tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-225808472024-03-19T02:43:54.070-06:00Dogs and WindmillsNotorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.comBlogger285125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-79782184655452484522019-11-22T17:33:00.001-07:002019-11-22T17:41:45.919-07:00Communication with other Earthlings... Put the "Top Men" on it!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ok you maniacs... I just came off of 9 days of sitting night alert for the hospital helicopter. Probably some lives were saved... I don't know... that weirdness happens in the back of the aircraft. If there is one thing all pilots must know, don't get involved in anything that happens behind the back of your seat. It gets weird back there.<br />
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So, I came home at 6 am this morning and reasonably decided to have some good morning whiskey and watch documentaries about whales. <br />
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It started me thinking... The US space program, the human genome mapping, the LHC... There are some large awesome projects advancing human knowledge that have really made humanity better. Let us say we put some Apollo level commitment (money) into language/communication with other species. It is pretty obvious that whales, coyotes, and some birds have for real languages.<br />
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These guys are starting the project...</div>
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Can you imagine if we could communicate reliably with other earthlings?<br />
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There are bowhead whales over 200 years old. There are trees that communicate chemically that are over 90,000 years old (roots only)... imagine we got our top intel nerds working on cracking coms from the oldest and possibly most experienced beings on earth!<br />
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Let's imagine we put the best code breakers and linguistics specialists on the case of talking to whales, dolphins... and maybe a few trees... and we could learn from their perspective.<br />
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<img alt="The DAREWIN team go face-to-face with sperm whales (Credit: Fred Buyle)" class="responsive landscape" data-caption-title="" data-caption="The DAREWIN team go face-to-face with sperm whales (Credit: Fred Buyle)" data-fixed-width-format="" data-landscape="" height="" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/wm/live/624_351/images/live/p0/4k/dn/p04kdnpj.jpg" title="The DAREWIN team go face-to-face with sperm whales (Credit: Fred Buyle)" width="" /><br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161206-the-people-who-dive-with-whales-that-could-eat-them-alive" target="_blank">Whale dial up?</a></div>
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These whales are sending modem amounts of data... basically by sounding like a fax machine underwater.<br />
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There is a lot of untaped knowledge... wisdom maybe... if we can figure out how to communicate. If we really are the TOP species on earth... we should be able to pull this off! Plus, learning to communicate at a fluent level with other species might be make the Universe a little less lonely.<br />
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-19071925984971833732019-11-14T10:09:00.000-07:002019-11-14T10:09:25.919-07:00See the night sky again... before it is full of spaceships!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For just a few moments... I thought they were here!<br />
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So, a few nights ago, I was flying the hospital helicopter from Albuquerque to Shiprock, NM. Just as we were passing a few miles East of Chaco Canyon, I looked to the west and saw what looked like a formation of about seventy spaceships coming over the horizon! <br />
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I even said over the intercom... "What the fuck is that!" (a huge formation of spaceships was the implied part!)<br />
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ARTISTS CONCEPTION:<br />
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As you can see from the artist conception, the space ships were all in formation in a line coming out of the west!<br />
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Over the next few minutes, the lights seemed to move off down the horizon to the south. They also looked like they weren't coming out of the west anymore but were just all lining up and going south.<br />
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The lights/space ships were only visible through Night Vision Goggles... looking with the naked eye, none on board could see anything thing. </div>
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All 4 of us on board could see them through the NVG's though. Two Paramedics, a Flight Nurse, and a pilot. A pretty solid bunch to make a claim to the press about what we had seen! (Which is where i figured this was going to go.)</div>
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To be honest, it felt a little like the scene in "Independence Day" when the giant spaceships all arrived and hovered over the cities... Though not as ominous given that it wasn't a full on Hollywood special effect... but more ominous because there was no f-ing doubt that this was real! </div>
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For a few brief moments... I considered the possibility that it was either aliens arriving. Just as realistic could also be that the government was launching some swarm of crazy anti-gravity spacecraft. What didn't seem plausible was that it was a formation of military aircraft. The formation was too perfect of a line, and there is no way short of war that we could get that many aircraft all up at once at the same time.</div>
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It was awing! Seeing something in the sky that weird and unbelievable! And we weren't the only ones!</div>
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<a href="https://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Mysterious-lights-spotted-across-Brazos-Valley-sky-564828661.html" target="_blank">It was all over the news!</a></div>
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Though, unfortunately after a small amount of research... it turns out that the explanation is much more mundane than aliens or antigravity starships...</div>
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It was <a href="https://www.popsci.com/story/space/spacex-starlink-constellation-satellites-light-pollution/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR22b8Ni_nMZOxPMnoZabgVV2v0co3Haazs_bNxDkg8rg-VH8_DSYB7cC78" target="_blank">SpaceX</a> filling the sky with cheap communication satellites. A sort of global internet from space. Though the article mentions it, one of the first things I thought about after I learned what the lights really were, was that the night sky is about to never be the same again.</div>
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Just like most humans can barely see the stars where they live, soon even out in the middle of no-where... the sky is going to look like an interstate at night with spacecraft criss-crossing the stars and constellations for the rest of our lives. </div>
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I recommend if you want to see a sky with minimal human fingerprints on it... go see it soon, as it will not last long.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-73475470126210174552017-04-23T14:49:00.002-06:002017-04-23T14:49:47.726-06:00Huck Finn... I know why they were naked.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I have been traveling down the Mississippi for a few weeks now. The Mississippi and the Missouri though branches on the same tree, are hugely different rivers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Missouri you get the sense is a sort of captured wild She-Wolf that is kept in a fenced in back yard. Sure it appears to be just a big dog... but an night she still stands the hair on everyone's neck with her howl... and you and she both know that she is going to be wild again. They have her in the yard for flood control and barge navigation... but it still floods, and the only barge traffic is Corp of Engineer barges building banks for more CoE barges. I guess sometimes there are just jerks that like thinking they possess something wild.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Mississippi from an overlooking bluff. Barge heading up-river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The Mississippi on the other hand... is beat, channeled, and used... you don't get the same sense of wild heart. The Mississippi feels like a huge man laboring in chains. Like a strong proud slave held in check by a little jerk with a horse and a whip, that both the slave and master know that his subjugation is only because the slave lets it stand for now. The entire length of the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans is banked in by 20' leavies on both sides, (40' around the towns.) The maps show all the former bows that have been cut off over the last hundred and fifty years... and even old living bargemen remember the river as a much wider and slower river. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The usual barge set up. 6-8 wide X 8 barges long.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The wake coming off these things will bounce you 15 feet up and down for a mile down the river.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That said, there are still just enough islands and towheads left where I can find a place out of the barge wakes to anchor and spend the night, usually hidden well enough that the searchlights from the barges don't spot me. So, sleeping on towheads, and working my way down the Mississippi, you can't help but think about Huck Finn and Jim working their way down the same stretch of earth a hundred and fifty years ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Sunset anchored behind a towhead on the Mississippi</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This is not lost on all the people when i tell them about what I was doing on this river... People always mention old Huckleberry Finn. (I just re-read the book... to have a better opinion their comments about their memories from having read it in middle school.) People seem to be all over the place about this book. Some mention that this book is about hidden homosexuality, or Man-boy love, or even just how it's kind of weird how they spent so much time naked. Well, having basically drifted down the exact same river... in the same time of year... I know exactly why they lounged around naked for days. The answer, so simple... it is just really freaking hot. (and humid)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For a rough estimate, imagine sitting outside on the hood of your car in a parking lot in Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana... etc all day everyday for a few months of August. There is no wind, the sun comes up and the world turns into a sun-blasted sauna for 16 hours. Humid, not a breath of wind, any cloths you bother wearing are salt crusted in sweat. I will admit that I did wear my boxers most of the time, but that was mostly because I was trying to keep my junk from getting sunburned and it seemed inappropriate putting sunblock on down there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Plus... every once in a while, I had an audience. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Also, in the book, they were were looking for the town of Cairo, Illinois. It is the town at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio River and supposedly where you could take a river boat up to freedom in the north. I was actually really looking forward to seeing Cairo even though everyone along the river had told me to stay clear of there. It was supposedly dangerous and home of a cult of people that worship Egyptian gods. Supposedly, only blacks lived there, and no whites were welcome/allowed. Well, people had also told me to stay clear of Indians, and downtown Kansas City for similar reasons and those places turned out to be friendly and interesting. So... I figured my luck would continue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">NOPE.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">After landing, I walked about ten minutes into town... realized it was no place for me... turned around went straight back to my boat. As I walked back, I saw a car racing towards my boat. I got there a few moments after the car. When I walked up, the car immediately drove off. This was the first time someone had looked at the boat, looked at me, and not wanted to talk. It felt like they were about to rob the boat and I scared them off. The whole town had sort of a sinister, desperate feel to it that I have never felt in a whole town before even in Afghanistan or Somalia. I cannot recommend anyone of any race ever visit that town. Probably the people that live there should leave too. It felt like a town that had devoured itself with a pollution of hatred.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So, I went across the Ohio River to Wickiffe, Kentucky. My first night in Kentucky... a new state is always fun for some reason! As I pulled behind a tug boat pier to get out of the barge wakes, there was an 18 story steel cross overlooking the town. I hadn't been in a town for a week or so, so was interested in food resupply and a beer. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Turns out, this was a dry county in Kentucky. The nearest place to get a beer is Cairo, Illinois. (Sad trombones.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Also, I am pretty sure why Huck and Jim missed Cairo as they floated down the Mississippi. Mainly because Cairo is really on the Ohio River. From the Mississippi, it just looks like more levies and trees. Looking at old maps, that aspect of it seems not to have changed in 200 years. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Obligatory corn cob pipe. Still remarkably easy to get ahold of in this part of the country.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">These are two dudes I met on the bank as I was getting out of a Thunderstorm. They were just sitting there drinking Natty Ice. </span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-44813462781016004242017-04-19T11:16:00.000-06:002017-04-19T11:16:07.956-06:00Power Plants... probably Super villain/hero fortresses <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
First of all, I would like to apologize to all my regular readers... I know this has been a huge break... I have been back from this trip for about 7 months. I hope I remember half the stories for the next month and a half after I got to St Louis... and went all the way to Florida in the boat. I guess we will see if I did. I did take some notes, and still have a most of the pictures, but the real problems was that a few weeks after my last post I got robbed in Greenville Mississippi... (technically boat burgled) but without a computer or camera for the rest of the trip, you can imagine how hard it was to blog.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrPjeLRXrKEvK9MEyJxlQv6pd3TIRgS8uPLTRzVnFywZkchfAH6QFxBg_xun6gpghRMDUmvA8HvWIkNnOLPa6oMx2LJETlBbtynfKUUz2nZCXyNu05f-4lQ14KtfdmB4EBV3wwQ/s1600/IMG_1044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdrPjeLRXrKEvK9MEyJxlQv6pd3TIRgS8uPLTRzVnFywZkchfAH6QFxBg_xun6gpghRMDUmvA8HvWIkNnOLPa6oMx2LJETlBbtynfKUUz2nZCXyNu05f-4lQ14KtfdmB4EBV3wwQ/s320/IMG_1044.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(A pretty picture... though I was actually stuck in the mud walking around trying to find deeper water when I took this.)</div>
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My plan is to catch you all up on the rest of the trip, then tell you about my continuing adventure plans. (Hint: I am building an even more absurd impractical mode of transportation in my new garage in Albuquerque!)<br />
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Anyways, I'll ease you back into readership and myself back into writership by discussing the superhero and super-villain lairs that I passed along the river. As crazy as it is, the whole Missouri River is damned up with hydroelectric dams... yet, along the whole way, there are also coal plants. The argument being, the dams are in the middle of no where where no one uses the electricity, and the coal plants need a lot of water anyways, so close to the people they build coal plants and use the water for cooling. Though they could transport the electricity over high tension wires but instead build even more coal pants... also in the middle of no where? I smell something fishy! (Asian Carp)<br />
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This sounds as likely as that gourmet popcorn store that was in the Nickles Arcade in Ann Arbor being a viable business. Come on! You are going to tell me that students are buying enough gourmet popcorn to support a store in the most expensive real estate on campus? Instead of Greek Mobsters laundering money with popcorn, all these coal power plants are obviously lairs for super people. I took a few pictures... I am sure you will agree by the end. <br />
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For starters, look at this place! Obviously a good guy lives here. Loot at the high stone window arches from which this super hero can brood overlooking the majesty of the Missouri River!<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOxxqlVgodWGGqnPv1WzitP4aSG6cjO1r7Io9dm2k5numaFHeuK_W2nUazgBWVL6LII6wSQAWCxLEZ8VSZ1EkeGa1lYH4lqjdLP_uBYMQ5scYGMmPAainAFSSzQl84rXeokcidxQ/s1600/GOPR1012.jpg" imageanchor="1"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg4SloJVIl0MHxgyaGquq7x2O3wnQ3T1qaGeyUMlVWlpUfaaWPWQn8A_iPFd7D-UOQofbm9vMwGgw9DUjObKb1sDPadVUe38x7vY0_JsuOQ0F6dhQZyuMeZ1LzlKmV6-3Eek3Awg/s1600/GOPR1016.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg4SloJVIl0MHxgyaGquq7x2O3wnQ3T1qaGeyUMlVWlpUfaaWPWQn8A_iPFd7D-UOQofbm9vMwGgw9DUjObKb1sDPadVUe38x7vY0_JsuOQ0F6dhQZyuMeZ1LzlKmV6-3Eek3Awg/s320/GOPR1016.jpg" width="320" /></a><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOxxqlVgodWGGqnPv1WzitP4aSG6cjO1r7Io9dm2k5numaFHeuK_W2nUazgBWVL6LII6wSQAWCxLEZ8VSZ1EkeGa1lYH4lqjdLP_uBYMQ5scYGMmPAainAFSSzQl84rXeokcidxQ/s320/GOPR1012.jpg" width="320" /><br />
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This one, obviously a super villain. You can just tell. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3pWs-_N8mgIrzw9MdZfKSMNj4UUZND83N2-97EQkHM87D5jR9WyBYDdNYIjDjNJmFVBTJ2c0AgUrkA0OEXVcNCOw6MUwwPBWHW4wesV-JCBuIsQ6M0x4jYQyBwn1_ymFg3UzmA/s1600/GOPR1086.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg3pWs-_N8mgIrzw9MdZfKSMNj4UUZND83N2-97EQkHM87D5jR9WyBYDdNYIjDjNJmFVBTJ2c0AgUrkA0OEXVcNCOw6MUwwPBWHW4wesV-JCBuIsQ6M0x4jYQyBwn1_ymFg3UzmA/s320/GOPR1086.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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This one... Well, I think I was just impressed at the size of this smoke stack. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsbj3bkTPai0epnnekrBwKARMdnhCV2jShXTBuZgmDA6vd_ITFP_jRlrFrwe6eSXbF95gP_q7G2hcGF8KN5b10EFkD7FL0bBe99c63l_q8Jn4AyiJhD3tmxEA-elTt8-JXaBrXsg/s1600/GOPR0960.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsbj3bkTPai0epnnekrBwKARMdnhCV2jShXTBuZgmDA6vd_ITFP_jRlrFrwe6eSXbF95gP_q7G2hcGF8KN5b10EFkD7FL0bBe99c63l_q8Jn4AyiJhD3tmxEA-elTt8-JXaBrXsg/s320/GOPR0960.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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Hmmm.... well, shoot. Now that I look at my pictures, I apparently don't have nearly the pictures of all the incredible super people power plant lairs that I thought I had. The post is already written so you are going to have to trust me on this. They no doubt also all have submarine pens, that they access the river and thus the world! It all just makes to much sense not to be true.<br />
