Tuesday's post (also on Thursday)

The classes are going well; Hannah and Jeremy are enjoying them and being challenged. We'll hold off writing much about their experiences until we're able to spend more time talking with the kids. We see them briefly in the morning and the evening, but we're trying not to pull them away from the other students, with whom they're able to share stories of sticky holes and daunting drops. Besides, everyone is too tired in the evening to really sum up what the day was like.

Hannah and Bob Goldstein on the lodge porch.

In the evening, everyone hangs out playing board games and cards and swapping tales from the river.

We paddled about 18 miles on Bark Lake today, practicing our navigation skills and enjoying the serenity. We saw only one other boat all day (a motorboat) and nobody along the shore of this large reservoir lake, which is mainly surrounded by crown land.

I get 150 to that large rock on the point--how about you?

We're using a topo map, deck compasses and bearing compasses for these exercises. (You can't get nautical charts for small inland lakes.) It's remarkable how different landforms look from the water (our perspective) and from the air (the map's perspective). We have to be careful to write down our back bearings. Today we failed to really look at our put-in as we left. We returned to what we were sure was the right spot, but couldn't find it. After much hunting (including scouting on land), we discovered that we were merely 50 feet off. That's all it takes to feel thoroughly lost!