the Adirondacks

The Second Journey 

(twice as long as the first, therefore in two parts, each consisting of, as before, twelve short chapters)

Part 1 

I 

After our sprint down Long Lake and the Raquette River (see previous post), we reenter civilization.

First stop: the Raquette River Outfitters. We're changing canoes. The Royalex will be cheaper and sturdier than the Kevlar we'd been using. We can pull the Royalex up on sand and not fret every time we go over a branch or near a rock. [On the downside, there will be short-ish portages and the Royalex is twice as heavy!]

And I want to retrieve my water bottle (left in the jeep that took us to the put in)! Sharing Ed's has been tough. He drinks like a whale so we have to purify with iodine. The river water has gunk in it and it just doesn't look refreshing, made worse by white bits of pill floating inside. With my own bottle, I make do with what we boil in the morning and at night.

Ann (co-owner of the Outfitters and an extraordinarily helpful soul) is surprised to see us. We were to do the First Journey in three to four days and we did it in two. Why the push? Why the impressive but somewhat manic paddle? 

I suppose to escape the mosquitoes. On the river, our choices are -- paddle, or sit in a zipped up tent. We hoped for fewer bugs by the wind battered lakes.

I write my (previous) post at the Well Dressed Food Cafe -- a newcomer to the village of Tupper Lake. It's an extremely friendly and likable spot and my smoothie is like a nosedive into the luxury of yogurt and fresh fruit.


II 

For the Second Journey, we take the canoe to the put in point at Bog River, just above the damn. It's late. The Ocean update took time; Ed, as always, never hurried me or complained, but it is 3:21 when we push off and, too, it's Saturday. Finding a place to pitch a tent will be a challenge.

Let's concentrate on the beauty of the river at the point that we join it.


 



III 

Ah, but let's not limit the challenges to just finding a place to pitch a tent!

For the first time, we are paddling upstream and against a strong breeze.

Navigation is also a major challenge. On the Raquette River, we watched for the current: where it went, we went, ignoring the side inlets, streams and stillwaters. That's not so easy now and within thirty minutes I get us lost in a boggy, murky nothing.

Tick tock, tick tock...

You have the map: tell me the compass direction -- Ed says, with the patience that is his hallmark. Don't say left or right. West? How many degrees? 
Maybe 15 degrees to the south of west...
Call it what it is: 255 degrees. What's the magnetic adjustment? 

I'm learning!

Too, there are the black flies. They are not to be deterred. Every time we come near a bog, we pick up a few and they follow us until Ed swats them dead.

And of course, our portages are now tougher. Heavy canoe! Ed carries the boat, I become mule extraordinaire and carry all five dry bags on my shoulders.

And we have to push the canoe through a moving bog. Who knew bogs were mobile?!





But we're okay!


IV 

I get nervous about finding a place to stay. It's getting late. There are so few spots to pitch a tent here! What if? What if?
 

We pass a canoist retreating from the trip we're just starting.
Hey! I shout...
Great weather! -- he shouts back.
I see you're leaving. Where were you camping?
Over on 18 -- by the lake. (The numbering system is exquisite: it tells you where you can pull ashore and it assists you with navigation when you're more lost than you care to admit.) But someone took it already.
I groan.
We passed number 12 though. On the river. It's empty and gorgeous!
My heart soars.

An hour later we find it: it is empty and it is gorgeous!





Ed mutters: a beautiful Saturday in the middle of July and no one is here.

I have to admit that it surprises me as well how underused these wilderness areas are. Every city person would do well (it seems to me) to sooth a frazzled soul here. Sure, it's nearly five hours from NYC, but I know many a Wisconsinite or Minnesotan who would regularly drive that distance for an escape up north.

Where is everyone?

Ed gets the burner ready for our dinner, I sit back and take it all in. The flies are gone, the mosquitoes -- almost nonexistent. I thought we got lucky yesterday with our camping. But this!

Yes, this.












VI 


Waking up in this most beautiful spot along the Upper Bog River is like waking in a sanctuary. The Douglas Firs (I don't think I'm wrong with that label) tower above us. The carpet of dry needles is soft. On three sides we are handed water views. Misty morning water views.
 





This moment is, of course, what we look for when we face the wilderness.






The breeze is lively and refreshing. We "shower" again with our all purpose little pot. The water is cool, but the feeling of warmth after is sublime.

(A selfie moment!)






