22APRIL2012 near Greenwood, SD - God must have wanted me to have yesterday off - or at least easy.  I awakened this morning at 0630 having slept for 9.5 hours.  That was on top of a nap yesterday afternoon.  Well, I feel wonderful - mahalo to the great mystery for that. 
Mr. Barney and his turkey hunting buds were still asleep as I left.  I immediately made my way for the left bank and deeper water ... a sand bar was on the right side beginning a short ways down from Barney's Pink Flamingo house.  It is windy but easy to drift along, paddling only occasionally so as to maintain control.  Both banks here are heavily wooded and very wild.  Oak, cottonwood and cedar predominate; oak is still in the heavy bud stage while cottonwood is fully leafed.  I saw three Whitetail deer running toward me at the water line.  Wind direction being what I was, I knew they would smell me well before seeing me.  Sure enough, over a hundred yards away they stopped, turned and found a way to climb through the cliffs/bluffs and out of sight.  Watching the whole scene was a bald eagle.  There is always one of these birds in view at all times.  The cliffs are a beautiful yellow topped by a layer of dark brown loess.  While not the first cliffs seen by the Lewis and Clark expedition, these are the last of the pure prairie cliffs for shortly upstream is Old Baldy, a point/peak where they first sighted a prairie dog.  OK, I acknowledge that the word "prairie" attached to dog does not sound like the first of the mountains is happening ... trust me on this.
At noon I approached the Verdel boat ramp area and more flooding devastation that yesterday.  In addition to water inundation, as witnessed yesterday, these homes were affected by sand.  Some were filled with sand, some were covered by sand and some were moved off their foundations by the sand/water combination.  Some of the homes can be described simply as broken.  What a mess.  At the same time the wind speed picked up and the river turned a bit north, making proceeding downstream exceedingly difficult once again.  So I pulled in and made my way to the Blue Moon Resort, a wonderful hamburger and some internet access.     
Today I travelled from river mile 865 to river mile 852 a distance of 13 miles.