With our egos healed enough and
some of our replies replaced, we needed
to get back on the river, we were glad to have spent a wonderful evening
with Heidi and Heinrich, but every mile we gain gets us that much closer to
getting out of Minnesota, and closer to New Orleans. We had a great experience with our double
bucktoothed taxi driver the day we tipped so we called him up. He dropped us
off, for a fee less than the day previous, which had me wondering if he really
was driving in circles before. Regardless, we were happy and relieved to see
our canoe was still moored to the bunch of trees we tied it too. Half a foot of
rain water sat in boat so while toby bailed out water, I hung up various things
to dry out. We managed to save even more groceries that were in our cooler,
giving us far more hotdogs than we can currently eat.
The sun was out, the wind was calm
and the water was flowing. And we began
to paddle. We only paddled for a mile or so before we came to our second to
last portage, lamenting the fact that we should have crossed this two days ago.
This would be another 300 yard portage, but at least we commented, we have a
little less stuff to carry. We hauled
our belongs to the top of the bank, and
then the canoe. We scouted the portage and steeled ourselves to make a few
trips down a path, up a hill, down some
stairs, down some jagged rocks to the foamy water below the dam. The portage
path lay below a privately funded botantical park, two large green houses full
of various flowers stood beside the portage trail. As we were prepping our
gear, a man in Gator ( For
those who don’t know what a gator is) and offered to help us portage. It truly felt
like Christmas. Gator Gary and toby took the first load of our equipment over
and came back and loaded the canoe across the bed of the gator, with me sitting
off the back. It felt great not having to pull, push and heave our equipment just
to get back in the river.
The river seems to be getting wider
as we head south, the banks now are taller and steeper and the tress surrounding
them more lush. We can tell we are getting deeper into civilization, houses dot
the banks, allowing us to scrutinize the various states of backyards as one of
the river pastimes. We decided to aim for a campsite on an island, but a few
miles before we got there, I spotted a lovely little park, the gazebo made out
of dark logs, and the grass looking intensely green. I couldn’t help but assume
this would be a better place to camp than a Island. Although the park technically closes at 10, we hope to either go unnoticed or at least, use our
charm to get an exception if confronted.
A whole herd of mothers and their kindergarten
aged kids were having a graduation ceremony in the park. The kids all wore red
caps and gowns and the mothers were swooning with cameras. I figured that these
silly ceremonies are more for the fawning parents benefit than that of a child.
Maybe I will see the point when I become a parent, creating incredibly boring
situations for your child just so you can think they are cute. Toby and I decided to look at this little town,
hopefully finding a place where we could find relief from the 90 degree heat as
well as a power plug for our phones.
Personally, stopping for two days was discouraging. Minnesota is feeling
like the state that never ends, it’s either too hot, or too cold, too windy or
too wavy, never can it be Just right. We will be going through our last
portage tomorrow and hopefully our first lock, which will lift my spirits. Tomorrow we hope to get close to 60 miles, so
depending on how I feel, I might hold off on writing. Take care everyone.
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