We eat breakfast outside, of course. It feels like this is our highest point, in a whole string of high notes -- as if we've reached our experiential summit.











VII 

Nothing grand comes freely. Really nothing.

As we paddle out, promptly at 9, I keep an eye on the sky. These are to be our days of storms, but I don't see it. We glide under a hazy blue sky.

But we surely have the wind in our face. And the current. We're working hard to move forward.

And it gets tougher as we paddle out onto Low's Lake. The breeze gains in stature. I would now call it a wind and it whips the water around us, so that the crossing feels more like a ride in a water park than a gentle paddle.


VIII 

The goal is to find a place to pitch our tent -- for one night, maybe two, if the weather deteriorates. Yes, there are clearings that stand empty, but after a night in a temple, I'm not going to be satisfied with a buggy, stuffy, murky landing.

And yet, there is this: when I look up and down the long lake, it's nearly always empty. It's because these wilderness areas aren't accessible by power boats and right now, I do believe America has a love affair with speed on water -- big boats, small boats, but with power! Surely they outnumber canoes and kayaks 1000 to 1! (In Poland, those numbers would be reversed.)  Surely we'll find some place to hunker down!

Ah, but we're up against pros. People here paddle smart. They have maps. They know to avoid sites near bogs, dark woodsy spaces, still waters and murky shores. 

The lake is long and wide. Ann had identified two spots as places of great camping beauty, but both are taken.

We paddle to the end of the lake. We portage over a short isthmus. We hit bogs. Black flies buzz around our canoe. We enter a still bay. There are spaces here for camping. I hate them all.

We've gone too far.  Everything at this end feels remote. I want the wind from the lake, not this graveyard of fallen timbers!

Are we able to pull off another bit of magic?

Nope.


IX 

At least -- not on our own. As we retreat back up this most beautiful lake..
  





... we run into her:







She's a forest ranger and she paddles the remote lakes and rivers to check on sites and the people who come through here. She tells us -- I just came from landing number 27. It's empty and it's lovely.






And it is.

No, it offers no pillars to the heavens above, but it has a lovely clearing, it's gusty with the lakeside breezes and is virtually bug free and best of all -- it has a strip of sandy beach that gently slopes into the lake.

We throw down our gear and plunge into the water.

And then Ed dives under and loses his glasses in the deeper part of the lake.

I sweep my feet across the bottom, barely touching the murky sand and come across something thin. Could be glasses. No, a branch.

Try again.

Luck, sheer luck directs my feet to where they are. [To Ed's credit, he does travel with a spare set, but you can bet anything that he'd be diving there still, if he knew one rested on the bottom of the lake.]


X 

The weather stays good. Our tent is up. We're refreshed. Both Ann and the ranger suggested a hike up the mountain that juts out behind us. The ranger, a woman nearly our age, is blunt about it: you'll do some weed whacking and rock climbing to get up there, but it's worth it. Take some food or a couple of drinks up with you. It's fantastic!

I smile at the idea of Ed and I, scaling cliffs, aperitifs in hand!

We keep it light. Just water and a camera.


XI 

You have to paddle to a boggy, murky, buggy spot to find your way up the mountain. But we wouldn't have done the climb if it wasn't for the fact that a couple from Albany was there before us. They made all the mistakes and took all the wrong turns before us, so that by the time we showed up, they spared us a repeat of their errors.

So, a wonderful climb, right?

Wrong. As we reach the rocky upper section, I'm thinking: isn't it ironic that I just sent emails to daughters (curiously, our campsite is the only place along the entire lake where I am able to pick up cell service) that the dangers are all behind me? Wouldn't it be so terribly pitiful for them to then receive a call with the message that "your mom is sprawled at the bottom of the cliffs overlooking Low's Lake?"

There is no trail, though some good hearted soul tied a piece of orange plastic to trees and if you followed these, you'll at least be in a good position to scale the boulders.

Wait a minute: scale the boulders, with drop offs where one slip puts you in touch with the grim reaper? 

That's so not me.

But Ed (in his $9.99 Walmart water shoes, no less) finds the possible landing spots along the cliffs and slowly, patiently, he guides me to them.

And yes, the view is grand.

 






See the thin strip of light brown to the right? That's a floating bog. It's tomorrow's challenge. Among others. Because believe it or not, the best and worst are yet to come.

Summit selfie:





The retreat is easier. We get down on our asses (Ed's terminology) and slowly slide our way to safety.