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-24978897560335660402016-10-30T13:30:00.000-06:002016-10-30T13:30:51.669-06:00MO to St. Louis<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So... Just because I made it through the Missouri River... and theoretically St Louis is at the confluence... does not mean it is a reasonable task to get from the Mo to the waterfront of St Louis. After 14 damns, I was about to meet my first set of Locks... and first Canal. This is mostly a picture post. It took me a full day to get from my make shift pier of sunken barges around St Louis to the waterfront.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQocFO3mpQByPJG8377G7VVithUkZ8-gyurT-_rFmc__t0bJ7BfRowfPc5QYlma6Vu5xL6Xh-SjqXaBiWAxMbuBKCZvT3MWKYj4GohoPzWyeSz16hW4nSsoHqDOzRWzWSQKXV4A/s1600/GOPR1026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigQocFO3mpQByPJG8377G7VVithUkZ8-gyurT-_rFmc__t0bJ7BfRowfPc5QYlma6Vu5xL6Xh-SjqXaBiWAxMbuBKCZvT3MWKYj4GohoPzWyeSz16hW4nSsoHqDOzRWzWSQKXV4A/s320/GOPR1026.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The Confluence of The MO and the Miss. You can even tell that the Miss is so much more a commercial river even at this point. So many barges and boats on the Mississippi only trees and eagles on the Missouri.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTScIbJ29i2jZ-2nzBLxYr4pXE82gvzupb0NDWA0-Czuk9tmnkx3KRuOjvS6hyQxbgtwN2pQGwHTIus3E5IJq88nKOan5hMA5RRJ42Z9TZHK-Oyxf4RELA6DinGF4YqRhIcAagg/s1600/G0031043.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKTScIbJ29i2jZ-2nzBLxYr4pXE82gvzupb0NDWA0-Czuk9tmnkx3KRuOjvS6hyQxbgtwN2pQGwHTIus3E5IJq88nKOan5hMA5RRJ42Z9TZHK-Oyxf4RELA6DinGF4YqRhIcAagg/s320/G0031043.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The first thing you will see upon entering the Miss is that the whole of the river flows to the right... but this sign tells you that all boats must go left down this canal. On the right is what's called "Chain of Rocks." Basically the left overs of a dam. Of the people I talked to, it was about 50/50 if I could get down the chain of rocks with the Mermaid... I was kind of excited to go through a lock too... This is the last Lock on the Mississippi. So, I went down the canal into the lock.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaRT_JVtDZSibUOudod8X2OLk_EiaQTMC-2edoCA0HNGHA6jeN8XHca0OnFODllkQMwR13t00klWH9REn4cz-9ZaccMs0iW3Z3o36JGONLQZEwl64s3VL9x7z2PvqfAySB2_5WIA/s1600/GOPR1062.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaRT_JVtDZSibUOudod8X2OLk_EiaQTMC-2edoCA0HNGHA6jeN8XHca0OnFODllkQMwR13t00klWH9REn4cz-9ZaccMs0iW3Z3o36JGONLQZEwl64s3VL9x7z2PvqfAySB2_5WIA/s320/GOPR1062.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Like... freaking 9 miles of canal...</div>
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Yep... Miles of still straight water.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiczh8QHmIZ-aKNjlbdPybzdblNkjI-1EUvV-6_uh6upJGKnFBnl991dUJFiYVQ9pPQdK4y4_SdNcKcozWkkbZbBhvcVG_uzCY2L5hXfkE5nI-YDaVFEVro13sCSCDivpijfxKuug/s1600/GOPR1068.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiczh8QHmIZ-aKNjlbdPybzdblNkjI-1EUvV-6_uh6upJGKnFBnl991dUJFiYVQ9pPQdK4y4_SdNcKcozWkkbZbBhvcVG_uzCY2L5hXfkE5nI-YDaVFEVro13sCSCDivpijfxKuug/s320/GOPR1068.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Eventually you get to this lock at the end of it. I was a little nervous to be honest. It really feels like a place you shouldn't be with a little rowboat. Eventually the lock dude came out... said "Don't bother tying up..." Like it was a totally normal thing for me to be there.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRr01LnL3iMTpTIuMnHnmesedFQusyebTEXKIoQMYaQrw7ROvME2nG4Jjb1IT14_tTjuyGnEH5M5WlZyPvWcre1oZwi_-O4ywRGmaC8JdtmDHgzBzP6vjzO04f6JrUtMfOi5kTw/s1600/GOPR1072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIRr01LnL3iMTpTIuMnHnmesedFQusyebTEXKIoQMYaQrw7ROvME2nG4Jjb1IT14_tTjuyGnEH5M5WlZyPvWcre1oZwi_-O4ywRGmaC8JdtmDHgzBzP6vjzO04f6JrUtMfOi5kTw/s320/GOPR1072.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And down we go.</div>
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Back into the Mississippi just north of St Louis. First time I see the Arch!</div>
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This bridge just north of downtown St Louis is absolutely the most beautiful bridge on the whole system. Iron and Concrete configured in a piece of architecture you could look at for hours and see new things the whole time. </div>
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We're here.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-44447315846323436292016-10-29T11:57:00.003-06:002016-10-29T11:57:49.981-06:00Out of the Mo into the Miss:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">AUGUST 20, 2016 (Give or take)</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What can I say… 2300 miles of grueling beauty and splendid hardship. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t think anyone who has ever traveled the length of the Missouri River would ever say they have beaten or conquered or even “haha” bested the river. The most you can say is that you made it, this time. This time, you learned fast enough, you made few </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">enough mistakes, and you got lucky enough when it counted that you made it. You don’t complete it and feel like a bigger man for it… you complete it and feel humbler.</span></div>
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This is the last moments I spent on the Missouri River. Just about to enter the confluence of the Mo and Miss.</div>
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The End of he Missouri. Over my right shoulder, you see the Missouri river... over my left, you see the Mississippi. </div>
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Yep. </div>
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(The keen observer will spot the Mermaid pulled up on the river bank.)</div>
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At this point... I am 2300 miles into the trip. The entire length of the Missouri River traveled... I am ahead of schedule, so I plan to travel all the way back to my place in Florida. I now have the rest of the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico ahead of me. 1500 Miles to go! Even though I have come so far... 1500 miles isn't nothing!</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-11330195671704582662016-08-28T14:09:00.000-06:002016-08-28T14:20:42.104-06:00Cousin's... so many babies.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the passage few days of KC to St Louis… the current is fast, the engineered levies are not particularly interesting, but the miles are tantalizingly low numbers!</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I did stop in Jefferson City to visit with one of Dave the Kayaker’s friends </span>Cecil<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> and Joe the park builder</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">… who fist fights anyone who abuses dogs. (There is not even a boat launch in the capital of Missouri… There is one on the other side of the river though.)</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I stopped in a few towns… but was excited to get to St Louis, where my Aunt and Uncle happened to be visiting my cousin to diddle around to long. Like I said, the river is not appreciated this whole section, though I did find a park in St Charles, Mo. In the Park there are several sunken barges piled on top of each other. I tied the boat off to one of the sunken barges. (I hope maritime luck doesn’t rub off… because the Mermaid was hanging out with those sunken unlucky vessels for several days.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Usually my family is a bunch of shudder bugs, but these are the only real pictures I have from that visit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My cousin has twin 1.5 year olds. I was sleeping on the couch. About 6am the boy wakes up and starts playing in the living room. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Suddenly! He sees a crazy looking bearded stranger laying on the couch watching him! Reasonably his first reaction was to run behind my cousin and peak out tentatively. After a few minutes of my not eating him, he decided I was a welcome addition to the living room and starts demonstrating his ability to dump over boxes of toys and laugh. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The girl woke up and laid in her crib singing until my cousin brought her out into the living room too. No hesitation on her part at all. <br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sweet! A new “adult” to read me books.” About thirty seconds after meeting me we were discussing the merits of bananas being yellow and the fact that this is a circle. Being our first meeting and being family we stayed away from the politics and drama of Micky’s clubhouse but I think we would have agree that Minny really should be the one running things at the clubhouse. </span></span><br />
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This is Churchill Clark. The Great Great.... grandson of William Clark! Still lives along the Missouri and spends his time making dug out canoes. I don't know how I managed not to take a picture of one of his dug out canoes... You can find his work <a href="http://www.dugoutcanoelove.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-6722862225666431192016-08-28T13:58:00.000-06:002016-08-28T13:58:57.597-06:00KC... Good BBQ and bad boat ramps<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, the last city on the Missouri River that loves the river is Atchison, Kansas. Home town of Amelia Earhart! (Turns out no planes downtown or anything… just her house.) When I say it is the last city on the Missouri that loves the river, I mean that it has a park along the river, docks for visiting boaters, overlooks… you know… incorporates the fact that one of the great rivers of the world flows through it. There really is a beautiful park and cool downtown. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But, you didn’t come here for travel information… You came for the seemingly impossible adventures of Notorious!</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">I got to Kansas City. KC does not love the river. They have walled it off, hidden it, and are mostly afraid that it will make a mess of their train town! For a city of about half a million people, there is only one mediocre little boat launch on the far end of town that doesn’t even have a dock. Kipling, Michigan has more water front facilities than </span>the half<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> a million people city of Kansas City! INCREDIBLE!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, I guess when the trains came to town, KC stopped being a town devoted to the steamboat, and started being a FRN Train Town.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To KC’s credit, they have beautifully restored their old Union Station. </span></span></div>
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It is really impressive actually!</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While New York has torn down their beautiful station, and Detroit’s is effectively modern ancient ruins. So… there is something… but not friendly to the river.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I found what looks like an old steam boat terminal and tied <i>The Mermaid </i>up to it. There is a set of stairways that lead up the thirty foot rock embankment into the city. I tied up the boat, and as has been effective so far, trusted luck and people to be good. So far so good.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wanted to explore the city, so I got a room, took a shower, and explored. Visit the Arabia Steam Boat Museum. It will inspire treasure hunter in anyone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the morning I came back to the boat. Not particularly used waterfront… no person had bothered the boat.</span></span></div>
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So, here is where I hid the boat... Can you see it?</div>
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Down the hill... what the?!?! </div>
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This is not good... It was floating in six feet of water when I left yesterday!</div>
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About here is where I realized that I had totally wasted taking a shower. The boat is almost tumbling down the bank into the water... held from rolling off by the now guitar taunt mooring lines.</div>
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The GOPRO walleye vision is odd here, but the boat is about two feet above the water on some rocks and an I beam. I had tied it up the afternoon before at about the level where you see the lines on the poles. The thing was perched so that if the mooring lines weren't holding it, it would roll right down on it's side into the river. Now I couldn't slide it out or untie the lines... Some hard corp practical problem solving about to happen.</div>
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Several hours and not at all clean anymore, the boat was finally back in the water. It had been pearched up on this steel thing. The keel was resting in the poky part of the I beam... so I couldn't even slide it down. </div>
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As far as I could tell, no holes punched in the bottom from this operation. Though totally luck on that. The mooring lines luckily held it from rolling off down the bank into the river on its side. All my stuff would have been in Arkansas if they hadn't. </div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-74409758542534745912016-08-28T13:16:00.001-06:002016-08-28T14:39:12.521-06:00Smoke that Prop!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So… last time I tuned in for an update, I was talking about how I was having a bit of hipster moment in Omaha rebuilding a propeller in a coffee shop. I am going to have to back up a moment now to just above Souix City, Iowa.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just before Sioux City, there is the last wild stretch of the Missouri River before it becomes “channelized” or “engineered.” Read that as a big gutter that flushes the water of the Missouri as fast and deep as possible down to the Mississippi.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I was puttering along, kind of zoning out… I was suddenly surrounded by a squadron of local kayakers! (They always come out of the sun at you!) I didn’t realize kayaks could go that fast!</span></span></div>
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Dave... crazy fast kayaker that caught me!</div>
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Then they <span style="text-align: left;">caught up with me again at the Ponca State Park</span></div>
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Surrounded </div>
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Little did I know it, but this kayaker would be my rescuer a few days later!</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This bunch were paddling sixty miles that weekend of the <a href="http://www.mnrr100.com/" target="_blank">MNRR 100</a>… or, the last wild 100 miles of the Missouri are designated a special park. If you paddle them, you have completed the MNRR 100. On accident I happened to do this. Dave, the leader of this band, added me into the award ceremony at Ponca State Park. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Instantly going into “shake, take, salute” mode, he assumed I must have been a politician. I assured him I wasn’t but that there is a massive database of pictures held by the United States Air Force. Every award, honor, or attaboy ever given by the USAF is photographed mid-handshake as the award is passed. Probably for posterity or something… No one has ever in the history of the Air Force ever EVER wanted to see one of these pictures. (Leave a comment in the bottom if you have ever even seen one of these photos after it was taken…)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The First Shake Take Salute picture ever actually published:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I exchange information with some of the kayakers and and let them know about a really old tree that I had seen there in Ponca State Park. Being that Kayakers and sail boaters are all cut from about the same level of nerdyness, they were also excited about an old ass tree and all went up the hill and looked at the it too.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Here it is. This oak tree was born in 1644. Think about that for a while...</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyways. Remember that propeller? Literally the first day out of Omaha, just south of a place called Nebraska City. (Home of the Ely Windmill Factory Museum) I smoked the crap out of that rebuilt propeller. I hit a submerged rock dike so hard I am sure there were seismologists jumping out of their rolling chairs thinking this was going to be the big one! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Ely Windmill Factory Museum… note this is a museum of windmill factories… NOT a Museum of Windmills! Making it even more notable don’t you think!?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I managed to shred the entire inside of that propeller… It was a clean sweep. My repair… shattered, the remaining structure of the propeller… shattered, and even the shear pin… well it was fine. Probably reused that. (cut down high tensil drill bits are the same as shear pins right?!?) No better propeller salesmen in the world than the Army Corp of Engineers!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luckily one of the kayakers who lived just up the road in Omaha came to the rescue! There was a marine store in Omaha that could get the propeller. Who would have known that it would be such an odd ball part. No one carries it in stock. I think they only sold two in the history of Mercury Outboard. Apparently, if you are going to buy an outboard motor, no one ever goes for the 2.5 horse… except apparently my dad. Probably went down like this:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Outboard Salesman:</b> So… you got your 2.5, your 5, and your 10 horsepower outboards. All weigh the same and cost the same. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Dad:</b> I’ll take the 2.5.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Outboard Salesman:</b> Ummm… Ok… you putting this on a canoe or something?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Dad:</b> No, I have an old row boat that I like to drive really slowly in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Outboard Salesman: </b>Like for trolling?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Dad:</b> No… my family has a fishing curse and can’t catch fish. Hmmm… do you make a 1.5 horse?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I have never done Heroin or crack, or any other famously addictive drugs… but I do know for sure that they are nowhere near as addicting as an outboard motor! You see, you try to do the right thing. You try to row… but there you are… facing the back of the boat looking right at the damn thing. Each stroke you think, this could be a lot better… well, maybe just for an hour or so… this is like a headwind… it counts… right?… I did row some today, I deserve this…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">VROOOOOOOOmMMMMmmmM…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well It would be like trying to get off coke but leaving a big scarface mound of it right there in the middle of your kitchen table all the time. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In addition, I had made a decision about this trip that made the motor imperative to have in working order.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So… Rescued by a generous kayaker, who also also happens to be a chef. Needless to say, I ate better than I have in months!</span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-83540965956158034432016-08-15T18:27:00.001-06:002016-08-15T18:27:25.818-06:00I am the stuff of nightmares.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Everyone loathes hipsters... They are the WORST! <br />
