Post 800!

This is going to be another adventure travel post but I see that it is also the 800th post to this blog. Yea it's evolved into a less frequent thing, but no one really wants to read my yammering on about so little.

On to the real meat of this. Another outdoor adventure! This time with an unexpected travel partner. If you remember last year, my brother Jim and I did a weekend kayak trip on the Namekagon River in northern Wisconsin. We tried to do another section of that river this year, but our schedules just did not mesh. When the did it would be in the middle of October. That gets a little dicey with trying to arrange shuttles (most places shut down after 10/2)  and weather up there could be great or cold and snowy.

I was determined to do this with him or solo at this point so I still kept planning. Then from the living room one day I heard, "I'll go with you". Huh? who said that. Joel? Really? "sure I'll go".
I was surprised and tickled at the same time. I can't recall the last time we went camping together, probably when we had the pop up camper? That and the fact that he hasn't been home for the last 4 Septembers so he has not had much opportunity in the last few years either.

Now I was pretty stoked about the trip. We decided on Saturday the 17th through Monday the 19th. I had to be in Arizona for work and was coming home Friday so this worked the best.

I made sure I had everything for him because I would not want to make this experience a bad one with being cold or hungry or whatever, he'd never want to come with me again. I made sure all bases were covered and the weekend before we even hit the little lake,  2 miles from our house to practice in the kayak. Not only had he not camped in a while, he had never used the boats either.

I got home from Arizona around 1:00 am Saturday morning. Not a great decision but I've done more on less sleep. I roll out of bed at 5:30 and Joel and I put the boats on the car and finish packing up. We are on the road by 7:15. Not bad.  About 5 hours later we reach Trego, Wisconsin, where we stop at the log cabin camp and cabins. This is were we transfer our gear to a van, put our boats on the trailer and they shuttle us to the start of the day in Hayward.

We get to the Hayward landing around 1:30. Unpack and take our gear to the little covered picnic area. Because yea, it's raining. Hard. We pack the boats in the rain and wait for it to subside a little.  All this weather change triggers a migraine for Joel. Not a good start. I was really afraid he would be miserable the whole weekend.

The rain relented and we finally got it the water around 2 in the afternoon. The entire trip was to be about 29-30 miles. Originally we intended on doing 9 or so for 3 days. With the migraine issue we did about 6 on Sunday.

Found a nice site and set up camp. Joel was better but still had a lot of pain. The vision and other issues had subsided.  We made a fire cooked some hamburgers over the fire.

The weather was ok, it never rained on us again but it remained cloudy until almost time for the sun to set.

It started to get dark so we decided to go to bed early, hoping Joel would wake up better and the next day would be more fun.

The next morning came and it was sunny and bright. Joel emerged from his tent, Any better? He was better last night then it got worse as the morning came. He didn't sleep very well either.  I had him drink some energy drink mix I had to give home some caffeine. I made some coffee and then I made breakfast of egg, bacon and cheese burritos.

After some food and some caffeine, Joel was a bit better. We took out the map and tried to see where we needed to go today. Since we had a light day yesterday, we would have to put some miles down today. We decided to shoot for campsite 44.8 or 14 miles down river.  

Sun was shining and we set out. Unlike the trip last year we saw next to no one on the river.  Today was quite a few sets of riffles and rapids. The first one was a nice drop and chute with some big rollers. Joel shot right down the middle and took a large wave over the bow! Needless to say he got soaked. So much so he had to use the bailer and sponge to get all the water out of the boat. Also the water was pretty cold too. 59 ° according to my watch which I soaked in the water to measure it.  

We stopped at a landing around noon, to grab a bite to eat, allow Joel to change out his shorts and strech our legs.

His headache all but gone, we jumped back into the boats to finish the day. 

We reached your destination by 2:30. We averaged just over 4 mile per hour which is really quite good. The river levels were a little higher than normal and that helped.  The whole area was shut down earlier this summer due to all the flooding they had because of record rainfall. It seems the whole year has been wetter than normal.

We unpacked and set up in the sun to dry out a bit. I had Joel try out my hammock to take a nap if he could.  He was asking me how could that be comfortable as when I set up my hammock as the head end is always a little lower then the foot end.  I said get in an try it. He did and once I showed him how to lay in it, he said " I get it" and he stayed there for at least an hour.

Unfortunately the clouds started rolling in later at night and so did the mosquitoes. We had dinner and a fire a few beers and played cards until after dark.

The weather forecast did not look good for tonight 50% chance of rain and more tomorrow.  We both Went to bed before 9:00.

The next morning we woke up to clouds at around 7:00 am. We both slept through the night, which is unusual for me and camping, Normally I would wake up at least 1 to 2 times and fall back asleep. 

We started packing up and making breakfast. Didn't matter it started raining. Pancakes in the rain! After eating we put the rest of our gear in the boats, put the spray skirts on so we would not get  soaked sitting in the boat and took off.

Only 8 miles today so it would be less effort that yesterday. However this part of the river was wider and flatter and the water did not move nearly as fast as yesterday.  The water did come out of the sky for the next 2 hours though. As we neared the end we could see blue sky peeking through but we never seemed to catch up to it.

About a mile from the end, the sun came out and started warming us as we drifted into the Log Cabin beach area.  

We slowly unpacked and then loaded up the car. Changed into some dry clothes and started our 5 hour drive home.  Although not before stopping at an A&W on the way home for lunch!  

I have been lucky enough to enjoy two outdoor adventures with my kids this year. I hope they continue to want to come with me as long as they can.

All the pictures - Here

I have lots of video clips and put a movie together too.