gone on the river
Day 30, June 28
Measurements: Turbidity at Battle Island: 56.5.
Today has basically just been grueling.
I woke at around 8am, and treated myself to a lovely breakfast of grits, the second boiled egg from last night, an apple, and tea. It was really very nice.
The river was moving a bit! For a bit. And then, as always, it ran into the damn dam pool.
Today, unlike yesterday, was not calm. I had a headwind, all day long. I had a plan, I thought: hug the right bank, which is also the west bank, because the wind was coming from the southwest.
The plan worked well until I ran into something unexpected. They have built a rock dike out into the middle of the lake, which was not marked on my map. Whee! After skirting around it, I was faced with an unenviable set of choices: fight the wind across some open water straight back to shore, backtrack a long way to stay near the other side of this dike, or say to hell with it and camp right there. I opted to face the big water, and did fine getting back to the right bank.
By the time I was nearing the end of the dam pool, it was after 7pm and weather was clearly coming up. I stopped at the dike (which was marked on my map) for Lock and Dam 9 and looked at the weather on my phone. A thunderstorm was due in about 45 minutes. I made a choice, and got everything up on top of the dike - just as I had the other evening upstream of La Crosse. It's tough and slow moving all of my gear up a fifteen-foot riprap wall. By the time I had everything loaded into the boat, the rain had started.
I biked the few miles to the town of Harper's Ferry, Iowa. Right now I'm in the Spillway Bar and Supper Club. I had a plate of fries and a couple of beers, am using their wi-fi, and will get to spend the night in their inexpensive room to rent! What luxury.
Tomorrow, the plan is to keep grinding along. But first, I'm going to look at some effigy mounds.