The Three Portaging Princessess...

Yes, after much deliberation, Ingrid, Meg, and I renamed our Minnesota III (it didn't fit our group dynamic) to the Three Portaging Princessess. The brainstorming began as we paddled away from a extremely long portage. Of course at that point, any portage seemed long when you had to take two, sometimes three trips. Those new to the terminology of hard core canoeing let me introduce you to the essential word portage in my own words. Portage: verb, using any means possible to transport you, your canoes, and all your belongings from one body of water to another to dangerous conditions, ususally involving rapids that could kill any inexperienced canoer. The portage involves muscles, gut, and most importantly endurance. Not every old daddy can carry a three man canoe on his shoulders for a mile and still have a smile grace his face at the end of the long day. No doubt, on this trip we proved ourselves as hard core. In one day, we portaged 250, 280, and one we will have nightmares about until we die, the 310 rods. To put it into perspective, 320 rods is a mile. Each portage I made consisted of two trips meaning I carried pounds of supplies and food down the trail like a pack mule then rushed back to the entrance and then trudged back again with more loads of essentials to the mouth of the mud path. However, back to the canoe. We didn't just easily arrive at the perfect name. First we vetoed many names, including a range of good and horrible, starting with the triplets (we had matching Northface beige tie capris) to the lilypads(thanks to Ingrid:) ). The three lilypads was nixed immediately, however, after we had a good laugh. We couldn't have just one named boat so next we took the executive position and delegated the name of the other boat, the Minnesota II. We were nice, we gave them two options, the Navigating Nerds or the Elderly Endeavors. Apparently they felt it didn't fit them and they opted for a new name. We felt somewhat cheated, however, when they named the boat the Portage Papas. But since they were carrying the brunt of the work (hauling the hefty canoes) and financing the trip, we felt only a little slighted. But since it is time for the library where I am posting to close, I must say Sayanara (Japanese goodbye?)