2MAY2012 near Tamekah, NE - Once the Cottonwood Marina - near Blair, NE - has been seen it becomes obvious that "Flood Damage" is too light a term.  Flood Wreckage is the needed term. 
The Cottonwood featured a one-acre array of slips, a restaurant/bar and campground including showers.  All of this is gone and in it's place is a ten-acre hole.  Hanging on the side of the hole, pitched at about 30 degrees is the slip apparati, evidently saved by wenching it west while the flood waters rose.  The restaurant/bar floated away and the shower house evidently went in a somewhat different manner.  Slips are always anchored; evidently the anchors also were moved (whisked?) away ... serious flooding, folks.  The shower house cannot float but the slab can be undercut, and probably was, before being lifted off.  I will be amazed if the slips get repositioned and the marina gets in operation this year - forget the restaurant/bar.     
Above all the mayhem last year was Deb (License plate "LIL DEB").  Her trailer had the flood flow under but not reach the subfloor.  After all was completed she moved the trailer away, built a solid concrete foundation - a tad higher - and now says "Bring it".  That Deb is a fine American.  She is also a member of a very small club; perhaps only one other resident in the 80-unit Cottonwood area is in Deb's position of having a residence that survived in usable condition. 
After lunch in Blair, I made it back to Cottonwood and paddled the three miles down to the Blair Optimists Park where I left the canoe and got into town with all my clothes.  Washing out the dust was on my mind and the clothes machines were put to use on that.  Meanwhile I checked in  at the Super 8 motel to do the same with me.  By 1900 my clothes and me were clean and yesterday's trial was a memory.  It feels good to be clean. 
Today I paddled from river mile 674 to river mile 648, a distance of 26 miles.  Today I saw geese, ducks, bald eagles and great blue herons.