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Day 48: Intense night

8/20/2015

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Kathy started me off by stopping at the Wenonah Canoe/Current Designs kayak warehouse to buy a foam pad for my seat (and aching butt).  Success.  The day was hot and I was glad to have my face protection. Part of the day I was able to use my umbrella as a sail.  I paddled until I was tired, a good 16 miles below Winona.  It wasn’t yet dark, and I enjoyed shooting photos of the plants that grow at the edge of the river.  
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Damselfly let me scoop it up on my finger! Look at that marvelous faceted eye.
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Finally was able to photograph (albeit not very well) the blue damselflies
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Duck weed has become more common since Little Falls
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Teeny snail
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Such a lovely spot....AAAAAaaaand, of course there's a plastic bottle hanging out in the weeds.
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That night at 2:15am, a wind storm blew through, knocking my tent over on me.  I got out, tried to weight down the stakes better, but it pulled the stakes out and blew over again.  The third time, I put all my water bottles on the stakes and it stayed up, but the tent poles flattened and creaked.  I called my friend Ben in California, knowing he’d still be awake to look at the weather forecast for me since I didn’t have any 4G coverage.  “5 mile an hour winds,” he said.  Nope, I knew that was incorrect.  I guessed it was at least 20 mile an hour winds, gusting up to 30.  Eventually he found a Doppler radar showing a storm heading over me.  I hung up and waited out the storm which only ever sprinkled, but howled with wind over me until after 4:30am.  Sure enough, in the morning, I listened to my VHF weather radio, and heard of measured gusts a little south of me of 26 miles per hour.  Luckily, the only thing worse for wear was the bag that holds my tent poles which had blown into the nearby pond, but I was able to retrieve it and rinse it out. 
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    Alyssum Pohl is paddling the Mississippi River and documenting water quality and plastic waste along the way.

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