Chapter 9- Lost on the Mississippi River with a 14' boat
Mile 2,020. I woke up early, ready to start my trek following the Mississippi south. this was a departure. As I pumped up my loaded down rear tire, it deflated so I had to pull everything off and replace the tube with my spare. I looked at the old tube and realized that the bike shop in Fargo had replaced my inner tubes with an inferior brand; why would they do that? Bastards. The fix was easy and I was back in business. A few miles down the road was the junction between the St. Croix River and the mighty Mississippi. The town of Prescott marks this location; I stopped just long enough to take pictures and do some pushups, I was starting to feel more built up in my legs than my arms and chest.
The road out of town was very hilly, and tiring but I was rewarded with a moose sighting and wild turkeys within a mile of each other. I made it to the town of Red Wing, the land of the boot; I stopped at the store to take a picture of the worlds’ largest boot, size 638 and ½, to my recollection.
I then stopped for breakfast at the local *greasy spoon (a typical American small town diner known for its’ low quality greasy foods and large portions). I had seen more old white folks by this point in my trip than any other type of person. I was beginning to suspect that the middle of the country had no young people and that the old people were just staying the same age and never dying, probably preserved from eating grease all day. The ride out of town was actually quite nice, with a series of rolling hills and farmland, just a few miles west of the Great River. The Mississippi was in a massive gorge, so most of my travelling was a few hundred feet above the river in the hills. At around 4pm, I pulled into a gas station in Wabasha. I bought an ice cream sandwich for the first time on my trip, and as I ate it, I saw a small boat on a trailer being towed on top a flatbed tow truck and it pulled in to the gas station. I was curious, indeed.
Inside the tiny store at the gas station, a skinny barefoot man in his late forties was attempting to talk to a mechanic. He was wearing a thin old white shirt and corduroy shorts; he had very thick glasses on. He was quite the character, I listened while he stuttered and stammered, it was obvious that he had a mild case of autism or similar impediment. The mechanic wasn’t really talking to the skinny man, but rather with an elderly woman whom I guessed to be the autistic man’s mother. They were all trying to figure out what to do with the boat, as it would have been expensive to tow any farther, and the tire and rim on the trailer had been destroyed. The woman noticed me taking a break and asked if I was riding a racing bike; I told her it was a cycle-cross bike and that I was riding across the country. She thought that it was an admirable thing to do, but went right back to talking about the boat, made a phone call inside the service station, and said something about putting the boat in the river to take down to La Crosse. I thought to myself, “what a coincidence, I’m going to La Crosse tonight”.
I jokingly mentioned that I would love to take the boat down the river with the autistic man if he wanted. The mother, Lavern actually thought that was an alright idea. She said, “why not, it would be a great experience for you boys”. Steve wasn’t so sure about the idea, he wasn't sure if he had room in the fourteen foot boat for the two of us plus all of his gear. He was also on a journey, but he was traveling all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi ,something like six hundred miles away, so the boat was full of food and supplies. Either way, I was convinced that I wanted to get in the river so I followed them and the tow truck down to the boat ramp. We loaded my bicycle and most of my possessions into Lavern’s car. I brought one dry bag with me, some snacks, my camera and a headlamp. It took a long time to get the boat into the marina's still water. We took a few pictures and Steve and I were off like a speeding herd of turtles....at about 5 miles per hour.
When we left the marina, and headed out to the middle of the Mississippi, we continued at our slugs’ pace. I assumed that we would increase our speed at some point but that didn’t happen; I didn’t want to confront him about it because it was his boat so I just sat quietly, absorbing the great views of the surrounding bluffs, bald eagles taking flight, and the long sandy islands that dotted the river.
Steve stammered out, “I just re-rebuilt the m-m-motor, and y-you aren’t supposed to o-o-open the throttle m-m-more than half way”. In fact, he only opened the throttle about a third of the way, I could tell because I picked out some trees on the shoreline and was able to watch the squirrels run up and down before we were past them. It was a lesson in patience, and I enjoyed every view, every ripple of water, and the silence that the river afforded us. We didn’t say much to each other for a long time until we reached the first lock-and-dam. I learned how to signal the lock to open for us, and also about what the numbers on the buoy’s meant. They are some sort of mile marker for navigational purposes.
