In the past I served as “Director of Outdoor Recreation” for our family. Director, step aside! With his boyhood passion for canoe camping reignited, my husband recently began surprising me by suggesting and orchestrating family canoe trips.

Having just returned from our first Boundary Waters canoe trip, I can say only one thing…I’m hooked! We’ve been back only a few days, and already it’s impossible to stop scrolling through trip photos and daydreaming about our next Boundary Waters adventure.

Despite my forgetting my hiking boots, and doing the whole trip in office shoes, and despite the rainy week, and despite the unmanageable pit bull at the put in and following us through several portages, it was wonderful. No, our contrary daughter (who stubbornly insists she doesn’t like our wilderness adventures despite our continually catching her having fun) did not get to see a moose, which was her quest for the trip.

But we did get slapped by a beaver, saw plenty of loons, and watched eagles fish. Our daughter did more singing and smiling than ever, and she says she wants to back. Of course, she insists for our benefit that it’s only because she wants to see a moose. As for myself, time moves quickly in the wilderness. I feel so much more myself, and so very much at home in the outdoors. I loved every wet, muddy, rainy minute of it. My husband, like me, can’t wait to get back out there and do it again!

Want to hear the whole story? Check it out at http://mamasbasecamp.blogspot.com/2014/08/mamas-new-addiction-boundary-waters.html