Sept 8 Winona to Dakota

Winona to Dakota:   17 miles, including my first passage through a Lock.   I can do this.  Mac and Eve assure me that locks are easier than they look.  Just wait your turn, proceed with caution and look alive.  I’m ready for anything, especially powerboaters who bend the rules.  I have the maps; I’ll figure it out when I get there.   Back to my improv days.  General Eisenhower had it right, “Plans are useless; planning is everything”. 

Shoving off in the morning fog again, time to be alone with the River.  Aside from my sole kayak, only a small fishing skiff,  buddies together, silent in the mist, hopeful lines out.  Not a word spoken, just a nod as I glide by.  And 2 muskrats!  Very shy, on the riverbank, just a glance; now they’re gone.   Approaching a grainary, loading grain into barges in the water. 

Chiaroscurro

Even this is muffled in the fog.   I love these  industrial forms, emerging from the mists.  One barge is labelled “New York NY”. 

Destination New York, NY

Maybe connecting to the Great Lakes through the Illinois River?  Think on this, when I’m back in NYC, with my bowl of cereal! 

A little further on… a beautiful winter scene?!  No, it’s detergent suds, spewing into the River from a massive pipe on a “Private, No Trespassing” riverbank.  The first and only outrageous pollution I’ve seen.  

Detergent suds enter the Great River

As the fog lifts, I need to make a decision:  stay on the main channel side of the river, or steer over to the left of a long island, which will put me in sight of Lock and Dam #6.  I decide to cross over the main traffic channel and go to the left, so I can observe the Lock long before I approach it.   So here I am, long past the fork in the road, battling a good strong head wind that makes this a lot more work than anticipated.  If I’d stayed in the main channel, which winds around, I’d be better off.  So much for careful calculations!  Just.. keep… go..ing.  A looong time later, I approach the Lock.  No other boats waiting to go in; I can just barely see the red light ahead, so the Lock is in operation now, and boats will be coming out soon.  But it looks as though there are 2 sides to the Lock!  Not sure where I need to be, I cheat a bit and call Mac on my iPhone.  Oh happy day. Mac is standing by, ready to tell me exactly where the call chord can be found.  

Lock & Dam #6, waiting for green light

I pull the chord, letting the gatekeeper know I’m here.  I hear loud speaker announcements, but it’s all garbled by the time the sound reaches me, way down in the kayak.  I decide it’s not essential to know what they’re saying.   At last the enormous gates open and a single power boat emerges, safely far from me.  Green light, so I move ahead.  Now I can hear a real person overhead (no loud speaker).  He’s very friendly and lets me know that I’ll be alone in the Lock; just hold on to the rope he throws down and know that as I emerge, a tug and barge will be moving in!  He’s letting them know too, so they’ll watch for me.  OK.  The gates close behind me in this gigantic lock, built for barges just as big.  The water descends silently, easily, rapidly, about 12 feet, just for me and my kayak.  So smooth, so fast, easy as pie.  As the gargantuan gates open to release me, there it is:  the giant barge, that begins to enter, and on my side!  I scoot– fast– over to the right, this wonderful kayak like a trusty steed.  As I exit the Lock, I see men stationed at the front of the barge, to see into the famous blind spot where the  tug boat captain cannot see.  One of them shouts to me that he’d never have the nerve to kayak on the River.  I’d never have the nerve to drive a barge on the River!  The precision is incredible.  They have about 1/8 inch to maneuver, and there’s not so much as a scratch, going into the Lock.  Steady as she goes, slow and easy. 

Barge entering Lock & Dam #6

I’ve had my official baptism:  I made it through the Lock.  Still a long way to go to Dakota and no more water to drink, in this world of water.  I go to the Trempealeau Landing, confident that I’ll find water there.  But I’m dead wrong.  No public water source here.  I ask around.  A service man making deliveries offers me a bottle of water from his truck.  But for the goodness of strangers!  Back to the River, for the final stretch.  I don’t want this to be the final stretch.  Life is good on the Mississippi.  Rolling green hills and limestone bluffs on either side; wild, uninhabited islands everywhere, warm sun, water lapping at the kayak, paddle dip and over, dip and over, dip and over.  When the wind picks up, and it always does, sit up tall like a brave and just keep going.  A marker says it’s 722 miles to Cairo, IL, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi.  All the markers refer to that; it must be a profound change in the River:  much wider, much busier.  I keep going, slowed by the wind, as the light begins to fade.  It would be very good to get to Dakota before dark.  When I finally pull in, Mac is waiting, with good news:  we’re invited to dinner in a real house tonight.  David, our singer/musician friend from Winona and his wife Susan are having us for dinner. 

Eve, Mac, David, listening to David's music

Then David invites us up to his attic music studio.  What a splendid last evening with the River team! 

 

 

David, Eve, Mac (back), Susan, Hudson