Notes Before Dying

(Written late evening Sept. 8 while outa signal range)
I'm so wasted. I sit by my nightly fire writing through bleary eyes. I say "my fire" because I usually make the fire and cook while Navy Frank swabs the deck). He keeps the canoe real sharp looking and clean. The dinner I served up tonight was a yummy stew with fresh new potatoes, carrots and foiled chicken in which I tossed a pan of olive oil sauteed red and white onions, garlic and ginger.

Today was to be a short day, just 15 miles. But nooooooo. Somebody(s) read the map wrong. I can't really complain tho because I don't generally bother looking at the thing. I just paddle. But I have a good eye for spotting the canoe access-only campsites that dot the river.

We are in deep forest now, rarely a home and if so, well up away from the river's edge. So you gotta really pay attention to spot the tiny signs hiding amidst the wall of forest. I spotted it tonight when we were already passed it. Scott's Rapids campsite it's called. Nice spot just FOUR miles downriver from Sandy River, this morning's stated destination.

Eric must have missed it however. He never showed. I imagine him now downriver somewhere, befuddled and huddled 'round a blazing driftwood inferno to ward off his ghostly nemesis, the bear. Poor bastard.

I would weep for him but I am saving my strength for what is slated to be a night in the mid-thirties. Can you say brrrrr? Jesus, just three days ago it was summer. Weather do change mighty quick in these parts. Frank reckons it'll change back as this is the just the end result of a cold front that came through last night. Twas supposed to rain but it didn't and the clouds went away.

Result? We poor exposed members of the one day notorious Dreamcatcher Expedition (right up there w/Lewis & Clark!) are gonna wake up to snowflakes falling on us from inside our tents. How does that happen, you ask? By breathing. Your every breath inside your tent (and maybe a fart or two) crystalizes on the tent ceiling? Nifty, eh?

And there's another reason I ain't gonna weep for this little break from Eric. Having Frank all to myself tonight resulted in him fishing around inside the brain of my Sony Clie pda. And whaddya know? All the writing I thought I lost the other day and went and got all drunk over?

NOT LOST. Sum bitch. Am I happy? Betcher ass I am. Yay Frank! My hero. Guess I coulda read the directions.

I had enough sense and know-how to figger out how to backup to the memory stick though. I just got noodled up in thinking it was all lost because the software Sony uses is the same fuckin' Palm platform I grew to hate when it ate my shit on the AT in '04. When the batteries died and the dang thing rebooted itself, I went and checked the contents of the memory stick thinking surely I was covered, and it LIED to me. Frank got it in a choke hold and it gave up the goods that were there all along, just hiding.

Dunno if I mentioned in these brief notes emailed in from my phone here in outer space or wrote about it in my more copious and complete journaling on the pda, but our efforts at starting this journey right from the headwaters were thwarted by an Act of God: drought. Anyway, God ain't counting miles, but retired Navy Captain Frank Grandau is. The important thing is we're doin' it, and our cause is righteous. Frank agrees.

His tally: we're 243 miles from the the first trickling watershed of the river (can you say swamp?). Of that distance, we have paddled 136 miles in 13 days including - and this vitally important - the Northernmost point of the Mississippi, our original stated goal. , One day was a day of rest, a day off. In the tradition of many a lofty endeavor, we started at zero, with nothing. We were puny of arms, weak of upper body, and both of us had suffered a shoulder injury in recent months. And we hadn't trained at all.

Frank puts it this way: "Starting off, the river and its lakes were killing us. But the tide is turning and we are beginning to kick the river's ass."

Can I live with our progress thus far? You betch yer ass I can. - RSM
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device