13APRIL2012 near Ft Thompson, SD - I slept great and stayed dry though rain fell all night long. On occasion it stopped; the strong winds subsided around midnight, yet daybreak found me lying in the only dry spot in a mile ... and it is still raining. All the ground is sandy, so mud is not part of the formula ... good thing that. I found my dry shorts, put on dry shoes, donned my patriotic colors (red rain jacket with blue/white Duke baseball cap), grabbed my computer and hoofed out to Ft Thompson. In doing so I concluded that indeed I had proceeded close to a full mile yesterday. Getting around in the rain proved easy once I got on the highway ... you have to love that folks are quick to stop and help.
Back at the Lodestar Motel, weather.com says there will be a 5 to 6 hour period today with only a 10% chance of rain, so I will get back to the river and take advantage of that.
Returning to the campsite I packed up fairly cleanly and dryly ... though moist is an easy word to to regularly sprinkle in. Pushing off through the mud was difficult but I did so barefooted in a successful effort at keeping my socks dry. Back in the water I immediately paddled out about 200 yards to get beyond lots and lots of stumps. For the next several miles I stayed 200 to 400 yards away from shore so as to avoid paddling through the stumps as well as to stay in deeper water. The shore in this area is extremely flat so trying to paddle near that would mean extensive mud paddling. A fairly stiff wind was at my back, kicking up whitecaps continually and forcing me concentrate on boat position. On occasion I would lapse and get slap water in the canoe ... well, who said the day would be without mud anyway? But seriously, capsizing far from the shore is not attractive at all, so even occasional slap water is unpleasant. Stated otherwise, working a capsized or inundated canoe to shore is never considered fun ... doing that through 400 yards of stumps and onto a beach that would require dragging over (estimating here) 100 feet of mud onto a flat, muddy shore is way up on the "Not Fun" scale. Add to that that the canoe would be sitting low due to carrying so much water and one would need to bail while standing in mud/water 50 yards from shore all the while getting rocked by waves ... and all this bailing just to have a craft that could be brought close enough to shuttle the gear a shorter distance. That gear shuttling of course, would be through inches of water over inches of mud, and then turn around and do it again and again until the boat is empty. Ughhh ... no thanks, I prefer keeping the craft upright.
Having no mishaps I proceeded quickly (for a lake), angling more and more toward the south with each paddle stroke. This caused the wind to be more and more a side force and in time pushed me into the stumps and to the shore. I came ashore just north of Crow Creek and the wind was telling me quite plainly that it was not going to let me leave without great effort. Part of the effort needed would be paddling among lots and lots of submerged stumps while simultaneously paddling away from the shore and also - hopefully - downstream. So what is the problem with an occasional stump? That answer is "Nothing" yet these stumps are far more than occasional; I estimate to have passed more than 50,000 stumps today and I do not know how many are ahead.
So grabbing my necessities I headed up the hill to the highway where - naturally - the 1st car stopped to help. The driver was former Marine Ronald Kirkie, who had been stationed at Barstow just like me ... and also Okinawa. His daughter is running for the tribal council, an election that will be decided Tuesday. Ronald is a recent inductee to the South Dakota Athletic Hall of Fame (basketball) as well as a former member of the tribal council. He is the youngest looking 75-year old I have ever seen ... it must be the basketball playing.
Today I saw whitetail deer and geese. The canoe traveled from river mile 986 to mile 980, a distance of six miles.