An Outward Bound canoe adventure for women only

For my 50th birthday, I got a tick bite, a bee sting, a case of poison ivy, and four sleepless nights in below-freezing weather with five other middle-aged women — and I paid handsomely for it. It was a gift to myself: an invitation-only Outward Bound canoe trip. Once an eager backpacker and a fire-starting, rope-tying Girl Scout, I had let my career as a Philadelphia environmental lawyer and years of domesticity with a family of less-outdoorsy types lead me to make do with occasional nights of camping within sight of our car and afternoon kayak trips in the Jersey Pine Barrens. (The last family overnight at a crowded state park, camping next to a pack of Coors-drinking, Mets-listening twentysomethings, had proven less than satisfying.)