When we were middle school age, somehow dad finagled a canoe trip in northern Minnesota for my older brother, dad, and me.  He bought caps that were green, blue, and red with big white polka dots.  Not sure if dad was making a fashion statement or he didn’t want to lose us on the lakes.

It was a great trip and I learned a few things:

• You can live simply.
• When you pick a hatful of wild blueberries, don’t let anyone put them in cornbread.
• Dried meals have vastly improved over the soy meat and unidentified elements in the packages we ate.
• Portages are overrated.
• Just because the prunes taste good, don’t eat everyone else’s. Unless you like digging new toilet holes.
• Sometimes the next bend or the next tree looks a lot like the last bend or last tree.
• Being dry is preferable to being wet.
• There is a rhythm to canoeing, as there is to life.