We paddled through some gorgeous terrain today. High bluffs, wide river, and houses up so high they looked like doll houses. We stopped in Red Wing at a park and made lunch. People looked at us funny. Had they never seen homeless people before?
Shortly after Red Wing we hit Lake Pepin. We had heard a lot of stories about how rough and slow moving the water can get so we were not looking forward to it. Especially since we were hitting it mid day when the winds were usually at their worst. Much to our delight it was extremely calm and there was very little wind. The water was still pretty slow, but that's to be expected on such a big lake. We saw a lot of Asian Carp today. A lot of dead Asian Carp. We also saw a lot jumping though which was kind of neat. If only they weren't so destructive.
We stopped at a sandbar but there was a sign saying no camping and no campfires, two things we wanted to do there, so we kept going. Before we left though I found an egg in the water next to a downed tree. It smelled awful and was about the size of a baseball. After sending a picture to my family we decided it was probably a bald eagle egg. I wish I would have kept it and hollowed it out. That would have been an amazing souvenir. Just to reiterate, it was in the water and it smelled terrible, so it was rotten and I wasn't harming an unborn eagle. I wouldn't do that.
Finding a cheap site turned out to be an adventure tonight. We stopped at one place and found out it was $32. Outrageous! So we paddled clear across the lake to a site that was $14. Much better. Plus, it was right on the water so we didn't have to haul any gear like we would have had to at the other site. We did 45 miles today, but with paddling across the lake and getting lost briefly we did more like 50. It was pretty tough but we had hot dogs and chili, our favorite meal now, waiting for us at the end of the day to motivate us.
No comments:
Post a Comment