Day 34: Ready to reprovision

8/8/2015

Even though I've seen tons of ducks along the way, of course it's only the city ducks that feel comfortable being this close to me.

I enjoyed the morning in my tent talking on the phone with a couple friends. The plan was to paddle the 14 miles to the Coon Rapids Dam, have Alyce pick me up and I was looking forward to an evening of hanging out, some thai food, and maybe even some wifi. But half-way through my paddle, she called to say she had a family emergency and wouldn't be able to join me until tomorrow evening. Of course I was supportive, and I just called my uncle Brad to let him know the slight change in plans. In the final mile before the dam, I reached for my map from my spray skirt pouch to see where I needed to portage and to see if there was a designated camping spot nearby (there’s not). As I did that, my GPS slipped out, fell overboard, and sunk like a stone. In the murky water, I only saw its bright yellow for a few seconds before it disappeared. In shock, startled, I realized I had just lost the waypoints of data for the past month. While I had put all my data from the water quality sonde into an excel spreadsheet the other night, I had not entered the lat/lon coordinates because the GPS holds so many more data points. I felt like I wanted to cry, but no tears came. I quickly realized that I could buy a new one tomorrow in Minneapolis, that I could use my phone for data points tomorrow, and that I had marked the approximate location in my data notebook for each of the points, and would likely be able to re-establish the location within a mile or two of each collection point. Still, I felt sick about losing an expensive piece of equipment. I felt sick about losing so much data and not having written down the lat/lon in my data notebook each time I took a coordinate. I felt sick about how I was going to keep other things from just sinking. I have everything tethered to my boat, and all the items in the pouch have tiny lanyards which I attach to a larger lanyard on my life vest when I use them. I am fastidious in sticking to this protocol. I felt helpless about this loss. I felt briefly hopeless about my whole project. Tears did come. I realized I was also very hungry, and cranky about my lack of food, lost promise of Thai, and now my lost GPS. I completed the paddle to the dam, pulled up my kayak, called Nick to decompress. He was assuring and reminded me of all the things I first thought to myself about how it’s not the end of the world, and that there’s still over 2/3 of the river to go. He told me to find some food. I am now trying to hook up my phone as a hotspot so I can use my computer to order delivery food here. I hope it works, I’m so grumbly and feeling down right now.

My phone wasn’t able to create a hotspot, I don’t know why. I called a bunch of Thai places in the area and none of them had delivery service. I guessed I’d just have to eat the last of my oatmeal for dinner, but then realized I was completely out of water. As soon as I realized that, I noticed how thirsty I was. I pulled my kayak up the bank, set up my tent, and went looking for water. The bathroom at the visitor center is under construction, so there was no water available. The spigot on the side of the building had a special key needed to access it. Getting more and more tired and hungry and thirsty, I was beginning to despair, and decided I should just go to sleep and wait for morning, when things would be fresh, and my uncle was bringing water and Gatorade. Then I realized I could call for delivery from somewhere that was NOT thai (duh, I was so stuck on Thai, and so tired and hungry I didn’t think of this other option for a long time). So, three hours after I landed at Coon Rapids Dam, I finally had a solution in play for my dinner and quenching my thirst. Sammy’s Restaurant is bringing me Tortellini and 7-up. Not my finest meal, but better than dry oatmeal. The tortellini will be warm and the 7-up will be wet. Good enough for this tired and hungry girl. Tomorrow I get to reprovision!