Day 29 - The Dam Bar

River Mile - 615

Today’s Distance - 21 miles

Total Distance - 726.9 miles

After a delicious hot breakfast of omelets, Leslie, Dad and Bonnie helped us get our boats to the river for launch. We were looking forward to a short day of 22 miles, with empty boats, having left our gear in our families cars. 

The weather was really nice the first couple hours. Temps in the high 50’s with a light breeze coming from the southeast. Leaving Prairie du Chien, we wound our way through the lattice work of small islands from our hotel to the main shipping channel. As with many mornings this past 7 days, there were quite a few fisherman out. Most were very courteous, but there are alway a few that are just plain Dicks about boating around paddlers.

Dad had brought me a printed set of Army Corp maps for the river to replace my pdf version that I had been using on my phone. Man, what a difference the paper maps made!

About 16 miles in we caught up to the first of two barges that would ultimately stand between us and the lock through at Lock & Dam 10. You never feel so small as when you are paddling next to one of these 3 story high, 1,200 foot long monsters. Once we got to within 2 miles of the Dam, we caught our second barge, the Titletown USA, a tug we had met coming up river several days ago. He got to the lock about 10 minutes before us and as a result we had to portage out. 

Thankfully, Dad, Bonnie and Leslie were standing by to help us get our gear and boats from the river back to our hotels. The riverfront in Guttenberg is really well done. Lots of park benches for watching the barges lock through along with picnic areas and scenic overlook spots. 

Many of the businesses have Dam themes. There is the Dam Bar, with serves Dam Burgers, The Dam AirBNB with a view of the barges locking though the dam.

The view from our hotel really shows the river valley. It was fun to be able to see the area we paddled from a completely different perspective. 

Dad, Bonnie and I did our own think this afternoon while Jon and Leslie did theirs. We had a fun relaxing day and then met for dinner at Bootleggers grill and pub. Food was good, atmosphere was fun too.