River Mile - 678
Daily Distance - 28 miles
Total Distance - 663.9 miles
Our east facing camp was bathed in sunshine as we packed up our boats for a 7:30am launch. For the first time the entire trip it felt hot right away. We paddled four miles to Lock and Dam #7. There were no barges in front of us so we passed right through.
With a 10 mph wind at our back, we made pretty good time today. We stopped at 17 miles and got out of our boats at a tiny marina in Brownsville MN. Each lunch or goal is to our do each other in creative ways of making our Tortilla lunch seem less boring. Mine was Jalapeño tuna with Chex mix and a drizzle of honey. Jons was plain tuna with a cheese stick and Chex mix. I know I’m biased, but mine was better.
The river since Wabasha has been in effect a very wide lake with many man made islands. These islands are the bye product of dredging sand from the bottom of the channel. The US Army Corp of Engineers job is to maintain a 9 foot deep shipping channel for barge transportation as well as running the lock and dam system on the river. From a paddling standpoint, in this section it feels more like you are paddling Mississippi Lake.
We had one final Lock and Dam #8 at river mile 680. Just prior to the Dam is the small town of Genoa WI. We knew there were a few small pubs there and planned to have dinner before locking through and finding a campsite. To get to town you need to paddle under the train tracks to “Genoa Harbor”. See the picture below for the awesomeness that is Genoa Harbor.
We walked the quarter mile into town and picked the Big River Pub and Grill from the three pubs we had to choose from. Jon and I quickly became mini celebrities when bar patrons found out we were paddling the river from Itasca. We hung out and charged our phones, had a beer, and food. The owner was great, super friendly. We each had the daily special, split an order of wings, a beer and a coke. Our total was $14 each!
Once we locked through #8, we paddled 1.5 miles to a great island site and set up camp.
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