Day 3. Morning. Despite the unusually luxurious breakfast, I was in tripping mode now. It's hard to explain that, if you don't do trips like this yourself: when I'm in tripping mode, I am a creature of routine. Here is what I on those mornings: wake up, pick out clothes I will be wearing, pack all others. Stuff sleeping bag into stuffsack. Deflate mattress and put into stuffsack. Put all other items in tent into their respective drybag homes. Get up, drop off load of drybags by bow of boat and pick up potty shovel. Go for walk in woods to dig hole etc. Return, take down tent, put into various bags. Breakfast, cleanup, pack boat, launch, paddle! From waking up to paddle: approximately one hour. This routine is so well established that I don't think about it at all anymore. More than that, I tend to assume that everyone else I've ever met is the same. Because, clearly, what I do makes sense!
Well. Now we're back to defining terms. Remember how "relaxed" = approximately 25km/day? Add to the Johanna lexicon... leisurely = "take time for banana pancakes but do everything else the same." Oh, also, "paddle" = keep moving forward. So I had a leisurely morning, and launched for a relaxing day of paddling. Kevin also had a leisureley morning, and launched or a relaxing day of paddling. Unfortunately, his lexicon is not in sense-making Johanna language, but in boy-who-likes-fishing speak. Because it turns out, "relaxed" = 12km, leisurely = "give Jim enough time to read two more chapters of the book that makes him chortle" and "paddle" = stick fishing rod down back of pfd and troll.
The trolling... now that, that turned me into a troll. I was sitting and drifting and sitting and drifting and slowly getting crankier and crankier. I was bored! I wanted to keep moving! Kevin wasn't going to catch no stinkin' fish anyway, it's not like he ever catches anything, the fishing rod is just to annoy Johanna! Stupid fishing. There's no fish in Lake Superior. And so on... It was midafternoon by the time we (that is, Jim and I) reached 
a potential campsite. We checked it out, we thought it would do but I wanted the input of the others. So I sat around in my pfd and sprayskirt, waiting for them, prepared to move if they weren't keen. By this time, I should have taken a cue from Jim and started my novel (Jim, however, went for a paddle around our potential campsite island). Finally, I thought, screw this, I am autocratically declaring this to be the campsite and if any of these poky people dares voice a complaint I will... do... something. Probably sulk, knowing me, but I am very bold in what I'm going to say when I'm stewing to myself.
Of course, I said nothing. I was too busy silently snacking on my own words when Kevin and David landed and David pulled a lake trout out of his cockpit and Kevin looked all proud. You know, the sun had come out, on Superior you can always chill the beer, and whatever, tomorrow we'll paddle further. I was back to loving everybody and everything, especially when I spied Kevin's air mattress already blown up and unattended on some rocks. I had to go weigh it down! (I so totally want one of these rubberized cotton air mattresses. So comfortable.)
I had to revise my definition of the "everybody" that I loved when three boats paddled up to our site at about seven p.m., and they landed and made it clear they were camping here without the faintest acknowledgement that we were already there or the minimum in politeness of "do you mind if we share this site." (Note that there were *plenty* of suitable campsites all around. Ours just happened to be very nice.) Ironically, when we saw them approach, Kevin, David and I had already concluded that we'd be ok with sharing the site. It's strange how my mind works. If some woman's toddler rams the grocery cart into my back in the checkout line at the store, I find myself thinking not very nice things about parenting styles. But if there's a "oh, I'm sorry!" my response is an automatic, genuine, sweet-as-pie "it's no big deal!." Same thing 
applies here, I guess. It was a guided group. The guide never did come over to us and have a casual chat, though her clients did and they were very nice. The guide *did* set up about three feet from my tent, where she proceeded to cook...
Oh! cooking! We had fish! *And* steak. And potatoes. I bet the guide cooked nothing as tasty (and I'm glad she cooked nothing that smelled as much like an invitation to bears as our dinner did... but I was ok with that, after all, David's boat smelled like a fishmonger. If any critter wanted to investigate, I expect it would start there.)
And the next day, we were going to paddle! It was just a slow start, right? (Three days down. 24 km completed)
(to be continued)