Hi everyone!
Back at it with a weekly update of what we have been up to! On Friday, we had a meeting at basecamp where we accomplished a ton! We started off the meeting with a portage - the girls portaged just over 1/2 mile and absolutely CRUSHED it!! It’s evident they are getting more comfortable and more confident with the canoe on their shoulders. Although they may not see it now, they will be so thankful they practiced portaging some longer distances now before they get on trail.
After the portage, we packed some more of our food that arrived at basecamp, mostly gluten free things that had to be specially ordered like chicken noodle soup and some of the desserts! We never have any fun during our meetings as you can tell by this picture of Penelope!
Once all of the food was packed, we did a quick review of how to pack the kettle pack and practiced packing this again. The twins love hugging each other so much that they decided to hug things out to get the plastic put away after we were done practicing packing the kettle.
We also practiced tying our main 4 knots that we will use every single day on trail again: the bowline, the double half hitch, the taut line and the square knot. All of the repetition may seem redundant to them now, but once we hit trail, they will understand the importance of all of this practice as things will be second nature, muscle memory for them.
Once the girls felt confident on their knots, we practiced setting up a tarp and I was able to show them the Trucker’s Hitch knot - the knot used for the ridge line (basically the rope we hang the tarp over). I had each of them practice this knot and then we set up the tarp together. I discussed with the girls what to look for in a good tarp spot and discussed things to consider when setting up a tarp: rain, wind, etc. Their first tarp looks pretty dang good if I do say so myself!
Once we took down the tarp and repacked the kettle pack, we were able to hit the water for some paddling as a crew. The weather was absolutely beautiful so it was the perfect day to paddle. We reviewed all of the strokes before we got on the water and then we were off. One canoe learned the hard way what happens when you grab the gunnels as you can see below HAHAHA :) If you would like to know what happened, ask Haley - turtles that are swimming in the water are apparently VERY scary even while you’re in a canoe.
We got to do a totally impromptu T-rescue to get their canoe back out of the water. This is a skill I planned to teach them eventually but they got to learn it before I had it planned :) I also learned that the girls need some serious practice getting back into the canoe from the water - yikes haha!
We paddled for about an hour or so practicing paddling in as straight of line as possible a skill that is super important to have on trail (because the shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line) and then we headed back to basecamp.
The girls gave basecamp a quick clean and then we headed to Coldstone to enjoy some ice cream to cool off after a hot day outside. THANK GOD the girls actually talked to me this time around, let’s just say the first meeting at Coldstone was very different from this meeting at Coldstone haha! Now we are off for about a week or so while most families are enjoying some well deserved vacation time! I am going to miss your girls so dang much over this next week, I am not sure what I am going to do with my time!
25 days until our adventure begins!!! Also, another lesson learned: if you steal my phone and take selfies, they will 100% end up on the blog <3
-Allie :)