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...as I sit here in a coffee shop in Omaha, Nebraska... wearing a t-shirt with an inside science joke on it... with a beard... fixing a small outboard motor propeller... with my highly impractical form of transportation a few blocks away on the river... drinking a silly froo froo coffee drink... writing on my blog on my apple laptop... texting on my totally retro flip phone... it has occurred to me...<br />
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Yep, I might be the hipsterest mother hipster on earth. How did this happen?!?! Well, at least I am authentic in what I am doing. Not like all those poser hipsters who are not as authentic as I am. Right!?<br />
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Pretty sure the only more hipster moment that has ever happened was when we saw that dude in Milwaukee, wearing a fedora in a whiskey bar, practicing his calligraphy.<br />
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Second... I'll tell this story that actually happened a few weeks ago, but is worth telling. Mostly to entertain. Don't think you are about to get enlightened in the next few minutes. <br />
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So there I was...<br />
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There is a place called "Bob's Resort Boat Ramp" according to the Army Corp of Engineer. As we found out, this is no where near Bob's Resort. The original Bobs most likely started sliding into the river a decade or two ago, (probably due to the corp's efforts) and it has been rebuilt up a hill and down the highway a few miles. <br />
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Anyways... the morning Dad and I were leaving the boat ramp there. I went up to use the vault toilet. (Vault toilet is sort of like a concrete outhouse that every state north of Nebraska puts at their boat ramps.)<br />
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So I go to use the vault toilet. There is only one reason to use a vault toilet and that is not number one, it is number two. I wanted to get it out of the way before we got underway. Lake Oahe is huge and it may be all day before I could find as civilized a place to number two as this concrete outhouse at formerly bob's resort.<br />
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I opened the door to go in... LORD! it seemed to be the entrance to hell. The stench and the swarm of flies that erupted out of the door when I opened it... It had to be be a gate to the underworld!<br />
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Didn't matter... some things just have to be done. Besides, I was armed with a pack of baby wipes. As it turns out, they are the antidote to any unsanitary situation. I have even heard they cured herpies on an army dude in the first gulf war. Ask Pat Fronk... he knows the guy. Though now that I think about it, that might have been lysol. Either way.... I entered the little bunker of doom.<br />
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I closed the door behind me but it seems the lock was broken. Whatever, there is no one around for miles. Didn't think twice about it. <br />
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(Do my business... not described here. We all know how that works)<br />
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So I get finished and I get to wiping. (here is where the fun starts!) Did I mention the flies? Yea, they were whirling around in the poop pit like a biological buzzing tornado. Don't contemplate the thought for too long, but I am pretty sure these flies main diet was poop. And you are what you eat... so...<br />
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I hear a truck and trailer arrive, but think nothing of it. <br />
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Anyways... I only sat there a moment because the flies were literally landing on my butthole between wipes. Let me assure even the most depraved SOB out there that this is not a pleasant feeling.<br />
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(I am sorry to all my readers... but if I don't document this for posterity, what will our grandkids think. They will assume this trip was all thunderstorms and museums next to the river.)<br />
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Obviously I stood up to finish my wiping. At least then my hairy buttcheeks were protecting my butthole from being a shit fly buffet.<br />
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I think I was on my first standing wipe, when suddenly I hear a hand on the door and the the door knob turn...<br />
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NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!<br />
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I reach for the door handle to hold it closed.... but I am to slow!<br />
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OOOOOOOoooooo!!!!!!!!<br />
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The door rips open just before my hand, still holding a bouquet of shit covered toilet paper, could grasp it and hold it closed! A flood of daylight fills the little concrete hell.<br />
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The light floods in, a demonic swarm of flies blast out like they are escaping hell, I am basically thrusting a wad of shit covered toilet paper at the now open door inches from the door opener, my pants are hanging at my ankles, (I had my baby wipes in my other hand and didn't want to set them down on anything so let my pants fall to my ankles rather than hold them up) and there in the perfectly lit doorframe stands one of the cutest little girl scientist I have ever seen. <br />
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There isn't a word in english for this level of awkward.<br />
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Lets just say that this poor girl was not prepared for that scene when she opened the door.<br />
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She let the door drop closed. At this point what could I do so I finished my business and step out into the parking lot to walk back to the boat.<br />
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She and her fellow scientist were making the hardest effort to ignore me as I walked past them and their truck and their boat back to <i>the Mermaid</i>. Honestly, I feel like the both of us had been through a terrible trauma and could make it better with a joke, but they were hard ignoring... so I walked passed laughing to myself.<br />
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She never did go back to that vault toilet so I guess she didn't have to go that bad.<br />
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-78280238136818003392016-08-06T19:15:00.001-06:002016-08-06T19:15:34.400-06:00The legend of Guy and Mitch<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So... there I am, sitting in sort of a coffee shop, mostly a gas station in Ft Pierre SD scamming some internet. I just happen to be on the internet live when I get a message from that says... I see your boat, call me!<div>
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I send him a text... turns out he and his best friend did this exact same trip the year previous... in a freaking pontoon boat!</div>
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Oddly enough, above Pierre I had heard stories about these two guys from the previous year! As in... "Shit, that's a pretty good rig you got... most of the time you see fellas in canoes and kayaks... though... I think it was last year, two guys came through on a dang pontoon boat! They made the Corp take that pontoon boat over the dams! hahahah! Damn the Corp of Engineers..." </div>
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Well, as it turns out, they never did get the CoE to take their pontoon boat over the dams, but they did in fact travel the length of the Missouri River in their pontoon boat! </div>
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Here is their contraption!</div>
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This is the story the <a href="http://www.ksfy.com/home/headlines/Two-Friends-One-Dream-1200-mile-voyage-down-the-Missouri-River-307210071.html" target="_blank">NEWS</a> did on them before they left. It is a pretty good and worth your time for the click. It really adds to the toe story I am telling here. Also, they made a documentary of their trip and it will be in film festivals in the next year. So, all you hipsters that go to film festivals, keep an eye pealed!</div>
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Anyways... So I get this call, "Hey! I want to talk to you! Meet me at your boat in like an hour!"</div>
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Well, Ok then.</div>
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So I did...</div>
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This is Guy and Mitch. According to his wife, Guy invented the selfie in the eighties... I would say there is solid evidence for that to be the case. He is obviously the one taking the selfie of himself with us in the background. Mitch is the one slapping his head... I probably just explained that I have a 12 inch dick and my boat also used to be able to make itself into its own trailer.</div>
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Our first encounter.</div>
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Fast forward 26 hours!</div>
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There was a lot in-between all those 26 hours, but just assume that men who have done this journey on this river have a sort of bond. I am pretty sure if Meriwether, William, Mitch, Guy, and myself... maybe even the nerd who wrote "The Complete Paddler" all got together... we would instantly be best friends... or at least be able to commiserate about the Army Corp of Engineers. (even L&C hated those guys)</div>
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Mitch was busy with the whole getting married thing, so Guy gave me as much info as he could about the rest of the trip down to St Louis. Names of helpful people, things not to miss, ways to get around the remaining dams... etc. </div>
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Then, when I got to the bottom of Lake Sharp... Guy just came down with a flatbed and pulled me over the dam himself! Couldn't have been easier! Flatbed into the water, schooner onto the flatbed, into the water on the other side, schooner off the flatbed! Took longer to write it than do it!<br />
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It kind of looks weird on there doesn't it...</div>
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Well, as we dropped the boat into the river below the dam, we encountered a band of tiny Sioux! Or a tiny band of tiny Sioux...</div>
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(You can be a conspiracy theorist or not... but at the bottom of every reservation there seems to be a CoE dam that has flooded all the farmable land that the reservation used to have... we couldn't be that big of assholes could they... we... they?!? Well.... you look at the map and decide.)</div>
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Anyways, these kids were swimming at the boat launch.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGa1YTWQKwRj27KgqVpgapG0EzTHrzwJQIaFmbOqZV7KhUKiQFAD83Ik5Eud2Wnq9eRqixZ7RCXD1pgNaxo1sGJYeZ5qDbtVnpzqfMbpEaAVjMtlfBiBZ6y71Ucm1kgev1jKeQAw/s1600/IMG_8501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGa1YTWQKwRj27KgqVpgapG0EzTHrzwJQIaFmbOqZV7KhUKiQFAD83Ik5Eud2Wnq9eRqixZ7RCXD1pgNaxo1sGJYeZ5qDbtVnpzqfMbpEaAVjMtlfBiBZ6y71Ucm1kgev1jKeQAw/s320/IMG_8501.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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After about thirty seconds of talking, I had a whole mess of volunteers to join the crew of the Mermaid. I was pretty happy with my crew of spiders already... so there were no billets open.</div>
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Actually I was a little worried about stowaways. Shit! Who wouldn't want to take a boat ride to Florida! </div>
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Guy, super shudder bug, had us posing for the camera in moments.</div>
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I know the pictures look calm... but it was kind of madness! </div>
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Apparently the party kept going even after I left.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-76613006913638520022016-08-06T18:03:00.000-06:002016-08-06T18:03:03.301-06:00Wind, Waves, and Flies! by Antoine de Dad and Nick<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I waited in Bismarck a few extra days... both for Dad to come back out and sail the next lake with me and also for a new set of sails. I am pretty sure that the old sails were original equipment on <i>The Black Pearl</i>... so they did OK for cloth legitimately being from the 1930's... Of the four sails I made, 3 of them were shredded by the wind. <div>
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This whole trip has been a school of hard knocks lesson in doing things right, using the right tool for the right job, and paying for better equipment up front and saving time and money later... or maybe I need to get better at using crap to make shit work. Still learning... So, I finally have ordered legitimate sails from a legit sailmaker, that fit the boat correctly. She is now most technically a Bermuda topsail schooner. Also, surprisingly the sails were significantly less expensive than I had expected... and should have just done this from the beginning. So, with a rush job from </div>
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Squeteague Sailmakers, who priority shipped them to the community organizer and dissenting voice to big oil, The Bakken Resistor, in Mandan SD for me... <i>The Mermaid</i> Now has a new outfit to wear! </div>
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WHAT A DREAM! These sails pull the boat better than the bigger old sails, less stress, easier to run up and down, legitimate reef points. MY GOD THEY ARE GREAT!</div>
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The new sails... Full sail! </div>
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Also, Dad is there thinking about reorganizing something. Probably the cooler again... maybe the utensils. </div>
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Anyways, so Dad came out and we left Bismarck. The intention was that we would sail the leanth of Lake Oahe from Bismarck ND to Pierre SD, capitol to capitol, then rent a car and get him back up to his own. </div>
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The first thing we found when we got going was a boat that was suspiciously upside down in the mudflats just entering the lake. It was a sixties or seventies speed boat, upside down... numbers removed, crusted with algae, and seemed to have two bullet holes blasted through the bottom of the hull. (.45 if I were to guess...) Well, maybe it isn't so suspicious after all. Someone just scuttled it unsuccessfully. I guess fiberglass boats are hard to get rid of so some geniuses thought they could sink it in the lake. Unfortunately for them it had internal flotation and probably has been drifting around the lake for years now. Sort of the ghost ship of Lake Oahe!</div>
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Next we encountered massive headwinds. Pretty much this the embodiment of no fun. Huge waves, slow progress... having to stick next to the shore just so the wind and waves aren't completely horrendous. If you want to draw a map of Lake Oahe, basically, you draw a vertical line up and down. </div>
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DONE.</div>
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It is a long straight lake and the wind seems to blow straight up it or straight down it. THERE IS NO LEE SHORE!! So, the winds have a clear path to build waves for about 80 miles.</div>
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Eventually we had to stop. It was to brutal for us and for the boat. We found a point to hide behind, bailed out the boat, and ate lunch. And waited... I was happy to hang out and wait for the wind to calm down. </div>
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This is how I wait for the wind and waves to die down.</div>
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Unfortunately it was full of flies. They weren't even the biting flies... but I think this is about when Dad declared war on flies... or maybe they finally drove him over the edge! From then on... he was attacking every fly he saw. I am not sure that he ever did get a single one, but from then on they were enemy number one! In the tent, out of the tent, in the boat... always the flies. always the flies, always the flies!! Needless to say, we didn't sleep there. We continued against the waves over sleep with the flies. </div>
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Well, the second day out, we had The Night of Thunderstorms. Meteorologically I don't even know how it was possible, but we literally had eight hours of thunderstorms in the same spot. I don't know where the water vapor could have come from, I don't know how there was that much energy in the air... but eight damn hours of thunderstorm. Luckily this time we had a concrete picnic table where we camped so we used it as a sort of fortress to hold all our stuff from getting blown away and trashed. Pretty much everything, to include the boat was tied to the concrete picnic table... except the dirty dishes. We left those in a field hoping the storm would wash them for us. It sort of worked, though we washed them again... actually it didn't really work that well. </div>
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This is the next day after the night of thunderstorms.</div>
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This is what <i>The Mermaid</i> looks like now. Sailing through the Great Plains. As you can see... even if you do go to the side to try and get out of the wind and waves... it isn't like there is a lot of wind blocking stuff out there. It turns out the as a wind break, the great plains blow! </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibwqp7Blz0LjaczS2VTcNysZAgLf6Ji2ZzO5k3rFxVeMdwsLD_ZvQ0p7jx5VDksS37edlCQo_YPMuwgjQcaYP6rELTIoVRd1i0W6Wrs65EcCykkNkVSlCaMb-9UGJR80UIIfdM-w/s1600/GOPR0820.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibwqp7Blz0LjaczS2VTcNysZAgLf6Ji2ZzO5k3rFxVeMdwsLD_ZvQ0p7jx5VDksS37edlCQo_YPMuwgjQcaYP6rELTIoVRd1i0W6Wrs65EcCykkNkVSlCaMb-9UGJR80UIIfdM-w/s320/GOPR0820.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Also, the varnish and bright work has taken a hit. When dragging the boat over sand bars and through mud, you get a lot in the bottom of the boat when you jump back in. Slowly it is getting cleaner... but the initial problem of the bottom being to smooth and slippery is no longer a problem. </div>
