Day 32 - That’s a lot of Miles!

River Mile - 553

Today’s Distance - 26 miles 

Total Distance - 788.9 miles 

We left our comfy cozy hotel this morning after a big breakfast at Tony Roma’s. Loading my boat on the marina dock was complicated. In getting my loaded boat the 3 feet from dock to water I snapped the rudder pully. I spent  20 minutes in my stomach working on fixing it, which I was finally able to do. Drama solved, we paddled out of the marina into the river. 

We met our first through paddler this morning. Stephan started at lake Itasca on July 7. He had quite the sting of hardship stories. Losing his tow behind kayak with all his gear on the first day to having his main kayak stolen just the day before we met him. He had just bought a cheap WalMart kayak that morning in Dubuque. 

Today was the first day in a long time where both the current and the wind were both helping us. A boat lunch in the shade of an overhanging tree gave us the fuel to paddle on. 

We got out of our boats to stretch in the town of Bellevue, IA. By this point the wind was gusting to 30 mph. Back on the water, we paddled another hour and half got us to Pleasant Creek campground. In speaking with the camp host, we learned that at the end of June the entire campground was 4 feet under water.  The water level had just dropped enough my last week Thursday for them to prepare to he camp so it could be open for Labor Day weekend. 

Jon made dinner while I gathered wood and prepared for our evening fire. We had a nice relaxing evening by the fire, drinking red wine from a box. Ahh, a good way to end the day.  In writing this, I noticed that we crossed the 800 mile mark. That’s a long way to go!