The sat phone derived its nickname from the weird electronic noise it made each time we tried to get a signal from the satellite poised somewhere in the southeastern sky. Eric said the noise sounded a little like the theme song from "The Godfather." Besides that, the phone seemed moody and powerful, only working when it suited its purposes.

Once, I vowed to kiss The Godfather's ring if it would only send some photos and a blog entry. The Godfather granted my wish.

But by the latter half of our trip, as the blog will reflect, Eric and I fell out of favor with The Godfather. Each time we appeared to have a clear shot to the southeast, The Godfather would blink, beep and defiantly give us another crummy connection incapable of sending a sentence.

So, we'd wrap it back in garbage bags and stick it in our packs. It became a routine question each morning as we broke camp: "Do you want me to carry The Godfather today?"

On Tuesday morning, Eric and I had finished our hike. As we waited at the edge of Florence Lake for a boat to take us to our car, a wonderful thought occurred to me. I could take The Godfather out of my pack and chuck it into the blue waters. I shared this thought with Eric, and he offered to take a picture.

"Yeah, that could document the thing that would get me fired," I said.

"You'd probably only get 10 days' suspension," he replied.

Well, The Godfather prevailed. The gadget zipped across Florence Lake with us, safely strapped into my pack.

It was tempting to send the weighty device to sleep with the fishes forever, but I decided it wouldn't be responsible to do that to such an expensive piece of equipment.

Besides, I'm still on probation.