Day 12-16

Woke up early thanks to some guys walking by my tent around 5:45 am crowing like a rooster. It was an excuse to get on the river early. This section of the river was beautiful. Lots of trees and very little wetland foliage!

I made it about 16 miles and it started lightning. I rushed down the river and found Blackberry campsite. Got settled in and took a nap. A couple of hours later I hear a voice. It was Jim Henning.

I tried to stay real still so he’d go away, but he looked determined to wake me up. 😉. So I popped my head out of my tent and said hello. Jim was one of a group of five other men. Soon 4 more kayakers came trolling down the river.  We helped Tom, Bob, Harv, and Steve ashore and they set up camp.

It was really nice to have some human interaction. We built a fire, they cooked spaghetti and shared some with me and we sat around telling stories and joking around.

Jim must have been some kind of sasquatch hunter, because he started calling one about 5:30 in the morning! 😂. There was talk of another storm so he wanted to get moving so we would beat it to Jacobson. 

Turned out to be a gorgeous day! We stopped at a boat landing and ate lunch. We even took a little swim off one of the sandbars.  

Later that afternoon we arrived at the Jacobson campsite. It was Jim and crew’s last day on the river so I decided to hang with them for one more night. These guys were really a lot fun.

As we were setting up camp, another paddler arrived after traveling 37 miles from Grand Rapids.  We talked Patrick into camping near us and drinking a couple of beers.

So, day 14 we said our good byes and the guys went back home and Patrick and I paddled down the river to a campsite named Ms Kept.. Haha! A bald eagle was sitting above the camp sign so it wasn’t too hard to find! It looked like a a satanic murder happened there! There was a busted up tent, burnt clothing, and liquor bottles everywhere! The tent was full of puke. It was creepy. Later that night a tornado rolled through the area and that had us on edge.

The next day we paddled around 20 miles to Scott’s Rapids campsite. It was in a really nice location. We renamed it The Shire.

After leaving The Shire, we finally made it to Palisade, MN. A quaint farming town with a couple of restaurants and a liquor store.  The people here are a little rough around the edges but still friendly.