Day 16 on the Mississippi River

September 6, 2021

Monday, Labor Day

We woke to mild south wind. We had found a spot to hang our hammocks about 5 or 6 miles south of Tamarack Point on the East side of Lake Winnibigoshish. The wind helped us, at first. But, after we rounded Tamarack Point the wind was making big waves out of the South. We would take on water over the side when we tried to go East, straight for the dam. We had to paddle straight into the waves, to the south shore where there were no waves. And then follow the shoreline to the dam. We paddled hard for over an hour to get out of those waves. It was a little scary. When he got out of the wind near the shoreline Terry had a lot of water in his canoe.

We stopped for the night at The Pines Resort. There is no place at the dam to take kayaks and canoes out for portage. We took our boats out at The Pines Resort boat ramp, installed our portage wheels, and pulled them to the campsite. In the morning we would have to pull them down the road across the dam and then to a launch site below the dam. It makes for about a half mile portage.

The Pines is a camp ground with a lot of semi-permanent trailers. The office has a full bar which we enjoyed. We had hamburgers and fries for lunch and pizza for dinner.

While we were having dinner we met a really nice couple from St. Paul, MN, Al And Melissa Neibacher. They are River Angels and they didn’t even know it. They picked up our tab for dinner and beer. When we get to St. Paul we are going to stop for a visit.

We also met Ron. I didn’t get his last name. Ron gave us some fried fish that he caught. Ron can cook fish.

We slept in hammocks again because they’re really comfortable. During the night we had a thunderstorm and everything got wet. We sat out the storm in the laundry. The we went back to bed in wet beds.