XII 

Dinner today is superb. Hungry as anything, Ed devours his pouch of dated pasta (but dated by only five years, as opposed to the beef stroganoff, which had an expiration date of 2003) and I do great justice to my pouch of mushroom risotto. What I leave behind, he finishes in the middle of the night. When I ask -- how was it?  He tells me -- better when it was warm.
 






Part 2, to be continued, tomorrow.

the Adirondacks

Discussion early this morning in tent on Low's Lake in the Adirondacks: should we pack gear and set out on a big exploration, given a 50% chance of thunderstorms this afternoon? See if you can guess how the votes align themselves.

To be continued tomorrow (posted via iPhone email).

Sent from my iPhone

The Adirondacks

I turn on my phone, testing, sparingly -- the battery life is short! Cell service! An email post is possible. Of the one sentence kind. My thought, summarizing the last two days: things you think will be easy often turn out to be tough as hell! Things you think are difficult can leave you gasping with disbelief -- at the beauty of it all.

Sent from my iPhone

the Adirondacks

The First Journey

A post in twelve brief chapters.

 I

There's a shack by the tip of Long Lake. It's owned and operated by a guy who moved here from the city (thirty years on the big island, then thirty on Manhattan and now here...). We stop for my morning coffee.






So, you have espresso...
Well, I'm out. I have decaf espresso. I'm guessing you don't want that.
I just want coffee. And we'll talk to each other. I'm referring here to the sign that says "no WiFi. Just talk to each other."

Ed and I have left over raisin bread and pepper jack cheese for breakfast.


II

We're riding in a jeep with a guy who is taking us and our kayak to the put in point.

My great great grandfather took a canoe up these lakes. 226 mile trip, in 1886. He kept a journal. Hey, his canoe is in the Adirondack Museum! You should go there. In the Fall, I'm going to follow his trail.

He's young -- he just joined the team at Raquette River Outfitters this year. In contrast, Ann and her partner Robbie, who own and run the place, have been doing this stuff for over thirty years: build, clean, rent, sell canoes. They know every put in point the region. They help us plan our trip.

We are impossible customers.
Royalite v. Kevlar canoe? 
We'll be okay with Royalite (cheaper!). 
But there's a 1.25 mile portage!
Let me lift it. Hmm. Still, you have to be so careful with the Kevlar.
It's a big portage.
We'll take the Kevlar (this from me).

On our first journey, we'll be going down Long Lake (day one), then following the Raquette River (day two), all the way to Tupper Lake (day three).
There are bugs on the river. You'll be okay once you get a fire going. Wear long pants.

No, I'm not taking long pants and we don't build fires. I grab her Balsam Ridge Herbals Extreme Summer Time Solution. We have the usual potent stuff, but I read recently that the oils are equally, if not more effective.






III 

First set of issues: Ed leaves his sun hat (essential!) in the car and I leave my water bottle (even more essential!) in the jeep that took us to the put in point.


IV 

Long Lake is well named! But out tip is pointing toward the Adirondacks.
You do not get views like this in the Midwest.






The water is clear. No algae. No run off. Luck New Yorkers. Someone worked hard to keep the supply of the City's drinking water clean. 


  



The raindrops make an appearance in the last hour, but they're gentle. Nonthreatening.

Long Lake permits speedboats of course and we do encounter them, but much more common are the skiffs, with a few guys fishing in them.






Do men talk about their wives in all the time they're on the boat?
Never.
Never?
Never - says my guy of great authority on the subject.
Maybe how to build a porch or put in a patio door?
Or what car to buy or politics.







We do not encounter a single paddler. And yet it's hard to find a take out point that's not occupied by a skiff. Ed had thought we'd just find random spots to land, but that's not the way it works here. Most of the shoreline is inaccessible. Either the bank is steep or it's boggy. When there's enough of a clearing to pitch a tent, there are markers announcing this. Some are just okay spots, some are unusually beautiful. But along Long Lake, most have a skiff nearby and unless you're desperate, you do not land where someone already has set in.






V 

At the tip of the Lake, our absolutely last chance for docking for the night, we find, in fact, a beautiful spot. Ann had told us of it -- it's not yet marked and it really is lovely.

