Today’s word: CONVIVIALITY. Today is Chad’s last full day on the water. With a recent cash infusion from our friend Tim Lenning who was concerned for our losses, we decided to splurge on a private campground for Chad’s final night. The Two Rivers campground has a swimming pool, mini golf, and a store that will deliver purchases to your tent (including beer and pizza). With our eye on this prize we set out for a short 17 miles, after which there will be time for fishing and blogwork.

We were fortunate to be staying next to a fellow kayaker, Ben, who is also paddling to New Orleans. He had just taken a day off camping with his wife Julie. He too was going to be starting off this morning. Chad and I have joked several times about how this excursion sometimes feels like that Wacky Races cartoon from the 70’s. Ben is like Peter Perfect, cruising along in his sleek one man sea kayak; Chad and I are more like the Slag Brothers – a couple of cavemen with our gear crudely piled around us. We also have seen the Davenport duo nearly every day: Alex and his dad Joe in a red canoe with their dog Sequoia. And there’s an older man & wife team also in a red canoe, who were the ones that connected us to Brainerd Bill. We’re all sort of competing in the same race in different classes of vehicles and sometimes leap frogging each other along the way due to various choices or mishaps.

Ben is a really nice guy and we’ve enjoyed a few conversations with him. He’s the one we met back on day 9 in Palisade who has lots of experience on the river, and has never seen it so low. He said we should not expect to see much flow improvement until St. Louis. 😬 His wife Julie is a chiropractor. She said she refuses to even look at his wrecked back while he’s doing this journey hunched over in his craft for 10 hours a day. That would be like taking your car to get detailed before entering the demolition derby. Julie also used to coach girls basketball at their daughters’ Christian school (how about that Steve Mudd? I’m sure you two would’ve had lots to discuss ). Since Ben was heading out at the same time as us, they gave us a lift with our bags back to the boats to save the 1 mile hike with 100 pounds of gear to start our day. Thanks Ben!

The big obstacle today is the Blanchard dam portage. We fueled up with PBJ lunch before tackling the trek. (How many PBJ sandwiches have I eaten? More than the past 20 years in just two weeks.) we also walked out the route to make sure we knew where to go – thankfully Ben’s cart tracks were there for us to follow as verification. Thanks Peter Perfect, the Slag Brothers are on your trail! Just before we got underway, a couple of Little Falls fishermen, Bill and Ted, chatted with us about our most excellent adventure. They somehow knew what we were doing and where we were headed without us having told them. I suppose they traveled into the future in a phone and saw me walking my kayak on Bourbon Street. They asked how our fishing has been (not so good) and offered us 3 of their finest catch to take for our dinner. We thanked Bill and Ted for the fish, they told us to be excellent to one another, and we prepared to portage.

At 46 feet high, the Blanchard dam is the tallest dam on the Mississippi. It would seem to make sense then that the portage is the biggest pain as well. The DNR advertises this as a 600 yard portage, it seems to be twice that length: out at the boat ramp, up the driveway, left at the road, right onto a dirt path, right onto a paved path, left on another dirt path, down a steep curved hill, up a steep rutted hill, meandering path through the woods, across a parking lot, then finally crossing over gravel and large rocks back to the river. We managed to destroy another cart on this portage, bending the chassis on the steep rutted uphill stretch. We made some field repairs and finished the portage somewhat wiped out.

After returning to the water. We had flow again. This has becoming routine: when 6-7 miles upstream of a dam the river turns into more of a lake; flow is imperceptible. Once around the dam it runs freely again. Downstream of Blanchard dam was some of the fastest water yet. This was nice as we wanted to get to the Shangri-las early enough to have some down time. We cruised through the last 9 miles averaging nearly 4 mph and we beached at the campground around 4:30.

I checked us in to our riverside spot next to the dock. We met a nice couple with two young kids; she wondered what I had to promise my wife to earn a personal 65 day vacation; I told her I promised my wife that she didn’t have to join me. She indicated that a kitchen remodel seems a more appropriate payment, which her husband seemed happy to try as he began bartering for his own personal time away.

We met our neighbors, Bob and Susan, who were very friendly and inspired by our journey. Bob said, “You guys got the life; very few people get to do what you’re doing.” Amen Bob. Chad cleaned Bill and Ted’s most excellent fish while I set up camp. The bulk batter ingredients from the Crow Wing co-cop proved to be excellent. Chad has proven he is equally capable at frying fish as making PBJ.

After dinner Chad fished until it was too dark. Then we joined Bob and Susan at their campfire. We had some great conversation with them, though Susan was too generous with the rum, and Bob competed with her generosity by hand us several ice cold Natural Ices. We lost track of time and stumbled back to our tents after 1:00am. Yikes – this will no doubt leave a mark tomorrow.

Doh – I hit publish before I added today’s music: Our Shangri La by Mark Knopfler. Maybe it’s a little sleepy for today’s journey, but I’m thinking of my meeting with Christin again tomorrow after 16 days away, especially after seeing Ben with Julie this morning, and maybe I’m a little sappy as a result.