The Dutch Invasion

So, when our dutch friends came to visit, we thought, hey, the challenge of finding places for all of them to sleep and eat and live in our house seems too easy.  Let's also try to completely outfit them for a trip into the wilderness.  Luckily we have a lot of family and friends who like REI.  And so outfit we did, and then the 10 of us, plus another family of four, headed out for 3 days on the Namekagon.  Was it delicious.  And I'm not just talking about MaryBeth's penchant for 5 course camping meals, I mean the whole dang trip.  One would think that heading out with 14 people, 5 canoes, 4 tents, and 48 tubes of sunscreen would be a bit chaotic, but this trip flowed as smoothly as the river itself.  By the time we were rounding the first bend from our put-in, Eli was in the water floating alongside.  Soon most of the other kids joined them.  To hear their whoops and giggles as we passed through shallow ripples or deep channels was a delight.  And the adults all quickly figured out how to rig up a kind of lounging situation in the sterns of the canoes.  When it got too hot, I could simply roll off my lounger and into the refreshing waters.  It did, admittedly, take more effort to get back into the canoe, especially from mid-river in deep water, but I got pretty good at that as well. 

We spent the next 3 days floating, swimming, eating, and solving two-minute mysteries.  The weather was on its best behavior and the bugs seemed mostly to be on vacation elsewhere.  We didn't spot as many sturgeon as last year, but just seeing one was enough to put me newly in awe of these relics from the age of the dinosaurs.  Our Dutch pals, fresh from living with 23 million friends and neighbors in Shanghai, were amazed by the solitude and beauty just two hours from the cities.  It proved to me once again that it is worth the effort to dig out the stove, the gas, the PFD's, the sleeping pads, to dust them off and to get out there!