 




The mosquitoes? Moderately dense. We've seen worse, but they are bad enough to keep us inside the tent. It is, to me, like the porch back home -- a safe haven.  As we pitch it and unpack, I smile at the routines we know so well! We've worked with this tent since backpacking trip two. (Trip one, in the Canadian Rockies had us in a leaky tent sized for 1.5 people. That would be all of Ed with little room for much else. This one is for two and fits us and our gear well.) It has protected us from bugs in Wisconsin, in Iowa and in the Upper Peninsula of  Michigan. We've slept in it in French speaking Quebec and French speaking France. In California, we pitched it under redwoods, in Scotland -- under Douglas firs. There's a sweet space for my flashlight an book (though here's an upgrade: no flashlight needed for a Kindle!). In these remote places, it feels like home.





VI 

On this first day, we barely paddled for four hours. Are we done now, in the early afternoon? It's raining. We dare not go further. It's hard to pitch a tent in the early miles of the Raquette River.

We head into the lake again... 






...then decide to explore a little at the river's beginnings. Lilies grow abundantly at the river's edge.










Ed navigates us toward some still water. All is quiet here. Except when it;s not and in a burst of anxious flight, a heron takes off. Quiet again. Then the stomp of something in the boggy water.
Want to get closer?
Can a moose or a bear swim?
Let's not disturb Mr. Big Splash further!


VII 

Ed takes out his ancient cooking gizmo and starts a flame. Out comes the even more ancient pot for boiling water, the ouches with our selected dinners -- Mac and Cheese today.





Shortly after, Ed falls asleep. On these adventuring outings, he so quickly loses himself to sleep that I sometimes wonder if this is what he looks for: the quiet mind that comes with the quiet landscape, from which there is no escape (because it's a long way to human contact).

For me, it's never really quiet the first night out. The rain on the tent, the plane above that sounds like thunder. The gallop.
What was that?
Deer probably.
Then deep, rhythmic breathing like sounds.
Ed? Do you hear it?
Uh huh.
What is it?
Frogs.

All night long, frogs huffed their rhythmic song.


VIII 

We wake to a glorious morning outside.

 


But who wants to leave the tent when there is a blanket of bugs clinging to the mesh, begging to come inside?

We watch them bounce and buzz. We tap the tent walls, they go into a tizzy then settle again.

As the sun begins to reach the forest grove, some of the bugs disperse. Enough for us to start moving. Familiar routines. Oatmeal, coffee. But inside. Bug free.





Fold tent, pack bags, set out.


IX 


Or maybe not? 

Get in the canoe? 





Not yet!





X 


And now we are on the river. I could take a thousand photos and none would look like the other. You'll see just one or two. I'm writing on the fly, in the few hours I have between trips. Here's the river's peaceful moment.





But there are many with a faster current. And then there are the famous Raquette Falls. We know about them and I am on the look out for the warning sign. (Will we miss it? Will we be thrown into the current?)

Of course, no one wants to lose a couple of tourists to the cascading river, so the sign is obvious and the take out point straightforward.

And now comes the moment of muscle truth -- the portage.

Ed takes the canoe and two of the light bags.






I take the three heavy sacks. Up the hill, then down again. A mile and a quarter, but it takes us forty minutes of huffing. I feel like the mule that I am, with my bags at my side.

It's a huge exhale for me when we get to the put out point.





XI

A few hours past the falls, we're scheduled to set up camp again. The river here is very different. Beautiful, but at very high water levels, routinely overflowing.





It's boggy and buggy and most importantly, it seems too early to stop. The skies are beautiful (too beautiful -- I'm just a touch too late with the application of sun screen). Why stop at 3? Or even 4?


I'll tell you why: because after you pass landing point number 26, there are no more wild camping possibilities until you reach Tupper Lake. If we don't stop now at 4, we'll have three hours of paddling left for sure. And what if the immediate lake-front landing spots are occupied? What then?

It's a tough call and I make knowing the risk involved (paddling in the evening without an obvious place to overnight). I want better for us than these last few riverside camping clearings. Wont the lake breezes disperse some of the bugs?

We pause for a quick lunch of trail mix, then continue.





We paddle rhythmically, steadily. We started at 9 a.m., did not pause after the portage and now it's getting close to evening. My back, shoulders -- they're not used to so much use.

And still we continue.


XII 


We are more lucky than I can possibly explain here. The very best possible camping spot is empty. At 7 p.m., after 10 hours of work (with only a 25 minute pause for lunch), we pull in.






And here's the beauty of it: there is a breeze and it is almost completely bug free.


Curry for me and an ancient, dated camping packet for Ed labeled "beef stroganoff," from the years when he still ate beef (significantly before we met).






