Monday, July 18, 2022 B-Dub

Once again, we’ve been gallivanting off on adventures, this time in the lake-filled part of northern Minnesota that we call the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Some officious people (on some dreadful committee, no doubt) decided that the title wasn’t quite long enough and came to the conclusion that the word “Wilderness” would make it complete. So now it’s BWCAW. When I was young, cool people just called it the “B-Dub.”

My first time in the Boundary Waters was when my Dad took my two sisters and me back in 1974. It was love at first sight for me. I didn’t even mind the portaging. I learned how to steer a canoe using the C-stroke and the J-stroke and felt rather athletic, which wasn’t the norm for me.

When my husband and I were courting, his eyebrows went up in decided approval when he found out that I not only enjoyed paddling a canoe, but also had experience in the BWCA, where he’d spent quite a few summers on canoe trips. My experience paled before his, of course, but qualified me for some respect from him.

When we got engaged, we decided in a gush of enthusiasm that a canoe trip in the Boundary Waters would make a wonderful honeymoon. Who wouldn’t want to spend their honeymoon sleeping in a small tent on the ground? Thankfully, sanity prevailed and we put the canoe trip off until a year later in 1986.

Then we had six children. (That escalated quickly, didn’t it?) What with one thing and another, our paddles didn’t dip into the waters of the B-Dub again until Kris took the four older boys in 2007. I sat that one out with the two youngest of our tribe.

But it didn’t seem right that the two youngest should miss this grand experience, so we went up, the four of us in 2015. By this time, I was nearly 30 years older than the last time I’d gone. I was a little nervous about my ability to paddle, portage and sleep on the ground in a tent. All of it was like riding a bike, although the sleeping on the ground was more like falling off a bike. And frankly, the portaging was made a lot easier because we had two young people to take up my slack. Everyone knew I was the weak link.

That brings us to the present. The two of us just came back from a 3-day sojourn in the Boundary Waters. I was considerably more nervous this time, being the ripe old age of 63 and sadly out of shape. The success of our trip was solely because of my husband’s preparations and planning, and – it must be said – his muscles. We had a couple mishaps and scaled back our plans somewhat, but we both loved being back on the lakes, paddles working together, moving through the water and being completely off the grid. We read our Psalms morning and evening and made a joyful noise unto the Lord.

But we both agreed that the rough camping was getting a little too challenging. And I’m now officially on Biffy Strike. No more outdoor Biffies for me!

Be it ever so humble…there’s no place like home.

Thus, the blog returneth. And perhaps will be deleteth in the morning.