It was going to be that kind of summer: the kind of summer that is almost no summer at all. As you can tell by the posts I have now amassed below this one, and from how long it actually took me to write all the catch-up posts, it has indeed been that kind of summer: the kind of summer where you don't really get to enjoy much summer. My husband and I, however, love to camp and hike, and the only real time to do that well in Minnesota is during the summer. We knew we'd have to scratch out some time to do just that, so we found a couple of days back in June to go visit St. Croix State Park, a favorite of ours not far from where we live. We wanted to take our lovely canoe out on the river, stay in some of the boat-in sites, and best yet, we decided to bring the pups along.
Max and Lilly are very good dogs, in spite of their propensity to do things like murder small furry animals and vomit up nasty stuff. Lilly can get pretty nervous, and Max can get pretty bossy, but otherwise they're pretty great pups. They love being outside and they love being with us, so we figured they might actually be able to manage coming on a little canoe camping trip with us. Plus, we'd only be out for two nights, so our gear would be kept to a minimum. This is essential considering a good chunk of our canoe would be taken up with 120 pounds of dog.
You may or may not realize that much of our outdoorsiness is often ill-fated. Our Boundary Waters trip two years ago ended too soon when my Eagle Scout husband put a hatchet to his hand. Our canoe day-trip last year left us and our canoe much worse for wear. Even our hiking throughout Australia and New Zealand last fall was drenched in constant rain and fog. While we have both been accused of living rather charmed lives, our camping trips are typically anything but. It's a good thing we love camping - and each other. And we should've realized that all would not go to plan when we talked to the canoe folks at the campground about our plans. Turns out you can only go one way down the St. Croix, eliminating our hope to do an out-and-back. Turns out the fee to be picked up at the end of your trip is exorbitant if you're not renting all your gear from the outfitter. Turns out we were going to have to re-think our plans.
At any rate, we decided that this would all totally work out. Sure enough, we got us, our two pups, and all our gear into our lovely canoe. One family watching us load up was rightly skeptical: "Are you really taking your dogs with?" they asked. This coming from a family of four very small kids. I had to stop myself from asking, "Are you really sleeping in a tent with four kids under the age of six?"We got out on the river without any troubles on a beautiful afternoon. The dogs behaved, the canoe cooperated, and we worked hard on wearing ourselves out. Not long down the line, however, we came across our first problem: the campsite. The one we wanted to spend the night in looked more like a place to put your boat into the water, because it was. Sure, it was also a campsite, but did you want to sleep where people would be coming and going through your site all day? No thanks. This put a serious cramp in our plans, but we could make it work. Just as we decided to leave, Max had the same idea: he slipped out of his collar and started running. Fast. I was sure we would lose him inside Minnesota's largest state park. He ran in circles, wider and wider, until finally he came to a stop right in front of us. It was like he just needed to burn off some energy... or remind us that he was the one in charge. We got back out on the water as fast as we could.
We came to the second site down the way and were more pleased. It was a beautiful, open peninsula on the edge of a stream, perfectly suited to our needs. Sure, the latrine was by far the most primitive one I've ever seen, but hey, any port in a storm. And as a bonus, the trail was not far at all from our site, making it a plausible idea that we could bushwhack through the undergrowth, find the trail, hike back, move the car, re-park, hike up, and come back to our site, leaving us a short down-river paddle to get back to the car at the end of the trip. Perfect. Too perfect. But we didn't realize that just yet.The pups, for starters, were far from satisfied with the situation. It's a State Park, so they can't roam free like they prefer. They had to stay on-leash, and they had to be good. They're not good at either thing. They kept tangling themselves up, trying to bolt off, or generally pouting. Even worse was the sleeping situation. Our tent is big enough for two people and our gear, but it has these great awnings. So, we set up a nice little screened-in bed for them under the awning. They were not having it. All night they kept thrashing around, getting tangled in the screen, trying to pull down the tent, and not understanding that they couldn't nudge open the tent door to come walk all over us.
The next morning, after next-to-no sleep, we tried the bushwhack. It was a failure of epic proportions. Not only was the underbrush far too thick to actually get through, but the trail was an indiscernible distance from us. And the pups, ever the wet blankets, were having none of it. They were covered in ticks and burrs faster than I ever could've imagined, until I realized I was in the exact same boat. We doubled back and returned to the site, exhausted, sweaty, filthy, and frustrated.
Our only option would be to paddle upstream, in spite of previous warnings not to do just that, with two bored and fussy pups hopping around inside. We needed the rest, so we just zipped the pups into the tent with us that night and put up with them taking up most of the floor space.
The end of the story is a bit anticlimactic: in spite of the dogs constantly trying to stand up in the canoe, we made it back to the dock we'd passed previously. We put in and my rugged husband opted to hike back the rest of the way. The dogs generally cooperated with this. Husband and car returned, gear was loaded up, and pups promptly started sleeping in the back, like they were the ones who'd done all the work. We poked around the park a little longer, then decided to head home for showers, soft beds, and a fenced-in yard.
Don't get me wrong: I love my dogs, and I love camping. Ill-fatedness aside, it was beautiful weather and a lovely chance to get away. I think my dogs just might not really be campers. Oh well. You can't win 'em all, even when you live a charmed life.
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