And the morning dawns bright and clear...






And the ducks keep us company for breakfast...






(We shoo them away. They should not be eating handouts. But one lingers, watching the morning preparations...)











We're in a good (bug free!) place for very brisk "showering" (accomplished out of the lake, with the help of the tiny pot) and we do that today, ready now for the big village of Tupper Lake.

We paddle in the brief stretch of lake to our take out point at Tupper. And WiFi.


Post Scriptum 

The storms are coming tomorrow. But that's tomorrow. We have a handful of grand days behind us. Arms stronger, souls well rested. We're ready for the Second Journey. (I'll be offline for at least two days. Too, my apologies for Flickr photo issues. I've tried to use a quick fix and I'm hoping to correct the previous photos with the embeded information when Flickr develops a permanent solution. It could be that my temporary improvised fix will wipe out all my photos. Be patient. Any such problems and editing issues I'll correct when I get home.)

The Adirondacks

A fleeting moment of cell service! So I could do a post, using an iPhone and email. Ah, but a good story cannot be told that way! If we cross paths with civilization tomorrow, I'll post then.
Now, let me return to my curry in a pouch dinner before a bear beats me to it!

Sent from my iPhone

the Adirondacks

I caught the last bits of color on the lake as the sun went down last night.





As the lake took on the peaceful quiet of a summer evening, the teens of Long Lake Motel and Cottages gathered around the pool and ping pong tables (positioned under a cupola, right across the motel parking spaces) and played their adolescent flirtatious games, the girls breaking into favorite songs, the boys hitting the balls way too hard.

I thought we'd have a night of noise, but I needn't have worried. Some adult with a modicum of authority chased them out by 10 and a few minutes later, quiet prevailed.


In the morning, we should have been packed and out early, but somehow the cool lake air kept us under cover far past the hour of sunrise.

The weather in the Adirondacks is so far cooperating: clouds today...


 
(looking out toward the back of the motel)


... but there are promises of sunshine for the weekend. And in any case, the storms wont roll in until (they say) the end of Sunday. But the nights are cool -- very cool.


Eventually, we brace ourselves for that morning chill,  pack our little car with all the gear of camping and paddling and head due north toward Tupper Lake.

And now comes a day? a few days? ... of Ocean quiet. 

the Adirondacks

Should vacations (or -- in our case, vacation trips) replicate what you left behind at home? Of course not. So let's break with routine and not begin with a breakfast photo. And in any case, what would constitute breakfast, on a day when you leave the house just after 5 a.m. and grab one of those overly-sweet yogurt-granola combinations at the airport and eat it (sharing, of course) standing in line to board the plane? Supplemented (for Ed) with the free cookies the flight attendants dispense in their quick run down the aisle?

Our plane travel is  painless. Exactly the opposite of my nephew's recent flights. On time, smooth, comfortable. For me, the pleasure is in once again knowing my seating companion. Like the door to the porch which I adore in recognition of all the years when it wasn't there, so, too, something so simple as the familiarity of the arm next to yours will thrill you if you've taken some fifty consecutive trips brushing against the arm of a stranger.

Goodbye, Wisconsin...






Hello New York...






Can you tell the difference? No? This was Ed's comment when we were picking a place to do some adventuring: isn't upstate New York awfully similar to up north Wisconsin?

But the true answer is no. The photo is, after all, from Albany, not the Adirondacks. Missing are the mountains, the lakes, and the rivers that make the Adirondacks a paddler's paradise. And because much of the upstate land is a wilderness area, there are plenty of places to pitch a tent. (That is the selling point. I'll let you know if it's true and I'll especially let you know if it's not true.)


It's about a 2.5 hour drive from Albany to where we want to overnight and this drive is my most challenging moment: I'm tired. The highway is boring. The rural road -- more interesting, but by then I'm counting the miles. Ed is dozing, the radio signal is poor. Long Lake, you're long in coming!

And then we're there.

I bargained with him for a first night in a motel. I looked for a place close to where we'll pick up our canoe tomorrow. I came across the hamlet of Long Lake and in it, the Long Lake Motel and Cottages.












