20APRIL2012 @ Pickstown, SD - It is 80% clouds as I arise. At Abby's Cafe about ten guys have coffee (every day?) and one -John Jurman - offered to help with my gear. I pushed the canoe down to the spillway boat ramp and was back at the Dakota Inn at 1100, checked out and ready to go.  John got me to the ramp, discussed fellow Pickstowner Tom Brokaw with me and by 1400 I was underway.
It is turkey hunting season, I saw several people hunting turkeys and yet I also saw turkeys ... I thought all animals knew to disappear when the shooting started.  It being a river, eagles were noted as soon as I was underway.  Whitetail deer were seen several times. 
After so many, many miles of paddling I drifted.  Paddling was of no interest and so I went a short way only.  Even so, I stayed on the water until I was sure that Nebraska was on my right and I pulled over.  At the water's edge is gravel, some as big as a grapefruit.  Crossing 30 feet of that and silt/sand is encountered and several feet into that are dead small cedars.  Those cedars give way to large cedars that are alive, yet the lower limbs are dead.  These dead limbs are those that were inundated last year during the 90-day flood and these are the limbs that I cut away to make a clear sleeping spot.  Tying a rope to two adjacent cedars and securing the tarp over the rope I had a fairly decent shelter for the night. 
All around the world tonight the Aggie Muster is being held.  The Aggie Muster is a Texas A&M University tradition that honors continuity and loyalty.  Each year on April 20th Aggies stop whatever they are about and call the roll (muster).  Participants respond "Here" upon hearing their name ... but there is more.  Names of Aggies not physically present are also called and someone will answer "Here" for each of these deceased Aggies.  Wherever the Aggies muster all Aggies are always there ... and that is a fact that you learn very clearly during you first Aggie Muster.        
Today I travelled from river mile 880 to river mile 873 a distance of seven miles.
As I settle in for the night I hear a turkey gobble.  As I drift off to sleep I hear "Here" and "Here" and "Here" and "Here" and ...