It was a sluggish start to the day, in large part due to my old nemesis, the wind. He was back looking for revenge. It just made me think how nice it will be to paddle when we finally have the river running in our direction and that odd day with the wind at out backs.
Another reason it didn't seem that we were making any progress was that the river meandered around quite a bit. For each of the first two days, the distance we paddled was double the linear distance between our start and finish points.
One other setback was that we had tire blowout. Tire blowout, you ask? Yes, a tire blowout. We are carrying a small wheeled aluminum frame on which to carry the kayaks when we need to portage over land. I guess the heat of the sun caused the tube to expand and burst. It woke me up. It sounded like a shotgun blast. Kobie and I both looked around for a second until we realized what it was.
We started seeing wildlife along the river: deer, fox, many raptors and tons of fish leaping out of the water to catch a meal. We contemplated bringing a fishing pole, but it was just additional gear to carry and worrying about the licensing requirements between the various states was more than we cared to deal with.
As it worked for us once, we figured that camping on private property was the way to go. We were getting further out of Winnipeg and there were fewer areas on the banks of the river that were cleared. We did however find an area on a farm that was doable; less than ideal, but doable. This time I wandered up to a farm house to ask permission and sure enough we had a place to camp. Thanks Will.