Both the hamlet and the motel look as they probably looked when Ed and I were still kids. (His family vacationed not terribly far from here.)  It's a humble (and very small) community of vacationers, probably regulars. They come for the fresh air. Maybe for a spin in a kayak. Likely for a conversation on the beach. There isn't anything especially attractive (or unattractive) about this place and so it got passed by when the big chains invested in lakeside communities and made resorts out of them. And so there is my motel and, too, there is the Adirondack Hotel, which is old, creaky and full of faded character. If you are taken aback by the big stuffed moose over the desk, they'll tell you not to worry -- it's from Alaska.






My motel hasn't a moose head. But it has something else -- something that I recognized right away when I called them from home and asked about a room. I can spot that accent anywhere: the owners of the Long Lake Motel and Cottages are Highlanders from Poland.






Ed and I walk along the hamlet's main road and decide to make a meal of bread and cheese from the grocery store, hesitating, but only for a minute before this lakeside stand:






The cheese from the grocer isn't your specialty New York artisanal anything, it's a pepperjack (probably from Wisconsin) and the bread is a dense cinnamon and raisin (from Gansevoort, New York). With tomato and blueberries (probably from Michigan) on the side.






We doze off on Adirondack chairs and barely wake up for our evening meal at the Adirondack Hotel. Wednesday is barbeque night and you can have half a chicken with beans and corn on the side for a reasonable price. It's packed with locals. Wait a minute -- who is a local? What form of employment keeps someone here?

Ed gets wonderfully pensive when he hits upstate New York. We talk a lot about families and especially his family, even as he shrugs off the idea that his New York roots get stirred up a bit when he's here.






The air is warm and smells of pine needles. A cool breeze comes off the lake. The loud sea plane -- this one, which sells you an hour of fun in the sky for $40 thankfully doesn't have many takers. (This woman was out earlier with her toddler. Both speak Russian.)






It's quiet here. Even though I know that where ever we land tomorrow, it will be even quieter.

In and Out

[Answer to anticipated question of: why aren't there photos accompanying this post??: I accidentally deleted all of them, including the cutest of all -- where my nephew plays with his second cousin. Or is it that she is his niece... Well, whatever. Photos gone. Memories remain.]

Sometimes connecting from one place to the next is so easy, other times it's not. My nephew, traveling great distances to be here -- for a wonderful visit and, too, to stay at the farmhouse while Ed and I go off adventuring -- should have arrived in the evening, by plane, but in the end he did not get here until the middle of the night and by bus. But I'm thrilled he's here!

And so breakfast, on the porch, is for the three of us.

Well, in addition to the rooster, crowing noisily all morning long, to assert his importance.

Then comes a day of roaming the neighborhoods and stores in our area, acquainting my nephew with what's where. He's not here for as long as the last time and he has a great recollection of everything and every spot, but still, it's quite fun taking him around to our various local favorites.

But we have to be back by afternoon, because Snowdrop is to spend her Tuesday at the farmhouse.

It is a first meeting of the cousins who are separated by an ocean and have only these meager opportunities for coming face to face with each other.

Snowdrop plays, stands, rolls and even gives a good effort at downing bananas and squash, squeezed onto a dish with sketches of Peter Rabbit on it. You'll have to imagine it. The vignettes are all now just in our heads.

In the evening, my nephew, Ed and I eat take out Thai and we fall into the farmhouse habit of just hanging out. And of course, I pack.
Don't you think I need a better flashlight? Do you like my new whistle? In the book "Wild," she carried a high pitch whistle for emergencies...
Okay, nice whistle. No, you don't need a bigger better flashlight...

The usual back and forth that accompanies pre-travel.

In the wee early hours of the morning, Ed and I will fly to Albany, where we will pick up a car and go due north, to the heart of the Adirondacks. If you're unfamiliar with the geography of the region -- think "where the escaped convicts hid when they wanted to avoid detection." We'll be canoeing through the wilder and more remote areas and this makes Ed very happy.

As for WiFi -- I'll have it Wednesday and early Thursday and then I'll likely be out of the loop for at least a couple of days. It's the first time in over a decade when I will have acquiesced to being off line. Even when we hiked the Rockies and camped our way across Scotland, on nearly every day, I found a way to post on Ocean. I'm not going to try so hard this time. I have put Ed through a lot of irritating maneuvers to get myself connected for blogging purposes. I owe him a couple of days of peace, without the worry of finding WiFi.

Alright, time to check for leaks in my new inflatable pillow. The tent? We'll find out if it developed rips if and when it rains. Adventures are made this way.


UPDATE:

Talk about a heroic recovery of deleted photos! Thank you Ed. Now, you match the photos with the text!