a 1k swim in after putting up camp. Bonus health points.
Spent sone ot the quite moments here thinking about a comment my high school Y swimming boss (friend and friends mom too) made on Facebook not to long ago that went something like “if you want to hike as you age you have to work at it”.
She is right of course, but if this trip has taught me anything it is that I am aging. I am not too fond of having to admit that. But I am feeling it, and I really have a lot of active things on my retirement list. So all that common sense advice out there that tells you: cardo, streching, balance, weights – yeah, all that – I am going to try harder to make that part of the lifestyle I am living. This month is a year and a have on the road. It is going to be a challenge. Doing that work will be worth be able to keep doing this.