I tend to bad mouth the upper Midwest. Not because it is a bad place, but rather because there are no bits of greatness to it, no Grand Canyon, no ocean, no jaw-dropping beauty. I like to use the "Four Hour Rule" as my basis for griping. Take San Francisco. A four hour radius gets you to the Sierra Nevadas, Oregon, LA, Yosemite, etc. Four hours from us, gets you to the Wisconsin Dells and South Dakota. Whooooo-hoooo! The Boundary Waters sits right at the upper limit of the "Four Hour Rule," and while it is not the most incredible thing you will ever see, it has to be near the most peaceful. You will never get quiet like you get in the BWCA. When I took this picture, my daughter and I were alone at the edge of the lake. A slight ruffle alerted us to a deer, about two hundred yards away, standing in the water. It was so quiet we could hear the deer from two football fields away simply standing in the water. Incredible!
