Algonquin Aug 9 (Day 10)

 We lingered over tea, none too eager to head home again.  What a lovely trip it had been!

Then, three portages (420, 55, and 135m) and back to the van.

Oh no!  A mouse had moved in!!  Blech!!!  Never keep previously opened packages of food in a parked unattended vehicle!!

I am pleased to report that I now have a very clean van.  Steam cleaned, thoroughly wiped and vacuumed.  But still, I did not thank the mouse for the motivation to clean, as I had been quite happy leaving it for some other month (or year).

Algonquin Aug 8 (Day 9)

 Melanie the monkey was very proud to get up so high. 

 Getting the last things and bringing them off to get loaded in the canoe.

 Paddling off to the only! portage for the day.  1185m.  It felt shorter than the longest one.  I'm sure resting for a day first helped-and no rain, and no previous portage that day.

 What a lovely day!

I think it took two hours to get all our gear across-we had to have one of us hang out on the end with the kids 'cause it was too long to leave them waiting while we "popped" back for stuff.

And here we are!  Back on Daisy Lake!  But, this time, we have a different site. 

 Evelyn is happy to be getting out soon.  The more we were out on the water, the more eager she was to stand up and not sit!  Eventually I found rocking the boat made her more willing to sit.

We had a pout of the runs this trip, and rashes came with it for the diaper clad ones.  Nothing like clean water to rinse off, and fresh air to dry.  Tops all the diaper products, just a little unorthodox.  

Algonquin Aug 6, 7 (Day 7, 8)

 Packing up camp.  (Had to get a shot of Melanie helping happily, for she was our least willing helper and often made quite a fuss over her camping chores.) 

That was all the pictures of Wednesday.  Our short portage of the day was (100+M?) was a warmup, and the long portage, 1275m was a workout!  I was very happy to see the end of it, for the pace of a 3 year old over rugged terrain is not fun to maintain when all you want to do is put the weight on your back down.  Just before our portage, as we unloaded on the shore of Rain Lake we got the only rain of the trip, which lasted 1-2 hours, off and on, a light rain while we trekked across.  It sounded like thunder when we got to our campsite, and we rushed to set up a tent and tarp so we could seek shelter when the clouds broke out, but nothing happened!  We and our gear stayed relatively dry, for which we were very thankful! :)

We had a lovely rest day.  And we used it as such. (Well, us adults, anyways.)  Kids recover so quickly!

I did take the kids out for a leisurely paddle, especially for Daniel's sake, as he doesn't get to paddle when we are tripping.