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Typical loaded configuration. Probably still to much stuff... As The Big Engineer said, "on any trip, take half as many clothes and twice as much money." I would say this trip is the same unfortunately. I probably could have brought two shirts, one pair of pants, no socks and three pair of underpants. (One clean pair, one pair on your butt, and one pair for going into town.) I have gotten to the point where I have actually taken baths with my clothes on in the river. It might sound crazy in your house, but it makes sense out here. Gets everything clean all at the same time! No fussing with doing laundry! Basically, if I can smell my balls, I go swimming (which I consider a bath) sometimes with soap even! Actually, it isn't that bad. Like I said before, my body seems to be self cleaning now.</div>
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Yea, I have no idea what is going on in this picture. It is about a million degrees out, we are in the middle of the lake on a boat, the next time we get to shore we will probably have to jump out in the mud and water... Dad puts on his socks. I didn't ask, I just took the picture.</div>
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I just like this picture... </div>
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So, as a part of getting Dad back to his car, we were "conveniently alined" to go see John Yunker up at the site of what as far as i can tell, Fort Mandan. </div>
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The evidence is pretty solid... Mind Blowing actually! Granted, it might be nothing, but dang... After being there, I absolutely feel like I was standing in Fort Mandan. You stand there, you read the journals, you look at the land... and you know it is right.</div>
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Dad, John, and the dog Mercy... standing next to what was probably Lewis and Clark's bedroom. (I have no idea why my Dad is making the mister yuck face.) He was having a good time as far as I could tell. I think he is counting paces in his head. That is his thinking face. I have talked to some professional Archaeologists who are friends of mine... just to see if we are all batshit crazy or if this is reasonable. Talking to archaeologists feels a lot more like hiring a private detective than I would have ever expected. We will see...</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-24292928578551929462016-08-06T11:40:00.000-06:002016-08-06T11:40:26.058-06:00So over thunderstorms... Really.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've never met a Meteorologist that doesn't have a few favorite cloud types. Also... all of them have included in their top five favorite clouds the mammatus cloud and the cumulonimbus. Always party favs at meteorology swaray for good reason, they are really really interesting feats of atmospheric gymnastics! </div>
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(<a href="http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JAS3758.1" target="_blank">Click here</a> if you are not familiar with the awesomeness of mammatus clouds. I'll assume you are all familiar with Cumulonimbus...)<br />
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This is not the storm in this story, but here you can see the mammatus clouds blowing off in the anvil top with the cumulonimbus in the bottom right of the picture.</div>
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Maybe it is a joke of the universe but I have been getting creamed by thunderstorms the last few weeks. <br />
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I'll tell you the story of one that hit me just west of Washburn, North Dakota.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Times; font-size: 16px;">I knew there were a lot of storms out this day... as it is pretty much the great plains and you can see them coming. I was below the Garrison Dam by a day and was still looking for my rudder. Heston was rowing and it had been raining on and off all day. I kept looking back at a dark grey section of the horizon hoping that all the storms would just go around me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I looked up early afternoon and over top of me was an amazing display of mammatus clouds. Normally this would make me happy and I would text pictures of the clouds to other weather nerds… that day, I just made a frowny face at them. They didn’t take the hint.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Normally you will find the mammatus clouds blown directly downwind of the storm. The upper level winds being the steering winds for the weather. (Surface winds don’t count for bubkiss about whether you are going to be hit by a storm or not.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Anyways, I looked up and there were beautiful mammatus overhead. There were a lot of low clouds in the distance so I couldn’t see the associate storm, but I knew it was out there. Just by coincidence, this was also as I was passing the now likely found site of Fort Mandan. I didn’t quite have good coordinates and I planned to come back with John so I kept cruising and hoping the weather would go away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Late afternoon I saw one single big hail stone drop about ten feet from the boat. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">PLOOP!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Like a kid threw a rock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I looked back at where I thought the storm would come from and nothing but nebulous grey clouds. At this point, Mr Heston and I are running full tilt! I have the throttle set for max blast and I am trying to get to Washburn North Dakota. It is all river here and also mostly plains so I sort of wanted to park the boat at somewhere and hide maybe in a building or something. I don’t really know why I was trying to get to Washburn, but I was. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It had been maybe ten minutes since I had looked behind me… when I turned around and…</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">HOLY JESUS! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was the MOTHER of all shelf clouds!!! (Shelf cloud = The lower leading edge of a super cell thunderstorm)</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I am not exaggerating when I say it looked like it was the vacuum cleaner of god sucking up the earth into oblivion! </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I immediately looked ahead for somewhere to stash the boat and hid. Really not much. As Dorthy will tell you, the great plains are a terrible place to hid from a storm. Futilely I twist the throttle again against the stop hopping for just a little more speed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I could see an island about a quarter mile ahead… It looked like I could hide there… nope… I’ll never make it… </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I spot a huge pile of rocks along the right side of the river. It looked like they had originally been placed there to try and prevent the bank from being eroded by the river, but the river had just worked its way behind the rocks and it had eroded a sort of cove behind the rocks. That’s it! No other options… any port in a storm as they say, and this port is a little eroded spot behind some rocks. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I keep the throttle wide open and aim the boat for the little spot of sand behind the rocks. My intention is to slam the boat as far up into the sand as I can then tie it to something.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">That part went great! At full speed!!! (Basically a power walk speed) I slam the Mermaid right into that sand and cut the engine. Immediately I hop out and tug as hard as I can to pull the boat as far in as possible. I had apparently done a good job with my Bangladeshi ship breaker parking job as I couldn’t move it any farther than it was already.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Next order of business was to tie it to something. Being the great plains still, there was a serious lack of stuff to tie anything to so I pulled the anchor out and wedged it into the rocks that I had mentioned earlier. They sort of formed a rock pile about 40 feet long that was parallel with the river and the cove was behind it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I put everything I cared about in my backpack put that in a garbage bag stuffed that into the rocks. I then put everything else I wanted to keep dry in a big rubber-made container. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I was as ready as I could be so I went up on top of the rock pile to watch the storm come. I only stood there for a few minutes when the wind became too ridiculous and I went down and hid in the rocks with the anchor and backpack. All things considered, it actually was about ideal! Most of the boat was protected by the rocks from the wind and waves, I was able to get down into the rocks incase of a tornado. </span></div>
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(Oh yea... this was a text book looking tornado producing thunderstorm. I started to assume that once I was passed the precipitation, I would be looking at a wall cloud with a tornado hanging down.)</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So there I am, crouched into the rocks the wind absolutely blasting over the top of the rock pile. It was like driving in a convertible on the highway in the rain. When the rain did finally start, it was all blowing right over me! Not to say I was totally dry, but I could look up and see the sheets of rain blowing right over top of me!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The masts on the boat were boinging around in the wind like car antenna in the the carwash and I was becoming less and less sure of my furling job on the sail… but it seemed to be holding. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Slowly I realized that the water was leaving the cove! The wind was actually blowing the water out of the cove entirely! The boat was now resting on the dry sand. Probably it would come back when the wind stopped right? If not, how was I going to get the boat back to the water? Either way, that was a problem for future Nick, not now Nick. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Suddenly problem solved… The wind was now blowing the boat across the waterless sand back toward the river! The wind had blown the boat about twenty feet and it was sliding back into the water when I finally figured out how to get a hold of the anchor line and stop it. I wrestled it back in enough that the bow was at least resting on sand again. I snugged up the line as tight as I could, and got back into my hiding spot. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The river didn’t exist anymore. The wind was so ferocious that there was no water there was no sky… as I looked at the river, it was a wall of opaque white about 60 feet high. I am sure it was a combination of waves, surf, foam, blowoff and rain, but in practicality it was just a wall of white. If the boat had gotten out into that, I am sure best case scenario it would be that I pulled back a frayed rope end. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">It was horrendous! (Also as I found out later, that same storm went on to destroy the town of Killdear, North Dakota.) </span></div>
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Again, it all just ended up being a feat of endurance... just sitting there and taking it... waiting for the pain to be over.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Eventually, the storm went through. I bailed enough water out of the boat so it wasn’t completely unstable and got back underway. The lid to the rubber made container with all the stuff I wanted to keep dry was long gone and the container was now serving as a sort of toilet bowl with all my favorite keep dry items sloshing around in it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">This day, pretty much the only thing I had managed to keep dry was my computer. Other than that, everything was completely soaked.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">For the rest of the evening, the sky was spiderwebbed with lighting from horizon to horizon! It was the most eery lightning I have ever seen. So much static electricity. Like an earth sized Jacob’s ladder. The sky cracked continuously instead of rumble or clapped…. maybe buzzed with electricity. You could just feel it in the air.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I did make it to Washburn ND that night, and slept on land. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I did get hit by another thunderstorm the next day, but it was just a regular air mass thunderstorm… and in caparison it was like a butterfly kiss! But serioulsy… so so so so over thunderstorms!</span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-80917434117955874472016-07-30T13:31:00.003-06:002016-07-30T13:36:47.636-06:00Here rudder rudder rudder....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Ok. So where was I!?!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Oh yea. So I got back to my boat and my rudder was missing!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The best that I can tell, I beached the bow of the boat against the river bank. Then the dam closed the gates and the water level went down. As it did, the bow stayed put and the back of the boat went down with the river. The first thing to touch would be the rudder. The upward pressure as it sank into the river bottom popped it out of its pins then it flopped over into the water. When the water came back up, it just floated away. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">SUPER BUMMER!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Well, with the main control surface of my craft gone, I had to improvise. I lashed an extra oar to the stern post. An old whale boat trick... and to be honest... should probably stay with whale boats. If i needed to spin the boat to put a harpooner next to the sperm whale, it would work great but for holding a steady course or angle to the wind it is pretty awkward. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Worst case scenario the rudder is 125 miles down stream. That is assuming 24 hours at about 5-6 miles an hour current. Best case, it is hung up on a snag a quarter mile down stream. Actually, that seems most likely! I can hardly eat a can of soup before the river tries to throw me into a snag or the bank. It is probably the same for the rudder! I'll have it back in no time!</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I hand the oars to Mr Heston, loosen the stop on the motor so I can swivel it by hand to use it to steer, then crank him up. I start systematically searching the banks figuring the rudder couldn't have gotten far. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Fast forward: TWO DAYS Later:</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">So many thunderstorms... No rudder.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I’ll get back to the thunderstorms in a minute but for now, just consider I am motoring into Bismarck ND from the north and have been ravaged for days by thunderstorms. I am cold and wet, everything I own is wet… well, I did manage to keep a few things like the oatmeal dry, but that is about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I figure I’ll get into Bismarck, spend the night in a motel to dry out, then find a hardware store and talk the manager into letting me build a new rudder behind his store. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Instead, what do I see as I come around the bend just north of town… A TALL SHIP!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Yea, you read that right! I see a huge tall ship right on the river bank! Well it is actually a house, but made to look like a tall ship. On the forecastle of the ship/house there is a guy. As I am blowing down the river he shouts to me. “Where’d you start from?”</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">I answer and he shouted something else back to me. I couldn’t hear so I turned around and came up to his dock to continue our conversation. We start talking for a few minutes about the weather, he asks about the boat etc. <br />
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Well, in the course of this conversation it comes out that that I will have to build a new rudder. He offers for me to borrow his tools tomorrow and build it there! He likes that kind of project anyways and would be happy to help!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Pulling in to Rollie and Corky's dock.</span></div>
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Yep... shits all wet... and no rudder.</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The next morning Rollie picks me up from the motel where I have sort of dried out to the point of being only mostly damp and we proceed to build the rudder at his house. As it turns out he has spent his whole life running up and down the river, restores old cars, and has sort of a side gig of buying rust free cars from the desert and bringing them up north to sell where they have all disappeared. </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Couldn't have lucked out any better!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Here is the new rudder we built!</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Due to glue drying, and sealing the wood… it takes two days to finish the rudder to the point it will survive the next few months in the water. So for these few days, Rollie and Corky take me in, let me turn their yard into a huge drying rack for everything I own.</span></div>
