4JUNE2011 @ Washburn, ND (Me) and near Mission Ridge, SD (Canoe) - Desiring to get on the water today I awakened and was underway almost immediately, grabbing some motel coffee as I flew out. I stopped and delivered some flowers to the wonderful Ramada Inn staff in Bismarck, visited the house site where we worked Thursday and stopped for breakfast at the State Line Resort. Not open when I paddled through, the person behind the counter swears they are not open now ... but I ate pancakes and bacon. I was not charged - so indeed they are not open. Leaving Mobridge I picked up a hitchhiker - a spiritual healer from Kimball, SD. I carried him about 90 miles down to Onida where I drove west to Pike's Haven, arriving at about 1300. By the time I gathered my gear, ate lunch and stored the truck it was 1430 and I was underway. My canoeing goal was to get as far as possible so as to increase the possibility that tomorrow I could be finished with Lake Oahe. Wind was so light as to be considerd calm and I found it amazingly easy to stroke on, putting Mail Shack Bay behind me and then rotating slowly to the SE and crossing several creeks, culminating in Okobojo Creek and coming aground at the Okobojo Point State Park. Upon learning that it is a state park I got back in and paddled over to the Spring Creek resort. After my experience at West Whitlock I was uninterested in trying the South Dakota campsite system again. At Spring Creek I ate a sumptous pasta supper and checked in to a room. The room rate gave me pause - I even informed the owners that I would be up and out early earlier earliest and needed only a sleeping place, not the full treatment. Later, upon checking the room, I opted to sleep outside. No, the room was fine; I slept outside to insure that I would be underway at first light. Owing to my late arrival I probably did not bed down until 2300. Today I paddled from river mile 1104 to mile 1088, a distance of 16 river miles. As midnight approaches I am snug between 4 huge concrete cubes ... warm and cozy ... it is only 16 more river miles to the dam.