Day 23-26: Homestretch

The last four days we went from Marble to Nashwauk to Kelly Lake to Hibbing to Eveleth. This stretch of the Mesabi Trail has been impressive. Rolling hills, mine pits, and pine forests surrounded us. We are truly in north country and are enjoying the fresh, crisp air.

The past few days we have had a few camp friends come say hi to us and show their support. As we mentioned previously the girls came to visit is in Marble. The next night Dave Searl made the treck to Nashwauk to see how we were doing and to catch up. When we stayed on Kelly Lake, Meghan stopped by to hear our stories.

Tomorrow is our last day, and with all the commotion going on at camp with our arrival and the start of another Warren summer, now would be a good time to summarize the trip.

This trip has been an eye opening experience, one that we will never forget. It has been exciting, fun, difficult, painstaking, and at times monotonous. There have been stretches of beautiful landscapes, and stretches of busy highways and city noise. We have seen the multitude of positives that small-town MN has to offer. Abe and I have spent both hours laughing and hours in silence. We have had the same conversations over and over again thinking that they may turn out different this time around.

If we had to choose one takeaway from the trip it would be that there are still so many people out there who are willing to lend a hand to a complete stranger, out of the kindness of their own heart. We would like to thank many of those people now, knowing this trip would have been dramatically more difficult without you: Jen and Jan in Bowlus, Vinnie and his family in Brainerd, Dave the farmer, Jim in Little Falls, Matt in Marble, Mike in Crosby, the Durhams in Grand Rapids, our parents, Tommy, Marlee, Villano, Pom, Greg Pomerantz, Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace. We would like to give a special thanks to Meghan Cosgrove and Dave Searl for helping us every step of the way. And finally to everyone who supported us in sending nearly 15 more kids to Camp Warren this summer!

Camp Warren will always have a special spot in our hearts. Portaging 300-miles is the least we could do to give back to a place that has given us so much over the years. To all the past and present Warren staff we want to thank you for everything that you have done and continue to do to make camp a truly magical place. Here's to the next 85 years!

Nothin' to it, but to do it.