While travelling down river, you are supposed to stay between the green and red buoys; they indicate where the depth of water is nine feet or more, which is what is required for the barges to be able to float. We passed red and green buoys for hours, and before we knew it, the sun was setting. We weren’t to La Crosse yet, in fact we were still over twenty miles away and it dawned on me that we weren’t going to get there by boat tonight. The next lock- and-dam was approaching but still a couple of miles away, and natural light was fading quick.
Steve made a wrong turn near a shallow, reedy island, and we got off course. We were no longer between the red and green buoys. It was starting to get a bit chilly and I had no idea how I was going to get to La Crosse tonight. There were large numbers of pelicans roosting and wading in the shallow depths at either side of the boat, so I figured that the water couldn't have been more than a couple of feet deep. We slowed even further before Steve finally realized that he needed to turn around.
As we pulled the boat around and he opened the throttle up, it sputtered and the clutch slipped. Something was stuck on the blades of the motor, so we pulled the motor up. It was covered in reeds and plant matter so we paddled the boat out of the shallow water, and back into the channel, we were lucky to not have gotten completely stuck out there. It was extremely dark now and I had no idea where we were going to dock to get out of the water. Fortunately, we saw another small boat disappear into a dark passage along one edge of the river. I tried to keep an eye on the spot that the boat had gone to. I had to put my headlamp on and point it in front of us to keep from getting stuck in the reeds near the edge of the river, and we searched the area where the boat went.
We found a creepy tunnel that seemed to go nowhere, maybe we were just seeing things and there wasn't really a boat that came through here. We turned off the motor and had to row the boat through the black widow infested tunnel. I looked up above us, the entire curved concrete ceiling of the tunnel was covered in thick webs. Not the pretty webs that you see in your garden, but the matted, huge thick webs that giant poisonous spiders spin. Thankfully, nothing dropped on us or surprised us and we finally made it to the other side. It was the smallest, darkest marina in the world with a tiny boat ramp. A lamppost over head flickered on and off every thirty seconds, so we had to time ourselves as we tied up the boat. It was like we were in a murder mystery novel and about to discover a dead body in the bushes or something.
We were in a little town called Minneiska, I can only guess how they came up with that name. We walked for a while, looking for some sign of life. My phone was dead. The only business open was Buck’s Tavern, in fact there didn't seem to be any other businesses in this town. The front of Buck's was covered in neon beer signs so I figured that this would be the most visible spot to get rescued.
As we entered the bar, the five locals inside all turned around in unison, the music stopped playing and they looked at us all wide-eyed like we just landed on Earth from outer space. I was still wearing my spandex bike shorts and a bright orange rain jacket; Steve was barefoot as usual and stammering on his words again about the river, the boat and everything that had happened. This was a common theme for my trip, other people being confused about me. These people had no idea why we were there, how we got there or what the hell we were talking about.
I actually thought the situation was hilarious and enjoyed every part of the silliness, laughing inwardly. I promptly called Lavern from the bar phone to come and rescue us. We just wanted to sit inside the place while we waited, but the bartender got worried when our ride didn’t show up when we said, so she got on the phone with Lavern and directed her on in. Lavern had driven past the bar several times not even seeing it, but it was off the the main road from the highway so I don't blame her for missing it.
I literally squeezed myself into the back of the vehicle with my bike, Bella and all the gear, and we drove the rest of the way to La Crosse. We got into town at around 11:30 pm and I called Stephanie’s father, George from Laverne's phone. He met us outside of his old mission style house, and I was thankful to have a place to stay. (Stephanie, Holly's friend I stayed with in St. Paul has arranged with her father George for me to stay the night while heading south on the Mississippi) I had a goal in mind for my trip that I would travel down the Mississippi by boat, barge, pirate ship, raft, whatever. But this little adventure proved to be way better than anything that I would have imagined would happen. The sense of adventure that I created in my life was at an all time high during this trip, therefore I made decisions based on how I was feeling and who I met along the way, so long as I was generally heading to the Atlantic Ocean. I had completely departed from my Cycle America maps and just made it all up as I went. I brought all of my gear into the house and George made me a sandwich. He let me help myself to salad, grapes, brownies, and Ice cream. I told him a little bit about the day’s craziness and then he showed me my room. He was a very kind man for waiting up for me and having a bed made; I asked him to wake me in the morning. Made sure to plug my phone in, as the night before I had no where to plug it in and it had died when I needed it.
