Last day! I knew the boys would think they could beat me to the parking lot since they had camped on Bower Trout instead of Swan Lake, and they thought I was camping on Little Trout. However, I woke before 7. Despite taking my time breaking camp, paddling across Ram, and portaging to the car, I still was at the Bower Trout lot before 8:30am. I took lots of flower pictures along the boardwalk to the lake and sat on the shore writing and watching for them.

About 9:30am, they came paddling along and the look of disappointment since I was already there was pretty funny. My son said, "What time did you get up to be able to beat us here?!" I confessed that I had been camped on Ram instead of Little Trout. It was so good to see them, and the look of pride on their faces as they talked about their accomplishment is something I will never forget. They just started telling their tales while sitting in the canoe. About 30 minutes later, we realized we should probably get packed up and head for some food. They had not eaten breakfast because it was too buggy at their site.

We headed to Trail Center and made it with just minutes to spare before they switched from breakfast menu to lunch menu. Good food! Great people! We had an uneventful drive back to the Cities except for the long wait at Culver's in Two Harbors. I expected bad traffic on the Sunday of a holiday weekend, but there was only one 10 minute slow down.

~Ram Lake

Portage: 103 rod