Day 39: Beauty. Ideas. The buffet.

Lansing, IA to Prairie Du Chien, WI

I woke up well rested at Llyod and Betty’s place. I am so glad I had the opportunity to have a bed to sleep in after the previous night. I got up and said “hi” to both of them. Lloyd invited me to come sit in their viewing room that looked over the town and out to the Mississippi. I relearned my lesson that sometimes you need to take some time to simply relax when traveling. We sat there in their matching rocking chairs and shot the breeze. Betty joined us for a few before offering breakfast. She said to come sit down at the table. This is where I had yet another first. She served up a breakfast pizza. It had all breakfast items, but on a pizza. I knew there were a lot of carbs, which I would be burning today, so I dug in. It was quite tasty. Afterward, I put my stuff into their dry bags and headed out. Lloyd drove me and my gear back down to the boat.

I met the owner of the place where I kept my boat. I thanked him for letting me store it there overnight. We went inside and filled my water bags before leaving. I took off with a lot of the bar’s patrons waving bye to me. I smiled at that. I also found out that the river was running at 147, 000 cfs. That meant I should be making good time on my 30 mile journey this day.

I was happy and full as I turned up my music and powered out some miles. The beauty around me never failed to amaze me. I was happy in my heart and spirit this day. I found a good rhythm and paddled away. I was waving “hi” to the passing boat traffic and the people who lived on the river as I passed them. I was simply happy for doing this adventure today. It was about 15 miles to Lock #9. I got there just before a tug and its load. I went through first as it was still coming upstream. I was getting hungry, but I wanted to make it through the lock first.

I made it to a flooded campground where I made my lunch. It was a little picnic table right next to the water. I ate up, drank a Gatorade, and pushed onward. The thing that helped make this day so great, besides the beauty and the strong current, was I had plenty of time to do some forward thinking. I thought of next summers adventure at the beginning of this adventure. I spent the day thinking of how I will make it happen. I will be developing the idea over the course of this journey. I will tell everyone about it after this journey and as I get the book put together. I still have a lot of this journey to complete. It will be just as big of an adventure as this one, if not larger, longer, and more miles.

I made it to Prairie Du Chien. This was my destination. A friend sent me a link for a place where I could get some Wisconsin cheese curds. I pulled in to a slough and found a place that I was hoping to crash. It ended up being a no-go. I went further down and found these two houses that shared a big back yard. The owners greeted me and said I could sleep there. As I was setting up my tent, they made me a buffet of food. They made a chicken sandwich, two other sandwiches, a gatorade, a water, some cookies, and some snack bars. I smiled at their kind gestures and ate up. I traded some fun stories of my journey and we all smiled at the evening. I called it a night after giving them my information. I slept without a rain top as I watched a ton of bats catching the little bugs. The moon was growing brighter and so was my smile. Today was another good day.