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My stuff drying all over the place. (Also, inside the buildings are a few awesome old cars!)</div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Bests of all! I got to sail their house around the river for a while! </span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-50590324497435881892016-07-19T19:57:00.003-06:002016-07-19T19:57:49.628-06:00"You're gonna need a bigger boat!"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More sailing through cowboy country!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So with a few days of perfect wind, (See previous post) I make my way down to the Garrison Dam. As I am almost at the marina, the largest pontoon boat I have ever seen pulls me over and after a few minutes of questions about what I am up to they ask me over for dinner! Great!, because at this point my stove has been broken for about a week and a half so I haven’t eaten anything hot in that long! (This pontoon boat was so big it had a bridge on it!) Anyways, disappointingly they no-showed so I just spent the night in the hammock in the harbor with plans to figure out how to get below the dam the next day. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next morning comes and I meet a guy named Mike Quinn. He is also a sailor of cowboy country though with a much bigger sailboat. I am sure he could win a Hemingway look alike contest if he ever found himself in Key West. Within minutes of talking to him… using the shock and awe method of asking for favors, he has borrowed a passerby’s full size sailboat trailer, borrowed another passerby’s pickup truck, and we are watching for trees and power lines as the whole thing is on it’s way down the backside of the dam without even taking down the masts! </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">PLOOOOP!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Into the river again!</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Couldn’t be easier!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Mike Quinn, picture stolen from <a href="https://gearjunkie.com/sailing-on-lake-sakakawea" target="_blank">GEARJUNKIE</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With all my problems solved for the day, Mike asks if I would like to go sailing with him. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Next thing you know, we are back out on the reservoir sailing along… same wind, but whole different feeling about it! At probably about a knot or so faster that I could get for the same wind, we glide through the waves and wind smooth as can be! Well, smooth like standing on the side of the seats and wetting the railings… but none of the white knuckle peril I feel in my boat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lot of discussions about putting tell-tails on your sails. This progresses to discussions about women, politics, more sailing… Either way, as I remember it, we pretty much solved all the worlds problems in a few hours of talking while sailing! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://kadizzled.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">HERE IS HIS BLOG... Read it to about guess how we solved things.</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With the world’s problems solved we headed back into the harbor for whiskey cokes! Mike calls his wife Sissy to come pick us up… or at least me up as he is only there on his pretty much one seater motorcycle. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Two dudes on a motorcycle, hey, we have all been there… two dudes on a one seat motorcycle, well, like I said we called Sissy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just as Sissy arrives, who else should walk onto this same dock in the middle of North Dakota but Melissa and Mark Sprague and family! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So after a few “Holy shit, what the hell are you doing heres!?!?!” You can imagine that we were surprised we could even recognize each other after what, ten years? I look like the castaway she is back flying Hueys, and neither one of us was expecting or looking for each other. We make plans to hang out the next day and I head home with the Quinn’s.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, it turns out there were a few problems Mike and I hadn’t gotten to, but luckily Sissy and I solved them on the back porch with beer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next morning Mike and I go to Knife River Indian Village. Another NPS run spot, and extremely well done. Being kind of slow at nine in the morning on a weekday, the park ranger David Carr gave us a personal tour. Extremely knowledgeable and excellent at explaining things. A little soft spoken so my best advice is to just let him talk. One interesting thing he mentioned was, that not only was this Sakakawea’s home village… also, John Yunker’s family farm is almost right across the river! Mr Carr was familiar with Yunker’s site and though never having been there in person, thought that from what has been described, Yunker’s probably has found the original Ft Mandan!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mike dropped me off at the Sprague’s campsite and we spent a few hours catching up! This was the usual Air Force checking in about where everyone is at these days. Chances are, if you know both of us, we talked about what you are up to now. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They dropped me back at the boat where I discovered my rudder was missing!?!?</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well SHIT! I really needed that rudder!</span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-13011528465305937722016-07-19T19:18:00.000-06:002016-07-19T19:18:07.686-06:00Sailing through Cowboy Country!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;">Lets resume after I left the little cove of the big fish…</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next day the wind was perfect… well perfect direction anyways. I am starting to conclude that it is never possible to have the right amount of wind or the right amount of sail up. So the day started off with not quite enough wind to make me feel happy, but I was sailing along easily at about three knots. Not to bad for just sitting there. I didn’t even hope for more wind. REALLY I didn't!! I am now super happy with a three-knot-all-day day! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Slowly though, it started blowing harder and harder. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The way the progression usually works is you start off in the morning with just enough breaths of air that you can tell which direction it is going to blow. Then by about 9 or so it is blowing hard enough that you are coasting along at about 2.5 knots. Just enough so that you wish it would blow a little more.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then around 11 O’clock it is perfect! The wind is blowing you along at a nice steady 5 knots. Very comfortable. No strain on anything. Then after usually only about ten perfect minutes… you realize shit is getting real. You start hitting 6 knots regularly… sometimes the boat just starts to come up on plane… then settles back in. The speed is so much fun that you decide to push it a little bit… but you do start to wish that you had some reef points in this sail or maybe you had a smaller non-shredded sail. You start getting bolder and thinking you can handle it! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe you get bold enough to reply to a text message or something as you are sailing… or take a video.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just about then you realize you are going way to fast! The wind is blasting you along, and now the waves are up big enough that occasionally your rudder whiffs in the air because the back end of the boat has come out of the water as you crest a wave. This gets your attention… and you have a little pucker in your ass that you should do something before it gets out of hand! I mean something besides push the rudder down farther so you can steer through bigger waves.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(I have now learned to heed this little pucker feeling. If you don’t, suddenly, you will realize you have fucked yourself!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is like if you have ever tried to ride a skateboard down a really steep hill. At first it is fine. Then you get faster… still OK… then faster… now it’s exciting! Suddenly you are overcome by the feeling you are going too fast to stop, too fast to turn, and way too fast to jump off! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well it is the same in the boat. You now can’t abandon the tiller to bring down the sail, because it will flop over and bring you broadside to the waves before you can get it in, and then you have a damn good chance of getting swamped. You can’t turn into the wind to pull them down for the same reason. You've now just skate boarded past where you have the talent to handle… like a cold chill down your back, your whole body knows it! You figure your best bet is to steer well and it should all be fine! Also, look what great time you are making!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then you pass the second chill down the back… You can’t stay this lucky for this long and steer this boat this well! It is madness! At this point, you have no choice, you need to get that sail in! You get smarter in this situation… and think of releasing the whole sheet tackle! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">NOW you are literally sheets to the wind! The sail flapping around so angrily! At least now you aren’t being pulled around and over! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Your only problem now is to scamper up the length of the boat as it is riding up and down these obnoxiously sized waves to douse the sail and secure it at least well enough that it won’t surprise unfurl and set you sailing again. This is like if you put a balance beam on a giant trampoline full of fat bullies trying to get you to fall as you practice tying your shoe when your shoe laces are just a little to short! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Great! Sails are finally in! Time for some bare pole sailing again! This seems like a great idea… but then you kind of remember that time of Ft Peck Lake that handed you your ass and think I could be a reasonable person and put into a protected cove about now. You look at the time and it is only about 1:30 in the afternoon. Man, it could get a hell of a lot windier out here before evening. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pretty much every time now, I make the good decision to put in somewhere and stand on shore and watch the white caps…. thinking I could probably have been fine…</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Either way… still uploading! So there is that! </span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-69290936975814506062016-07-15T13:14:00.001-06:002016-07-15T13:22:13.403-06:00People are great! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A few miles past Ft Union and the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone I look over… and what do I see but?!?!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Holy smokes… Can it be? Another man out here floating the river in his home made seemingly dog themed sail boat drinking coffee?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In fact that is exactly what it was!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is John Yunkers. After we spotted each other, we of course tied our boats together and talked for a while. A few hours in fact. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We talked about just about everything under the sun. The river, god, life, women, dogs, dams… and finally Lewis and Clark!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Lewis and Clark conversation started like this:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">John: “So, are you familiar at all with the Lewis and Clark, their journals?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: “Fairly familiar… I have read <i>Courage Undaunted</i>, but I have found the journals themselves kind of thick to read.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">John: Ah yes yes… so you are familiar with Fort Mandan?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Me: “You mean the lost-to-history Corp of Discovery camp of the 1804/1805 winter… searched for and supposedly never to be found, destroyed by the river or flooded by the dam? That Fort Mandan?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">John: “Yes, yes… I found it!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now as any Lewis and Clark buff will know, that is a hell of a statement to make. It is sort of the L&C equivalent of saying to a Greek Archaeology buff… “I found Atlantis!” or to a treasure hunter, “I found El Dorado and it is in my yard!”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Obviously this brought about another few hours of our boats tied together drifting down the river, only being interrupted once by an old train bridge that attempted to dismast “Grace,” (John’s boat.) </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Leading up to the bicentennial of the L&C expedition 2003 - 2006ish there was a lot of effort put into the finding of Fort Mandan. Even NASA was aiding in the search with some of their remote sensing capabilities. Still nothing. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it was assumed lost forever. Most likely destroyed by the river.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then in 2011, the Missouri River flooded big despite the Army Corp of Engineers best efforts for the first time in many years. Fort Peck dam washed out it’s spillway (which is still under reconstruction), The old Fort Union from my previous post was for the first time next to the water in sixty years, and… John Yunker’s grandfather’s farm which is just downstream of the Garison dam was also flooded!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">John has been a L&C buff for many years… and the fact that most academic works put the probable location of the Fort Mandan somewhere on his grandfather’s farm only fed that interest. As he was looking along the sand bars for some evidence of the destroyed fort… something like a broken pipe or a button or something… he started thinking about a depression that formed shortly after the floor in 2011 receded. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Already being very familiar with the dimensions and it’s features… he started measuring off this depression. It fit almost exactly the dimensions of the fort as it is described in the journals!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A hell of a good start for sure! So, it’s in the right place, has the right dimensions… John decides to check for any additional evidence… He digs a small test hole at the edge of the depression… and immediately hits a charred beam. (The fort was burned down after the expedition left!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So… right spot, right size and shape down to the foot, and materially exactly what it should be! A pretty solid argument so far. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is the 3rd of July… I have heard about a the campground in Tobacco Garden Bay being a good place to stop.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Supposedly they have a restaurant and showers. I haven’t had a shower (legit with city clean water since Great Falls Montana, though I have jumped in the water a few times. As far as I can tell I am clean, but the thought of a shower is appealing. My supplies are getting a little low as well so I decide to push for there.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As I am sailing up the bay toward the campground I feel like I am entering some sort of civil war reenactment! Rockets, explosions, bangs fires smoke…. The place is absolute madness! I had mostly forgotten that it was the 4th of July weekend and that all camp grounds are going to be completely unchained! I am looking at the shore at the dogs, kids, fireworks, explosions, wall to wall tents and RV’s… Campers, beer…. WOW</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have basically been by myself for the last week and a half, and for most of that time I couldn’t even see anything man made from horizon to horizon. This whole scene is a bit overwhelming! My new plans are to go eat, pick up what I can, then continue to a bay down the lake and sleep by myself in the boat as usual… skipping this madness!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I get into the little cove that the camp grounds are built on about nine that night After cleaning up the boat and finding my way around I make it to the restaurant/store about nine thirty. It is definitely closed… just as I turn around to leave, a woman coming out of the closed building looks at me and says, “Are you a paddler?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ummm… yes… sort of. I am rowing and sailing but yes.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It seems people that are floating the entire river have a look about them… I suppose if you have been on the river since the middle of Montana and now find yourself in North Dakota… that might be the case. Even with all this madness, she looked at me for less than a second and knew what I was up to.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This was Peg! Owner and operator of this campground… and Mother to all journeying the river! Before I can do or say anything more, she set me down at a picnic table for a moment to attend to some madness rolling by… then re-opens the store to let me in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Apparently there is sort of a loose organization of people along the river keeping track of all of us fools making this trip. She had already known there were a few of us leaking onto the beginning of Lake Sakakawae and was even expecting one or some of us to arrive within a day or so. She gave me the shower code, hooked me up with a beer, and put me in a place right in front of my boat!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Peg has got to be one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever met! If any other paddlers read this… a stop at Tobacco Garden is worth the trip up the bay!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After breakfast, before the camp Parade got started, I sailed right back out of the bay. The winds were perfect and I made it all the way to New Town that day. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I got into New Town and landed at the New Town Marina. It seemed walking distance from the town itself and I still needed supplies. Also, I wanted to upload some of my posts so I was looking to find some internet. When you have a whole wad of posts and pictures to upload it never quite goes as fast as you would hope… so rather than camp my crazy hobo looking self in coffee shop that may or may not exist. I decided to walk over the bridge and get a room for two nights at the 4Bears Casino. This will give me all of tomorrow for uploading and other internet work I need to attend to.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just south of the casino is what appears to be a commons for the three tribes living on the Fort Berthold Reservation. (The three tribes of Ft Berthold are the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara.) Now being the actual 4th of July, it was even more madness than the previous campground! Campers, fireworks, explosions, kids, 4-wheelers. WHAAAA!!!!!… All still overwhelming… Also, being the reservation, people’s personal fireworks were serious serious serious artillery! After walking around under the raining burning confetti for a while I had had enough and went in to look around the casino. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The next day, I was working my way through my list of stuff to do on the internet. One of which was find the sat photo of Fort Mandan as John had described. After a few minutes on the phone with John trying to pin point it down… he asked where I was. After telling him the 4Bears Casino, he quickly hangs up. A few minutes later I get a call from another local number. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is a friend of John’s named Keith Bear. Mr Bear is a Mandan tribal elder who offers to meet me and show me around the area. (Just for the record, Mr Bear is also part Sioux and Hidatsa.) After a few minute phone conversation, we meet up at the museum… and basically hung out the next two days.</span></span></div>
