May 20: A tailwind today, and I pushed hard to make 24 miles, in
hopes of making Sioux City by Tuesday. I saw countless
recreational boatsout today, the first time I've seen such
activity. My sense is that there is relatively little
recreational use of the river below Omaha. The first real
marina I passed was at Bellevue, a few miles above the
Platte River, and I've seen several since.
A storm is passing through now. I'm in my tent in the
middle of a down pour, but I'm comfortably dry. I was
hoping to build a campfire tonight to dry out my shoes
and socks, which are still wet from my swim yesterday.
That will have to wait until tomorrow.
May 21: The current is definitely much stronger here. I made 20
miles, but it took a good deal of effort and 8 full hours of
work. My difficulties with the current were aggravated by
a countless string of dikes, often no more than 100 yards
apart. Not only is the current stronger as I go around the
ends of them, but the eddies I encounter as I approach them
are much nastier. I did meet lots of friendly people today,
including a threesome of fishermen who had seen me below
Omaha. They cruised alongside of me as I paddled, and we
chatted - a nice diversion for me - and when I was setting up
camp they stopped by with two other boats. We shared
some beer and conversation before they took off
downstream. They took some pictures which they promised
to send, and I hope they include their names so I can
properly thank them here.
A beautiful view from the boat.
May 22: Very difficult going. The last 2 days I've had to push it to
make my quota of 20 miles. Midway through the day today I
finally lost my patience and began shouting obscenities at
the top of my lungs at the insufferable number of dikes and
the people who built them. I'd like to dynamite every dike
between here and Omaha. I now have a list of the most
aggravating aspects of this expedition. The first is AT&T and
my cell phone, both of which are useless. As soon as I get to
the Pacific, I plan to hurl the phone out to sea as far as I can.
The second is Citizen's Trust bank in Cambridge, who claim
to be "not your ordinary bank". Not ordinary unless you
expect your bank to gouge the consumer and be incapable of
providing customer service. And the third are these dikes,
which I swear are placed in such abundance on this stretch
of the river by the Corps of Engineers because they're
prohibited to build any above Sioux City.
May 23: Another strenuous day, barely managing 2.5 mph. This may
be the only stretch of the river where I face as difficult a task
as Lewis and Clark. I'm only making as much progress as
they did. In their journals they calculated the current above
the Platte at 3 - 3 1/2 mph. Now it's more than twice that.
The landscape I've passed by in the last two days has been
most appealing: wooded hills on the Nebraska side, flat
farmland on the Iowa side, and lots of wildlife. Today I
passed by steep banks that were pock-marked with the
nests of either black terns or swifts, all of whom were darting
about over the water. Later today I passed what has to be
the ugliest section of the river - a mini-industrial complex
with a huge power plant that belched yellow smoke near
Salix, Iowa. It was a scene I would have expected in Kansas
City (or Pittsburgh), but not out in the middle of nowhere.
A thing of beauty...
May 24: It took me 3 3/4 hours to go the final 7 1/2 miles to Sioux
City, the hardest paddling I've done since day 1 when I had
to cross the Mississippi. I could only make 2 mph, and that
was with no headwind. Nuke the dikes!
May 25: In Sioux City. I was interviewed by the Sioux City Journal
yesterday afternoon, and the article appeared in today's
paper - front page news with a big color photo! At
breakfast this morning people treated me like a celebrity. I
guess I just had my 15 minutes of fame.
I discovered a crack in the blade of my #1 paddle, and
frantically called The Wilderness House for a replacement.
They worked with the folks at Werner in Washington, and I
can pick up my new paddle in Yankton. Way to go
Wilderness House! I had a thoroughly enjoyable stay in
Sioux City, and was impressed with the city's development
of the riverfront area as parkland, something I'm noticing
more and more as I get further upstream.
May 26: Back on the river for my last day of dikes and channeling. It
was a cold, rainy, miserable day, but I had a tailwind and
wanted to take advantage of it. On the way out of Sioux City,
several people honked or waved to me. I think the
newspaper article has made me locally famous. I've camped
at Ponca State Park tonight, about 2 miles upstream from the
last dike. I got soaked today, but inside my tent things are
dry and cozy, even though it's still raining. I'm out of Iowa,
and into South Dakota, with Nebraska still on my left.
Click here for days 50-56 of Richard's journal
