Journey of Joy: Day 18

You wanna know what will start your day off wrong? Try deciding it’s time for a fresh shirt, and then dipping the sleeve of it into a National Park toilet as you’re getting ready to put it on. But I haven’t droopy my toothbrush on the floor yet! :)

The line.

Hash and toast. I’ve got to find a way to quit burning a layer of hash onto the bottom of the skillet every time without adding more grease. I left it full of soap and water in the bear locker to soak for the day. We left camp around 2pm planning on hiking the Trail of Cedars and putting the canoe in Lake McDonald later on. As we drove plans changed to canoeing across the lake for lunch, which I was much happier with considering our time constraints.

We found a trail from the road down to a nice stone beach, once again reminding me very much of Grand Marias.

Waiting ...

... waiting ....

We put in around 3pm carefully managing the dogs. Since they would be sitting in our laps the whole way, we were pretty interested in them being dry. This was after drying off Buddy when he took off for the water with Mom in tow, down a hill. The guys paddled the four of us and two dogs across the lake in about 15 to 20 minutes. The dogs whined the whole way. We found a nice dead tree to use as a picnic table on the other side. It was then that it was realized that the guys had assumed that I’d put their sandwiches in my dry bag because I’d been nice enough to take care of Mom’s. They refused to share our sandwiches, so Jeremiah got my apple and Joshua fished a Cliff bar out of the bottomless store of his pockets. The lake looked very deep and was crystal clear. There had been a fire, so the west short was covered in dead standing trees. There were some deciduous trees, a brilliant yellow, near the shore. Somebody’s carin was still standing on the peninsula. The dogs were fairly relaxed and calm on the way back. Progress! They’ve been on the river before, in a raft, so this was their first time in a canoe.