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After talking and telling stories through the tribal museum till it closed we went to the earth lodge reconstructions, more stories… As it turned out he had been in the 82nd Airborne. We talked about Vietnam, Afghanistan, flying helicopters, jumping out of helicopters, Ospreys… as well as the usual, women, the river, music, art, dams, and even got in discussions about fish.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">SIDE DISCUSSION 1: Dams, (so far I haven’t met anyone who likes them yet!) So, the Mandan were traditionally farmers with permanent towns built along the river. The river bottom land being the best farming areas, they had their towns along the river for hundreds of years… maybe thousands. It is where their houses are, where their family members are buried, the sacred places… Culturally where everything had happened for centuries. Then they build the dam, and not only are they flooding a third of the reservation by area, but the area that got flooded was exactly the area for farming and where all the towns and culturally significant places. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To put this in perspective… lets say Germany had won WW2. They own France… and have for 70 years now. The French get to live in a big section in the middle on a French reservation. Luckily for them it includes Paris! But about seventy years after the the French end up on the reservation at “Fort Paris,” (which is roughly the same timeline as onto the reservation in the late 1800’s to the 1940/50s when the dam was built,) The Germans decide to build a dam on the Seine… that floods Paris and also all the vineyards in central France. So to put this in perspective… The Americans building this dam in the 40’s and 50s would be like if Germany had won WW2 and was flooding Paris and all the french vineyards today. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyways, back to the story! So, of course we eventually end up talking about Lewis and Clark. So L&C coming through was certainly a noted even for the Mandan, and it was kind of mind blowing to hear it from his perspective. The families that were here when they came through are still the families that are still here now. As in, just down the street are the great great… grand kids of the guy who had Sakakawea and married her off to Charbonneau. Families still have the Pease Medals that L&C passed out have been passed down through the families… Sort of you might have a pocket watch from your great great grandfather who worked on trains in the 1800s or a linen handkerchief that was brought from Ireland when your family immigrated and has been passed down. </span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">SIDE DISCUSSION 2: Sakakawea VS Sacagawea. Living in the world outside of North Dakota, I had always heard the name of the woman who traveled with L&C as “Sacagawea.” Pronounced like ‘sack-a-ja-wee-a.’ In North Dakota, her name is spelled Sakakawea. Pronounced, ‘Sa-kak-a-wA-a.’ Not really being a man of spelling, I didn’t think all that much about it except that those are two obviously differently pronounced words. (unlike Two, too, to or I’ll even give you here, ear, and year… as pretty much the same sounding words.) But a K and a “J” sound are not even in the same boat. Well, after talking to some speakers of Hidatsa, I am now solidly with North Dakota on the spelling and pronunciation. Here is the discussion as presented by the actual speakers. “Sakakawea means Bird Woman in Hidatsa. (Her known name with the Hidatsa.) Sacagawea… this is baby talk or something. It isn’t words, it makes no sense.” So. Sakakawea it is. Tell your friends.</span></span><br />
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This has already become a long post, but let me end with another fish story. <span style="font-family: inherit;">So, one of the stories Mr Bear tells me was about some divers that went down under the 4 Bears casino. He told me that the first set of divers came up after working some intake down there... and they refused to go back saying, "There are things down there... no one would </span>swim<span style="font-family: inherit;"> here ever if they saw what we saw!" So, they got another bunch to go work. After one day, they came up and refused to go down again... saying the same thing. They got a third set of divers who finished the work... but one of them talked about being bumped in the back by what he though was a submerged log, but when he turned around to push it away the log had an eye the size of a hub cap and was looking at him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, lets keep this in perspective. I am talking to literally a professional story teller, and he is literally telling me a fish story! So... I say, "Dude!!!! No way! There is no way there are fish in this lake that are so huge that they have eyes the size of hubcaps!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His only response was, "yep... white men never believe our stories until they do..." This was all a good natured exchange, but come on... eyes the size of hubcaps? :-/</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So... the second day out of New Town. I sailed into a little cove to spend the night. I dropped anchor about ten feet from shore, and the anchor went down at least 40 feet before it hit bottom. Well, with that deep of water, I only had about ten feel of slack, and that isn't enough slack to hold me so I pulled up the anchor, ran the bow onto the beach and set up for the night. (Read that as... it was at least 40 feet deep only ten feet from shore!) I sat there writing this... and as usual in the evening, fish started jumping. If you have ever sat out in the wild completely still and quite for a few hours, it is like the animals and plants forget you are there and just start doing their thing. There was a beaver swimming around behind the boat. I could hear the coyote talking to each other just a few feet away on the bank... and I looked up at a little fish jumping. Then just after a little sploosh of a little fish jumping... SOMETHING surfaced. I only saw the top of it's head and then the arch of it's back. It's body just kept arching. It had to be about a foot in diameter at least and it was like it's body never ended. Now, I don't think it had an eye the size of a hubcap, but it was some giant predator fish of some sort! Involuntarily out of my mouth came the words, "OH MY GOD!" I didn't mean to say it... it was like my body just said it on it's own. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And, now... I will never swim in Sakakawea. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, I wasn’t happy with my previous Ft Union entry so I have revised it. I don’t think the pictures carried it quite as well as I had hoped. It really was an interesting place and deserved a better post. </span></span></div>
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Fort Union. </div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As you are floating down the river, you will see a red, white, and blue pennant that almost looks like an American flag from a distance. That is the flag of The American Fur Company. The fort was not even set up by the US government. It was a trading post set at the confluences of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. A private venture if you will… but kind of impersonating the US government. They even struck Peace “Ornaments” that are almost exactly the same as the Peace medals given out by Lewis and Clark… hand shake symbol and all but stamped with “American Fur Company” instead of “United States of America.” Slightly shady but ultimately probably good for everyone involved except for the animals that ended up as hides.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">View from the river when you can finally see Ft Union... if you see this, you have gone to far!!! You must now face the trials </span>of<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> the fire swamp!</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like I said, the fort was really just a trading post. In the springtime, a steam boat would venture up the Missouri River to Ft Union bringing all sorts of “trade goods.” I had always been under the impression that the steam boats were going up and down all the time as they desired, but that is not correct. Each steam boat would get about one run in a year maybe two if they were very fast about it. The river would rise in the spring thaw and that was their chance! So the spring thaw would happen and a river boat would race up the flooded river bringing the kind of things that a bunch of people living in tents out on the great plains would need. Blankets, tools, beads, replacement parts for coleman stoves… etc Officially no whiskey, but also whiskey too. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The guys running the traders would set up shop there in the fort, then the chief of negotiator for a clan would come in and negotiate the prices for everything. As it was described, this would be a lot of discussing the weather, the family, smoking… before getting around to actual business of price setting. It reminded me exactly of making he flight schedule with the Afghans. Lots of tea, smoking, and discussions about family before anyone even brought up flying. Then once it was being discussed… a lot of “Well, these hides are not as good as last year, so the price is going to be less than last year.” and “Thursday is a very busy day, I don’t think we can fly Thursday… maybe in the morning only.” kinds of discussions. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the end of it, the prices for that year were set. Then that bunch would be able to show up and know exactly what they would get for each type of hide that they brought in. This included everything from buffalo hides to mouse hides. (The mouse hides were used to make glove linings.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Until almost the very end, there were no white women ever brought out to Fort Union. The traders would usually marry into the tribes they traded with sort of making the whole operation a family business.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also I thought notable, most of the hides for trade were actually brought in by women and girls. The men might hunt the animals… but for the most part the tanning was done by the women. So they would be the ones that would bring the hides and take home the trade good. To include little girls bringing in mouse hides.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Though run by the NPS, t</span></span>here are folks dressed up in period cloths to explain things and tell stories of the fort and area. Not in a weird uncomfortable way like you accidentally wandered into a renaissance fair, more in a reasonable good history teacher on Wednesday before thanksgiving kind of way.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Also… stop at the pennant. That is the only trail through the 300 yards of swamp, willows, and needle grass… and literally clouds of vicious mosquitos. If you stomp at the pennant you only have to boogy yourself through the clouds of blood thirsty mosquitos. If you do like i did, and wait for a nicer place to beach, you will have the trials of the fire swamp to deal with on your way up to the fort. Either way… worth it.</span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-54564833075332224772016-07-05T22:27:00.003-06:002016-07-06T07:53:37.527-06:00Fort Peck to Fort Union<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The first day out of Fort Peck was a rowers dream! There was no wind, the current was very fast, and the water was so clear you could see everything clear as a ringing bell under the water. It was such a gratifying feeling to pull on the oars and see the weeds and rocks rocketing past underneath the boat!<br />
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That went on for about ten miles... then the apply named Milk river flowed into the Missouri and it turned back into its mocha colored opaque self again. <br />
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A few pictures of the Milk and the Missouri flowing into each other. For a few miles downs street they stay separate rivers flowing in the same stream. Then they totally mix after that.</div>
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An eroded bank... full of mosquito eating swallows!!!!</div>
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With private land on the right and the Fort Peck Reservation on the left, I elected to sleep onboard the boat in the hammock as I don't really have a good map of private and public land in this area. The first morning I woke up to the wind blowing my hammock around like a loose flag. Before I even opened my eyes I knew it was either going to be an awesome day with a following wind, or it was going to blow... in the face... all day...<br />
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After opening my eyes and remembering my orientation... I realized it was the blow option and I was going to have a massive headwind all day. </div>
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Everyone on board and I have a sort of devision of labor worked out. On days when there is no wind or light wind, I row. When it is a medium head wind, Charlton Heston rows, when it is a medium to when-I-get-scared tail or cross wind, we sail... (I can tell the medium head wind is when I can't keep the boat going down the river. When we blow back up the current, I make Chuck row.)<br />
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So, I open my eyes and say, "Mr Heston... I believe it is your turn to row today."<br />
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His response... <span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">You were a rock once, now you're crumbling like old chalk."</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">"I don't have time for your shit Mr Heston. We either wait here for the next few days talking to the swallows till the wind dies down, or you pick up those oars and row!" </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">"</span><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">I intend to smite the wicked, not save the Heathen." is his reply.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Well, do that on your own time bub..." So with an unusually small amount of fiddling, I pull the cord and put Mr Heston to work.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Going into this face into the wind I was kind of anticipating an easy day. Mr Heston was rowing, the sails were furled for storms, and figured I'll just man the tiller and keep us pointed down stream. Not to be the case!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is just about when the Missouri River meets the Great Plains. You see, the thing about rivers is they are kind of unguided free spirits. No discipline! The mountains gave the river direction... a purpose! It was sort of a battle of wills. The mountains vs the river. The mountains like parents guiding and channelling the water... the water always trying to expand it's privileges and trying to stay out late. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Once the river meets the plains.... Missouri River Rumspringa! That river goes all over the damn place... no channel, no plans. The worst river to go down is a strait one! With a bending river, you know where the channel is. On a mostly straight one... not so easy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You can test this by taking a bucket of water and poring it out on your driveway. The water spreads flat, wide, and shallow. And so the river meets the plains... and spreads flat, wide, and shallow!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, what I am saying is that this </span>section<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of the river has gotten the most technical as far as river reading skills.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6; font-family: inherit;">In the first hour, I run aground twice on sand bars that seem to exist for no reason at all and hit a submerged tree that broke the shear pins in the motor.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">Mr Heston: "</span><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">Tell yuh, Blue, ain't no good way to go.</span><span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;">"</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fcfbf6;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Thanks Chuck... Ya, I know... I need to get better at this shit don't I?!" I mean what can I say... the boat only draws about ankle deep water! I know it is ankle deep because when I jump out to slog this barge over the bar it is never more than my ankles. (Like 80s high top ankle... not </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">running shoe ankle.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The adage about the Missouri River being a mile wide and an inch deep rings in my head over and over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So after taking the bottom of the motor apart and replacing the shear pins, I decide that as a start I need a better view. I take a few eye screws and hand jam them into the ribs of the boat on either side of the tiller. Then I tie a line around the tiller then run the line through the eye screws out to the front of the boat. Now I sort of have steering reigns for the boat.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To see what is going on with the river... aka, "read the river" I now set the motor just high enough that it pushes the boat faster through the river with the wind than the current pushes down. This way I can still steer. Then I run up to the front of the boat and stand on the mast thwart with the reigns in hand and try and guide the boat down the river through this mess. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I am standing there for hours in the wind gambling my time at ripples and waves and slight color changes in the water I start thinking about the riverboat pilots that used to take full on steam boats up this same river! Honestly... WOW.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I am barely able to bring a damn rowboat down this river and these old school badasses used to bring full on steam boats up and down this river all the time! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It occurs to me that this is why in the mid 1800's the steam boat captain was the most bad ass mother f'er in the country! These guys were basically taking the 737's of the day and guiding them through the most rediculose hazards possible for a ship and mostly successfully pulling it off. I was trying to think of a modern equivalent and the only thing I could compare was an airline pilot. But instead of getting into St Louis by putting down the Martha Stuart's "Living" magazine and monitoring the radio... the delta pilot had to successfully fly the Red Bull Air Races with pylons made of real trees before landing every time. (I assume all Delta pilots don't all read Martha Stuart's Living. I am sure Fingerson is up there pretending to read Hustler with batman comic books hidden inside.) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyways, after thinking about river boat captains for hours and hours I now understand why those guys thought they were authorized to comment on the country and run it. The river hates men who hedge their bets. If you are looking down the river... and you see a sawyer and a gnarly bank... if you are a pussy and hedge your bet... and think... hey.. I'll go towards the middle. I'll just float on the middle side of the sawyer and be a medium kind of guy! The river laughs and then grounds you!!! like seriously 100 yards of boat dragging laughs! BUT!!! if you scratch your dick, look at that same scene... and say... "the mother fucking channel is in the eight feet between the bank and that sawyer... and you go for it! you will be rewarded by anxiety, anticipation... then nothing!!! then you know that your balls are big for a reason! And you just floated past some terrible situation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The river makes you who look at a scene... assess it.. guess right. If you hedge your bet with this river, you drag your boat. If you go all in, the river respects. I have never run aground by being to close to an eroded bank. I have only run aground when I thought the middle was safe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">An old steam boat passable bridge. When the steam boat came, they just raise the section. No one around to raise it today...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After doing this for a week and not destroying my boat, I am pretty sure I can run a country no problem. Way easier! I see why everyone running everything in the 1800's was former river boat captains. If you can survive the river with a steam boat... probably you should be incharge of earth!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, as I am battling the winds and current... sails furled... I get to the next museum. There is nothing to mark it but a small flag/pennant on a stick. For the love of christ... stop at the pennant... </span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-30242094482948914762016-07-05T19:20:00.002-06:002016-07-05T19:20:57.871-06:00Fort Peck. The town<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Fort Peck is a tiny town that sits basically below the giant earthen dam. It was originally built for all the workers while the dam was being built. Most everyone has left now except for a few engineers who maintain the dam as well as folks sticking around for the tourist fishing and hunting in the area. Everyone I have talked to around here has said Ft Peck Reservoir is probably one of the best fisheries in the lower 48. Lets keep in mind that those are technically fish stories told by actual fishermen... but I did see a lot of fish jumping and everyone I talked to was super happy about the amount and size of what they had caught that day. So... take that for what it is worth. It is basically a huge unmolested lake with no one on it at all. I do believe there are probably a fuck ton of huge fish in there.<br />