We had cheese omelets, brownies and milk for breakfast and then I gathered my things. George told me a little history of La Crosse and mentioned about the castles and estates that were a product of the booming timber industry over a century ago. I took a few minutes to pedal slowly through the neighborhood where all of the estates were, I felt like they shouldn't have been there, that they were out of place, but they were still wonderous pieces of architecture. I bought a new inner tube at the local bike shop and then drank three cups of coffee downtown before leaving. While my food and drink descriptions may seem excessive, I would burn so many thousands of calories and pedal for 8 or more hours per day and may not have coffee or other luxuries waiting for me at the next stop. It was about 1 pm already and I crossed the Mississippi for the second time, headed south into Iowa. The ride was gorgeous, the hills were rolling and I seemed to hold a steady 18 miles per hour for several hours. The easy part was over though, because just before Harpers’ Ferry, the road went up and through the steep bluffs, and my pace slowed back to turtle-sloth speed. The saving grace was the fact that every uphill has a downhill, and I was able to get some video footage of my descent.
As the daylight faded, I finally made it into Marquette about an hour before sunset. I found a bed and breakfast, knocked on the door and asked if I could set up my tent in their yard or if I could set up in the city park. They weren’t too keen on that idea, but offered to call the mayor’s office for me. “Why would they do that”, I thought. It turns out that they were in a city council meeting, but then the B & B owner looked down the road and there were a group of people standing outside. She said, “there they are, why don't you go down there and talk to the mayor”. So, I went and talked to them, and I was introduced to the mayor and city clerk; they said that they couldn’t let me camp in the city park, but Mary Sue offered to let me set up in her back yard just two blocks away. The mayor told me that I should buy her a beer in exchange, and he ended with, "we have our priorities in this town”. I laughed, and followed Mary Sue to her yard.
After setting up and catching up on a phone call to my ex-girlfriend who I broke up with in Seattle, I headed over to the casino, which was actually a huge old river boat. I took a picture with a giant pink elephant in a top hat, and boarded the docked ship. The only thing that they had for dinner this late was goulash, and stale garlic bread, but It filled me up.
I wandered the three floors of casino insanity. The dizzying, colorfully arranged rows of slot machines, flashing lights and buzzing bells was almost too much for me to handle. I settled down at the bar, and talked with Amy, the cute, petite bartender along with a group of older, cigar smoking men, telling stupid jokes.
The funny thing about working in a casino is that you have to say, “thank you, good luck” to every person that you talk to, no matter what; you also have to show your hands to the camera in the “jazz hands” motion so that they can see that you aren’t pocketing any money. I left a couple of hours later after drinking three beers and I told Amy, the bartender, “thank you, good luck” and gave her my best jazz hands impression, we both laughed.
The next morning, I crossed the river into Wisconsin. The town of Prarie du Chien was named after the natives here, apparently the tribal leaders name was translated as Dog, hence Prarie of the Dog in French. Yes, the French settled here first. I bought a loaf of bread at a grocery store called Piggly Wiggly, and started my hilly-willy bike ride. There was nothing about the ride that was flat; in fact, I have never ridden up steeper hills other than Seattle and North Dakota. I stopped for my usual peanut butter and agave sandwich lunch in a small town about 25 miles away from Dubuque when the rain started coming down. I had a host, Sheri, that night in Dubuque so I just decided to gear up for the weather and go for it. However, just before leaving the gas station, a grumpy old man said, “you are going to get wet”, and all I said was, “yup”. It never amazes me the things that people will say to you just because they can’t keep it to themselves. Did he think that I didn't know that I was going to get wet?
I was able to keep my shoes dry for the first ten miles, but the small drops of rain increased to hammering nails in size and intensity, so my feet were swimming in water by the time I reached Dickeyville. I just kept pushing on through and as I finally reached Dubuque, the sky cleared up and I found a café that had “black eye” coffee and a restroom to change my clothes in.
Sheri met me after about an hour, and we put my bike on her cars’ bike rack. There was a tornado warning countywide, the dark clouds around us were moving fast. We drove to her house across town, and unloaded my things as the rain started to pour again. We were both hungry, so were went to the grocery store and bought the fixings to make BLT’s and I bought a bottle of wine. I had two sandwiches and drank most of the white wine, then did a load of laundry and passed out on the couch. I dreamt about flying in a helicopter over glaciers and valleys, it was nice to be dreaming again, I hadn't been able to remember one in over a week.