Woke up this morning and found a frog inside the tent. I think if it had jumped on my face in the night I would have screamed!
We met a pair of canoeists in Cohasset, on their way to the Gulf. With a garage sale canoe, paddles, and PDFs. Young and optimistic! We wish them the best. Photo included in this post.
First and only vehicle assisted portage today, provided by the Minnesota Power Company who owns the dam in Grand Rapids, MN. Otherwise it's a 0.7 mile portage through the city streets. It's the longest portage of the trip (at least we think it is). It took a while to sort it out, but the driver (a shift supervisor) was a very friendly helpful fellow who likes to canoe too.
An hour or two of solid rain this morning, we waited on shore for half of it. But no winds or lightning. Another hour of rain so far this evening, but after the tent was up and dinner was done, so no hassle.
Jim spent a few hours in the stern this morning for the first time this trip. But then we returned to the Amy-steering configuration. I (Amy) kind of liked life in the bow, but Jim isn't yet convinced he likes the stern position.
Camped at a tiny little MN DNR canoe access site - Sucher's Campsite. River mile 1169. The state offers these every ~10 miles. A small clearing in the woods, a picnic table, an outhouse. Just big enough for a couple tents. Some have been excellent sites. This one is adequate but not grand.
A slightly slow day, having spent an hour or so avoiding rain, and another couple hours with the portage and grocery store run. For me (Amy) it was a nice recovery day after the past two headwinds-on-lakes days. For Jim it was a bit of an irritating interruption of the downward flow.
And a bit of gear talk...
We love the canoe (Souris River Quetico 17).
We love the ZRE paddles.
We love our home-made deck cover.
I'm very happy with the little Zelph alcohol stove with the Caldera Cone - a simple elegant little system.
We're enjoying the cushy night-life in long-wide Thermarest Trekker pads. 25" wide pads is a luxurious life.
We brought one of our older bigger tents (to accommodate the wide pads), and discovered in Wyoming that the fly was rotted and not storm worthy. So we stopped in a sporting good store in MT and bought the only backpacking tent they had in the store - a Big Agnes Jackrabbit 3-person tent. For the most part it's a fine tent, but the rainfly door design is dumb stupid and poopy - water runs into the tent when you open the fly. It's bad enough that you wonder if anybody at big Agnes ever used this tent in the rain. We've been spoiled by the REI QuarterDome, a perfect tent in our humble opinion.
We are healthy and pleased with our progress after 7 days on the river.
1 comment:
Wow. what an awesome newsy post...it is great having a reporter on location. Peggy and I are up at our cabin checking your posts daily with interest and admiration. Peg is wondering if you can find fine chardonnay as you go? db
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