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I however did not put a line in at all. Shit! Last thing I want to do is actually catch a fish! Then I'll have to clean and cook and eat the damn thing. Everything I use that pan for for the rest of ever will taste like fish...<br />
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Anyways, I got to the dam in the evening and slept in my hammock in the marina. The next day as I was standing there trying to figure out how to get my boat over the giant man made mountain of a dam a guy named Kenny offered to use his truck and trailer to take me over. (Actually I think his girlfriend saw what I was trying to do and volunteered him. Could have been his dog Duchess too... I think she just liked the words painted on the side of the boat.)<br />
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So there we were! (Hands in the air fighter pilot style...) backing the boat and trailer down into the river on the other side... when a lady fishing with her kids on the ramp says, "Hey, what are you fishing for today? Bass?"<br />
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My response was of course, "I am not fishing for anything, I am just going for a boat ride!"<br />
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With a quick look over the the boat that was obviously set up for voyages she says, "well, it will be a short one!"<br />
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Because of all the dredging and earth moving that happened to build the dam there are now a number of small pools and ponds right below it... that are very NOT the Missouri river!<br />
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I had almost put the boat into a little dredging pond that is about a quarter mile long. The next day I would have been about four minutes down the water when I would have been very very confused... and probably gotten to use that winch I have mounted on the stem to drag the boat through a cotton wood grove to the actual river. Thank god for talkative locals!<br />
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After the boat was safely in the actual Missouri river, I walked back up into town to look around. There is an old hotel that was built during the dam building that is worth it to stop in just to look at the pictures hanging in the hallways. It is the kind of place that as you walk in you feel like it should smell of leather bound books... and antlers. Also, there was a Jamaican lady in there named Darcia who seemingly happily endured all my questions about everything... As it turns out, according to her, in Jamaica, where run is number one... most people's favorite rum drink is still just the rum and coke. (sometimes pepsi) Can't beat a good thing I guess. Also there was a Kazakh lady named Mika who I think I tricked into thinking I can speak Russian! Luckily our conversations went perfectly according to the language example conversations I learned while studying it twenty years ago... though she might have thought it odd I asked where was library and if Michael has on a red shirt.<br />
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As crazy as it may seem, there is very big theater scene in Fort Peck! All summer a professional theater troop forms there and they put on plays every Fri, Sat, and Sunday. I went through on Tuesday... and was very very tempted to stay and watch a play Friday, but I my desire to get back on the river won and I couldn't just sit for three days with good weather and not move. Also, they were putting on what is probably my favorite musical, "Man of La Mancha" which was especially tempting. (Though I having the Man of la Mancha stuck in my head for the next 200 miles would have made me an actual crazy person!)<br />
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About a block from the boat ramp on the down stream side there is a little coffee shop. I went in just before I shoved off. There was only one customer and when I walked in he asked if I was with the theater troop. This is the first time I have been mistaken for a thespian but I explained that I was a different kind of weirdo than that and that I was floating the river. I took it as a complement that I must be weird and interesting and "not from around here."<br />
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If you put a museum or "interpretive center" as the kids call them these days, within walking distance of the river... I am going attend! Right under the power houses of the dam there is an interpretive center. So I rowed over, threw my anchor in the grass and walked in from the wrong side. It is very well done. Talks about the building of the dam, the animals in the area... and if you want to swim with nightmares... has an exhibit featuring prehistoric giant carnivorous fish that lived in the area umpteen long time ago. Just imagine giant fanged fish the size of a bus and you are about there except they are real. "Just look at the bones!"<br />
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The dam as viewed from Fort Peck the town. It is the flat mountain in the distance.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-84355788407529880642016-06-28T15:21:00.000-06:002016-06-28T15:21:55.408-06:00So, about that elephant shitting in the room...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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No... I am not talking about my inability to be grammatically consistent with verb/noun temproal tense agreement...<div>
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I am talking about:</div>
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The 2.5 horse Merc that is hanging off the back of <i>The Mermaid</i>. Mr. Charlton Heston.</div>
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Very few aspects of anything I have ever done have been so commented about than the fact that there is a gasoline motor hanging off my boat. Texts, emails, comments... etc.</div>
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The name is Charlton Heston because at 2.5 horses... he is basically having a back up really good rower on board that doesn't eat all the oreo cookies. The best rower I have ever heard of if Mr Heston in his prime... (I would have named it Koslik if only he had joined the Greek Navy instead of the US Air Force.) Again, very few popular references to row boats so Ben-Hur makes another appearance.</div>
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Also, at 2.5 horses, it hardly turns <i>The Mermaid</i> into a cigaret boat. If anything it is like watching "The African Queen" at half speed. Sort of a really high dollar weed wacker easing your boat along! I have found that continuous rowing is about 2.5 knots through the water, and Heston takes the boat at a continuous 3 - 3.5. Like I said a really good rower who doesn't eat the cookies!</div>
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When I had originally conceived of this trip, I imagined it as a modern convenience free endeavor. A wooden ship, iron men, a continent untamed! Also, I didn't have an outboard motor to put on it and wasn't going to spend a thousand plus dollars when effectively I could save that money just by exercising. </div>
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Earlier, I had implied that I put the Mr Heston the motor on there for my mother's pease of mind. That is not really true. She did imply that I was foolish for not having a way to speed to safety if something bad happened, but the real proponent of the motor was my dad. No doubt because he was looking at a lot of maps and thinking about what it would be like to row that distance.</div>
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(I did NOT look at any maps... thus I was blissfully happy about the idea of a water born continent crossing exercise program. I figured just keep going down the river... who needs a map.)</div>
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Anyways... my dad, armed with the knowledge of the size of the continent, knowledge of life at 3 knots, and being already the happy owner of a reliable outboard motor convinced me to put it on the boat the day before we got on the river. </div>
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That said... it is my boat, I drilled the holes to put the motor on there, I made <i>The Mermaid</i> into the partial motor boat she is today. So, it was cheap of me to pretend anyone but I am the reason there is a motor on my boat. </div>
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Thus, adding a 2.5 horse motor turned this continent crossing from an insane slog of physical exurtion into merely a crazy trudge of corporal discomfort.</div>
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I know it... I will just have to live with the shame of being the pussy that put a motor on my boat. Whatever, we can arm wrestle in St Louis.</div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-78264847327093354662016-06-28T09:02:00.002-06:002016-06-28T12:54:47.564-06:00First week alone out here. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, my first night out alone. I was kind of excited to spend the night on the actual boat. I had always imagined that a hammock strung between the masts would be a perfect place to sleep and this was my first real chance. (It wouldn’t really work with two people.) The other great advantage of being alone is that if I do sleep on the boat, I don’t have to drag all my stuff up a muddy river bank and through picker grass… etc. Just clear away the sailing stuff, cook, then sleep!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I pick a spot on the river that seems to have no biting flies… no roads nearby… Should be perfect. I drop anchor and enjoy the evening. I even made pasta! Just before sunset, I see on the horizon a building thunderstorm. Well, shit, that wrecks my romantical star gazing from a hammock plan. I should be good if I just string a line between the two masts and hang a tarp over it. Sort of make a tent out of the space between the masts with my hammock under it. Should keep most of the rain out, I’ll sleep in the hammock. Perfect!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just as I settle in, it is kind of hot and actually a little humid so I am just laying in the hammock in my underpants… when…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>holy christ fuck… the mosquitos! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I have known mosquitos… but holy hell on earth…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Being attacked by mosquitos in the dark has to be the most perfect torture ever devised. The buzzing, the bits, the sound of the buzzing, then the sudden stop of them them landing somewhere on your head, the smacking your own head to try and get them to leave before they suck your blood! Little flying things with needles for faces that make the most annoying sound ever heard by man, that literally spread disease and suck your blood. Not even to mention leave itchy bumps. WTF!!!! Who invented these little bastards!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After a bit of this torture, I remember I have a mosquito net! Though in the dark under a tarp-tent over a hammock, I couldn’t get the thing straitened out enough to put up, so I elect to just hide down into the hammock with it laid over the top. I only had to hold it in place with my hands and feet. No problem! Ha ha! Get me now you…!!!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">WHAT!!!! Inconceivable! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>They were biting me through the net in the hands and feet that I was holding it in place with! I can feel dozens of them with their little needle faces sticking them into my hands and toes!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then with sudden horror, I realize that this whole time they have been biting me through the bottom of the of the hammock into my back and butt! (This is a nylon hammock, don’t think about those rope mesh ones in peoples backyards in summer.) I feel down my back, and there are already hundreds of little bumps rising from their sneak attack!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So now, hot and sweaty after all this squirming around to fight the mosquitos off, I do the last thing I can think of… I crawl into the sleeping bag to endure the sweltering sleeping-bag-heat-on-a-hot-summer-night-heat. God it was hot… Only my lips exposed through the smallest little opening, and that protected by the whole of the net.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>About this time, I started hoping for the storm to arrive and blow them away. Unfortunately the storm didn’t hurry and it took about two more hours of that before you could finally feel it getting close.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The whole river was still. It was like all the birds and insects could sense what was about to happen. Well, except for the mosquitos. They were still flying around like assholes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Slowly the wind came up. As it got stronger, the tent I had made between the masts started acting like a sail. The boat was now playing a sort of slow motion doggy tug of war with it’s anchor. Sort of fish nosing one way, than the other! Back and forth… pulling one way, then swimming and pulling the other!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, this is an exact recipe for the anchor getting pulled out and me getting blown into the reeds or onto shore. As sort of a low grade emergency action, still in my underpants in the seriously whipping and not at all warm wind, I pull down the tarp so it is tight over the hammock instead of raised above it. Should still work, but a bit more claustrophobic. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That calmed things down for a while… of course then the lightening got close. And the wind got even more insane. The boat was back to thrashing back and forth now even with the lowered tent. Nothing I could do in the dark. I couldn’t even see to just get underway, besides driving a boat around on a dark river in a thunderstorm probably ins’t safer than staying at anchor even a doggy tug of war anchor. Now, my imagination really began kicking in and I started thinking of more and more terrible things I was not well prepared for… “A boat with a wet mast is probably the tallest conductor out here. What if the boat gets hit by lighting!?! No problem, I feel like I am the kind of guy that could get struck by lightening and survive… wait, what if the boat catches fire… hmm… I have a bucket, I could probably put it out… unless the boat gets blasted apart or a hole burns through it… wait! I have a propane cylinder on here! What if lightening hits the boat then blows up the propane cylinder! Shit, I’ll probably be blown apart…or I’lll have to swim for shore with out a leg or an arm or something… what If just the boat sinks or the wind capsizes it… then I am out here in my underpants swimming for safety… shit nick, you will be lucky if you are swimming… you would still have to get out of a sleeping bag, a mosquito net, a tarp all tangled around you in a sinking boat just to make it to swimming in your underpants…. maybe let’s dich the mosquito net… they seem to be mostly gone… etc…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Eventually, i found myself slowly awakening and realizing where I was. AHHhhh! :-) Well, I learned that lesson! Tent tomorrow for sure!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, with lessons learned from the night before… I decided my second night would not be a repeat. Also, as I was sailing across the beginnings of Fort Peck Lake, a lone fisherman rode up to me and asked me where I was going. He asked a few more questions, them mentioned that tonight the weather was supposed to get “weird.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That is a serious adjective for weather even used by a non-meteorologist, so I planned to heed it and be off the lake by then. About when the fisherman said it would, I started seeing a thunderstorm building behind me so I sailed into a little cove off the lake. It looked so idilic! Rolling hills, gently sloped bank, some near by shrubs to block the wind! Perfect!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just as I was on my high speed beaching run I realized that there was a gathering swarm of those fucking biting flies gathering on around the sail!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>IT’S A TRAP!!!! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Just as the bow ground into the beach and the boat came to a halt… they were all over me! God damn it! They were like miniature horse flies! I looked back out to the lake. Could I get back out and find a different spot? I looked up at the storm… well, maybe… but it might also have these flies too. Best bet put up the tent and hunker down. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As I got out, I noted that the mud at the water’s edge was kind of sticky… whatever…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Anyways, I put up the tent, brought in valuables that I didn’t want to get wet, and settled in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now this!… this boys and girls was how to do a thunderstorm! The first gust flattened the tent down upon me. Like literally the tent is pinned to the ground and I am pinned under it. I could still move around and stuff, but it was a lot like being vacuum packed to the ground!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To bad dome tent flattened isn’t on the Fujita scale because it is starting to become a standard reference for me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then it started to rain. But… the rain was coming at whatever that wind speed that flattens tents! The rain was hitting the tent, and thus my back at whatever ungodly speed. Every drop stung! At first I could feel each drop, then as it became a torrent, It just became general pain on any part of my body that was up against the tent fabric. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I took my foam sleeping pad and put it up over my back. That made everything pretty tolerable actually. I could endure that for an hour or so. No problem!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I felt a cold wet wash across my whole stomach! Shit! Did I spill my water bottle?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No… I wish.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Rain fly on the tent had pulled out its stakes and had been flipped up. Now instead of protecting the inside of the tent from water, it was acting like a rain catch and directing every drop of water that fell on it into the inside of the tent! The bottom of the tent is still sort of water proof, so now all that water was filling the inside of the tent like some sort of demented kiddy pool!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(remember I have all my valuable don't get wet stuff in there with me!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I found a mesh side, forced it down to let most of the water out, then just sort of zoned out and let it happen. There was nothing to do but wait it out. So laying in a cold puddle in a tent on a hillside in Montana, I tried to take a nap.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>(Not even once did I wish I was in the 830 morning meeting!)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Eventually, the rain abated and I went outside to clean things up. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The firsts thing I noticed was that what had formerly been a solid hillside had now become a mushy paste. Basically it was an entire world of half baked cake batter. Every step added two pounds of mud to the bottom of your shoe!<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Of course! this entire area had been lake or river bottom… and now having gotten that soaked again it had turned back into the nasty mung that it had been when it was all rotted vegetable particulate at the bottom of a lake!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I can’t really think of a messier place to be in the middle of… except that I was about twenty feet up a hill so going back to the boat was going to be a mung slip and slide… with all my stuff. But that was for later! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I swished most of the water out of the tent then restaked the rain fly… (like putting tooth picks in a cake layer then hoping it will hold against a monster truck pull.) I then put some giant chunks of drift wood on top of the stakes. Just then the storm was building again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I squirmed out of all my sticky mud drenched cloths, laid down in the somewhat reduced puddle in my tent. Then, naked in my cold puddle, I went to sleep as the storm got weird with itself again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At least I am learning. Day one… sleep in a tent if there is a place to do it. Day two… if there is going to be rain, sleep on rocks! <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Day three!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After a somewhat messy morning…. the sailing this morning was great! The wind was from the perfect direction! I was blasting along and making great time! The wind picked up so I went to bare poles again. Again the boat handled beautifully! Still rocketing up the lake with no sails up.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCE9ijzCQvRhSq0xmes_XKOeyunbfHnBDXzgj84n5R4IHnY8hAmpPeec-RrqUwWKujAe_kaaG7nJOb1fMEn0fEQZmbQc6bHTIr1bsZXrR95192uZF7l8_0d8iMuuIAeZU-AZEZBw/s1600/GOPR0555.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCE9ijzCQvRhSq0xmes_XKOeyunbfHnBDXzgj84n5R4IHnY8hAmpPeec-RrqUwWKujAe_kaaG7nJOb1fMEn0fEQZmbQc6bHTIr1bsZXrR95192uZF7l8_0d8iMuuIAeZU-AZEZBw/s320/GOPR0555.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The waves were starting to get big so i started thinking maybe I ought to get off the lake and onto something a little bit less swamp the boaty. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now, you will hear people claim that “Oh! that lake is so shallow, that’s why these waves kick up so fast! It is so shallow! What they need to do is stop letting all the water out of the dam and make this lake it’s right level”</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="font-family: inherit; white-space: pre;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Um… no… for many reasons. I won’t get into dam philosophy… but think about the physics of what is being claimed. The lake is so shallow that the waves build quickly? The depth of the effects of a wave are only half the wavelength of that wave. So if the wave crests are 20 feet apart. (Which is probably generous, then those waves are </span>unaffected<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> by the bottom of the lake as long as it is ten feet deep.)</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stolen from <a href="http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/blog/2012/10/22/what-happens-underwater-during-a-hurricane/waves__01/" target="_blank">RSMAS</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQk0vgYLOGnke0JP4lAIzpWPz6tuvJEr7Mp5M5roWx8qkhC5uYSGAoyCvkPJdZhL_TY4V_d7PICrTDppSe-BZcNMsPrlrfwvNHqxSblkq6PG2kCyAijUnubz-4Vn-CKw6Uau2sIA/s1600/waves__01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="132" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQk0vgYLOGnke0JP4lAIzpWPz6tuvJEr7Mp5M5roWx8qkhC5uYSGAoyCvkPJdZhL_TY4V_d7PICrTDppSe-BZcNMsPrlrfwvNHqxSblkq6PG2kCyAijUnubz-4Vn-CKw6Uau2sIA/s320/waves__01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The reason that the waves build so fast is because there is suddenly a dang 40 knot wind blowing across it! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Speaking of that, as I was sailing along under no sails. I started noticing that the waves were getting bigger and bigger. I am not saying I was looking up at the waves… I sure did have the distinct feeling of being “between” the waves even though I was sitting in the back of the boat. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Trying to be a reasonable person for once… I decided to put into a cove I saw on the map just past a boat ramp about a half mile up. I saw the boat ramp, basically just a concrete ramp getting pounded by the waves. No good. I kept going, looking for the cove.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, here was a sort of cove… hard to see it… A lot of grass and plants seem to be in this cove… Still, it looks like…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I passed one of these water plants… and it was actually a cedar bush! DAMN IT! This is not a cove! The wind blew the water into this field! As soon as the wind goes down, the boat will be hundreds of feet from the water stuck in the mud! SHIT!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I come about, but I can’t sail out against the wind and waves. I jump out, grab the anchor line and start pulling. Slogging! Dragging the boat back out into the lake through this flooded field against the wind and waves up to my asshole in mud. (Same mud as before, just now with two feet of water on top of it. I know I have to do it now… or there will be no getting it out!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The mud sucked off my shoes the first two steps! I dove under, got them back, then tossed them into the boat. They were to valuable to lose! Now I drag it barefoot!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>About this time, the fishermen from the ramp are all standing on dry shore watching me… nothing worse than making bad decisions than making bad decisions with an audience! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Eventually I got the boat back out to where I guessed there would be water still in the morning.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Totally beat, I dragged the boat out of the mud and against the wave crashing shore. The fishermen did help me pull it up so that it wasn’t getting pounded all night. Due to the waves pounding it before it was up, the whole thing got filled with water.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not my finest bit of seamanship, but better than some of the other options. </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK-QNpqMXm7aWm8ytVCcfCEjc721PW4QPdbkLs42vVWLc8sCYy7Oe1MGa03gyPVplNuTfTFp1AAgpnT_An3jX7Jp0dlXEOMUxTIsWiLP-02_bDwFPigjC7r0xMASMrv2NYfz_0Ng/s1600/GOPR0564.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK-QNpqMXm7aWm8ytVCcfCEjc721PW4QPdbkLs42vVWLc8sCYy7Oe1MGa03gyPVplNuTfTFp1AAgpnT_An3jX7Jp0dlXEOMUxTIsWiLP-02_bDwFPigjC7r0xMASMrv2NYfz_0Ng/s320/GOPR0564.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I think this can all be best simulated at home by filling your bath tub 3/4 with water. Now take every object that you plan to use for the next 3 months of your life and throw them into the bath tub. Now put on your warmest clothes and take a cold shower then drag your car up hill for two blocks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yep… kind of fun in a way though isn’t it? :-)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Next few days.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sailing along with nothing notable happening</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The next few days have passed without any calamity worth writing about. One day I managed to sail about 60 miles in a totally reasonable way! The first third of the lake is beautiful. You pass through what look like mountains with small coves everywhere. Slowly that gives way to eroding hills then the last third just kind of blows. Flat eroding dirt and scrub brush banks. You get the sense that maybe they should let the water go. <br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A sweet little cove I put into to hid from a passing thunderstorm.</span></span></div>
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See...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgATO5uqZL3BoDlUpfM-VBUuPOVlGUeCf9xdCCI9x73tD4bUMJcoZEnzaz2Kt3COKIUlMurONI7tAbPozCJ-8OJZY5Y53O-AMkhBwM6tqDAHmqzITCWmcxojJS6ng3x5fUhph5n7A/s1600/GOPR0586.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgATO5uqZL3BoDlUpfM-VBUuPOVlGUeCf9xdCCI9x73tD4bUMJcoZEnzaz2Kt3COKIUlMurONI7tAbPozCJ-8OJZY5Y53O-AMkhBwM6tqDAHmqzITCWmcxojJS6ng3x5fUhph5n7A/s320/GOPR0586.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As you approach the dam from the south… it becomes the horizon for about 120 deg of your world. HUGE! Because of the hills on both ends of the dam, you kind of get the sense that it is the edge of the world or that you are on the worlds biggest infinity pool. That sense was probably also helped that it was so absolutely calm out there that the sky was perfectly reflected in the water for miles in all directions. Because of the perfect reflection, the boat seemed to be traveling through the sky. A little disorienting but awesome!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>With the dam on the horizon and the fact that I would be back among people again I decided to take a bath. Even though I am pretty sure my body has now become self cleaning after days out here… I didn’t really want to open up the opportunity for a second opinion on that. After the bath, I put on my Hawaiian shirt and headed into the marina at the end of the dam to figure out how to get to the other side!</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’ll let you know how that turns out when I know myself!</span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-2066289719079228952016-06-22T10:28:00.001-06:002016-06-22T10:28:33.615-06:00Decision Point<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We stopped at the fork in the Marias River and the Missouri river. This is where Lewis and Clark stopped and didn’t quite know which way to go. One river looked like the way to go, the other didn’t. The captains climbed a big hill next to the river, and against the better judgment of all the men. Picked the way that looked wrong. They were right!</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Where the two rivers meet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>See boys… Captains… right always all the time!</span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So, we stopped to see the spot they made that decision.</span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>According to the map… we literally anchored right under the spot. Yet we couldn’t find it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A career forester and a pilot should be able to read a map successfully to find a damn plaque on the side of the river. There was a hell of a lot of map reading horsepower there trying to find that little bronze plaque. </span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In the end, I think we all share the blame. Me, Wild Bill, and the cartographer who made that map. The cartographer because he put the little symbol on the wrong side of the topo</span><span style="font-kerning: none;">line… and Wild Bill and I for ever looking at a map and saying or hearing the words after twenty minutes of looking at the thing… “Hey! That isn’t a road… that’s a topo line!</span><br />
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span><span style="font-kerning: none;">Yep… anyways… look at the pictures!</span><br />
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-48253459819104623722016-06-22T10:23:00.001-06:002016-06-22T10:40:08.539-06:00Sailing, no need for sails!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The night before, we had had a decent headwind most of the day. Didn’t make it as far as we had wanted. Ended up staying at a place called “Hole in the Wall” Obviously, see the pictures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>As we were sitting there, looking at the hole, the wind switched and was blowing the way we were going. We made some passing comments about how hopefully it would be blowing the same direction tomorrow then went to bed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The next morning, it was still blowing with us but kind of light and flooky. After shoving off, we put up the new stay sail that I had made in Great Falls. Again it worked great and we were scooting right along! </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Suddenly!!!! SNAP! the wind drops then gusts!, the sail snaps taunt… it instantly shreds! It look like we had ribbons and tissue paper hanging from a banister rail! We halled it down.as quickly as we could. Now we had no sails up… and we were still being blown along like we were a galleon running from pirates in a hurricane! I still don't know what hull speed is on this boat, but we were being blown at over 8 knots with no sails up. (Don’t let the single digit nature of that number fool you. it was way way to fast!) The boat is shaped well enough that we had complete control and were still blowing right along where we wanted to be!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>After realizing that all we had to do was hold on and steer, and ignore the coming frothing waves of the boiling river around you… it was actually really easy!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We had hoped to make about 30 miles that day and over night at Judith Landing. By the time we got there, it was barely noon, and the bank was all sharp rocks. We quickly made the decision to keep going. This is similar to when you make the decision to not jump out of a moving car on the freeway because you don’t like the song on the radio. You might not want to be there, but getting off is way worse. So we kept on “sailing!” (Sailing is in quotes because we had no sails up, and were mostly just holding on and steering. It was a lot more like sledding actually.) As we were slinging past the camp ground there, a crowd of RV campers did come out and ask the two standard questions, “What is that thing?” and “Where you guys going?” At that speed we only had time for one answer! “ST LOUIS!!!!” Then we were gone.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All in all, we stopped before two in the afternoon when things were getting ridiculous… and had sailed over 40 mile with hardly a stroke rowed at all. In fact, we passed several camped huddles of canoeists waiting out the wind under their tents as we blew past them like crazy men! It felt like we were surfing lunch trays down the hall past the principle! </span></span></div>
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Finally Parked...</div>
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Old Homestead that we ran across</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You can imagine Wild Bill hanging onto the tiller yelling “WEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeEEEE!”</span></span></div>
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22580847.post-46725776264053678242016-06-22T10:23:00.000-06:002016-06-22T10:31:02.483-06:00Maybe overloaded...?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>At this point, my dad has prior obligations in Michigan, so my other uncle who we will call, “Wild Bill of the Wood” has come to take his place as galley slave on <i>The Mermaid.</i> This is probably going to be the most isolated and wild section of the river for the entire trip. No roads in, no coverage of any kind, nothing but what you bring in and your own savvy!</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well, with that perspective… we might have over packed. You know, incase our savvy wasn’t up to snuff and we had to rely more on the what we brought part. Yea… I have never seen the boat that low in the water. We took anything we could imagine needing. And with this crowd, we had some good imaginations!</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We are facing 150 miles of wilderness, wind, and gravel bars with the only thing to aid us is our own muscles! No one has taken anything through this section but a canoe, kayak, or inflatable raft in the last seventy years! (That statement probably is mostly accurate actually.)</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What happens right off the start…? Yep. We run aground!</span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Ok, no big deal… we hop out, push the boat across the gravel bar… hope back in. On our way! </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Oops… run aground again….</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Well that little scenario plays out about three times before we are even through town on our way into the breaks!</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Being captain of this little ship, I didn’t let the men know how concerned I was about this… but the crew might have been suspicious anyways. We might have way overloaded this boat and now we are floating so low that we are facing 150 miles of dragging this thing over gravel and through muck… </span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We thought we were going to float the Missouri River, and instead we signed ourselves up for the Ididorad and we are the sled dogs!</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">
Fuck!!!! Like seriously fuck. </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUGouIksRLptW_ZLSruok337jO6sDa830EsiFiIfxvpb9ROtZE6DfRNm0m977MxvwSUkKmKoFyb-CBbeERO7QHLgI_SrS0MQbVWKvAArmuc_aKT4X2rfl1UudO31HX1KUAMvyKw/s1600/GOPR0496.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFUGouIksRLptW_ZLSruok337jO6sDa830EsiFiIfxvpb9ROtZE6DfRNm0m977MxvwSUkKmKoFyb-CBbeERO7QHLgI_SrS0MQbVWKvAArmuc_aKT4X2rfl1UudO31HX1KUAMvyKw/s320/GOPR0496.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-kerning: none;">We mutually come to the conclusion without mentioning it out loud that we should use the heaviest supplies first! Normally on a voyage like this you use the fresh stuff first, things like eggs and hot dogs… (In my world fresh means things that need ice) but instead we decided to go with heavy canned goods to help the boat float higher! So after spending the first day hopping in and out of the boat and pushing it over gravel bars… we drank most of our can goods! (beer comes in cans, what were you imagining? dinty moore?) Anyways, with the boat floating noticeably higher the second morning, we haven’t had a problem running aground since!</span></span></span></span><br />
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Notorioushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15436417804354505298noreply@blogger.com0