Friday, June 1, 2007

FINISHED!!!
















The last leg of my trip was action adventure compared to the tedious poling I’d done for the previous eleven days. Due to severe rainfall recently in Western and Central Nebraska, the Platte River was in flood stage. Thursday morning I pushed my boat into the river with a huge knot in my stomach, wondering how it would handle the churning, boiling water.
It looked like the liquid in a blender when you're making a chocolate shake. It was impossible to believe that this was the same river I'd slogged down for over eleven days. The current was moving so fast and powerfully that trees were toppling into the river, standing waves reached two feet high and cross currents boiled and churned, alternating small whirlpools with powerful burbles. About all I could do was avoid the worst of it and hope for the best."
Fortunately, Plattepus I handled the currents and the waves as if it had been designed for them. Larger waves just washed right over the boat, and swirling currents spun under the shallow draft hull without causing problems. I thought it was humorous that about the only boats that dared to be on the river were $10,000 airboats and my little Plattepus.
Friday morning, with the end in sight, I took a rare opportunity to just enjoy the ride. For once, everything was finally in my favor. The wind was at my back, the current was strong, the river was wide and I knew that I'd make my goal. So I sat back in my chair for half an hour and listened to the birds, watched the clouds, reflected on what an amazing journey it has been, and thanked God for the privilege of being able to do this and for all of the people who have made it possible."
Although I was alone the whole way on the river, there is no sense in which it was a "solo" voyage. None of us ever accomplishes anything on our own, whether in business, in school, on the river or in life. There are always an incredible number of people behind the scenes making it possible. I even think of the people years and years ago who first sparked my interest in building boats, and my parents who taught me to try to achieve the improbable. Then there is Tammy, my wife, who dropped everything to be a support person for the trip along with Sheila, our daughter. And Beth, who keeps things on an even keel at the shelter while I'm gone. The list really does go on and on.
The homeless have never been far from my mind as I’ve poled and paddled. I have this image stuck in my head from the last couple of days. I picture all of us out here floating down the flooded river. Some have luxury liners, some have speedboats, some have canoes, and some are clinging to scraps of wood, barely staying afloat and desperately wondering how long this is going to go on.
I think it is still too easy even for me to give myself all kinds of credit for where I am in life and just dismiss those who are clinging to flotsam and jetsam, as if it is all their fault somehow that they don't have a better boat. When I fall into that kind of thinking, I'm failing to recognize all of those who have contributed to my being where I am, and failing to recognize that some people have never had the same backup I've had.
In the end, the current pushed me to my takeout on a muddy bank, burned, windblown and tired. For the sake of completeness, I paddled across the Missouri River to Iowa, picked up a handfull of Iowa mud as evidence, then paddled back for hugs and pictures. And a long, long nap.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Ron's note on May 31 - Fremont to Louisville








What a dramatic and exciting approach to the finish line!
Last night I got out of the river at the Fremont bridge and pulled up in the front yard of a kind gentleman who was interested and welcoming. After we’d taken care of all the stuff, I commented that there was probably high water coming. “Nah,” he responded. “It always does this. It comes up at night and by tomorrow morning you’ll see sandbars out there again.” I was dubious, but he’s lived here for a lot of years.
This morning we arrived back at the river to see that it had risen a couple of feet. Muddy brown water churned and boiled, racing past carrying with it trees and branches. I was elated to see the speed, nervous about the churning. Nevertheless, we readied Plattepus I as a small crowd of fishing buddies collected to watch. They didn’t exactly say so, but it was fairly obvious that they thought it sheer folly to head off on the cusp of a flood. I couldn’t disagree.
Easing into the current, I took off like a shot, slapping small waves and paddling my way through the upcoming bridges. That accomplished, I eased off only to discover that I was headed for a group of standing waves that looked rather too threatening to me and my little boat. There was nothing to do about it but hang on and keep the nose straight, hoping against hope that I wasn’t about to take a swim.
Amazingly, Plattepus I was born to this stuff. She took a breath, put her head down and went right through the waves, leaving them washing across the boat from every direction. I never tipped, never felt like I was about to be thrown overboard. There is enough flex in her hull to make me wonder if she’d break apart, but I had no reason to worry, so that in a couple of minutes I was in relative calm, tearing along at over seven miles per hour but not getting sprayed with waves.
That summarizes the day. I got better at avoiding the largest of the waves, looking far ahead to figure out a route around them. By 10:00 the sun had come out strongly and I was getting burned, but didn’t want to let go of the paddle long enough to dig out my sun shirt. I was in the constant company of whole trees and continuous flotsam and jetsam. When I saw two whole, huge, live trees topple into the river in front of me, I decided to avoid keeping too close to the shore. I didn’t think it would be all that much fun to be under a tree when it toppled.
All of my mileage and time estimates went out the window. Since I could cut corners without running aground, my estimated mileages were all too long, and the speed of the river sailed me from bridge to bridge with breathtaking speed. What I had started out planning to be a very long day ended up being one of my shortest.
If I were living along the river, I’d be holding my breath. One campsite was already under water, the murky brown water running right through tents and RV’s. There are an uncountable number of RV’s and houses just a foot or two above the current river level, so if I were they, I’d be a bit tense right now.
The most fun of the day was my arrival at the fourth bridge, where I-80 crosses the river. I knew that Tammy and Sheila and a couple of reporters were going to be waiting for me there, but when I pulled up I was totally shocked to see Micah and Elisabeth waiting for me as well. They had driven over from Wisconsin on a father-daughter road trip to surprise me at the end of my journey.
So now it’s raining, and there’s a lot more in the forecast. Two and a half hours tomorrow and I’m done. Here’s hoping….

Ashland by 1:30 p.m.! 7 miles an hour!

Some technical hitch is preventing posting of pictures just now - but I'll be trying again later today.

The river Ron got out of last night south of Fremont was not around this morning. A deeper, faster, murkier river had taken its place. The flood waters he outran yesterday caught up with us overnight. Vernon Peterson, the kindly man with great river access who allowed Ron to beach Plattepus I on his lawn, said when the flood water first arrived it was carrying huge logs and branches. He saw a tire - complete with rim - go by before Ron got started this morning, and Ron called a while ago to say he'd caught up with the tire and passed it. He's zipping along at his fastest clip yet - 7 miles an hour!

Back on the Urubamba


I thought, for a minute there, that I was on the Urubamba again.
Wednesday, May 30. We spent the night in Columbus surrounded by dire weather predictions. Rain here, rain there, rain everywhere. Mostly rain back in the central and western part of the state, where previous rainfall records were being smashed. Flooding, roads out, stranded families. Just so everyone knows, I have NOT been praying for rain.
As we drove to the Platte, we crossed the Loup and saw that it was churning brown, unlike the quiet, shallow river we’d been over the afternoon before. But when we got to the Platte, it was just as we had left it, wide and shallow. I was disappointed, having hoped for at least some of the upriver rain to speed me along.
I had been warned that when the Loup and a big canal came into the Platte a couple of miles down, there would be a lot of turbulence on the north side of the river. “We had a drowning down there last week,” a reporter told me. “Stay on the south side.” With Tammy’s additional carefully modulated advice (something along the lines of, “This might be a good time to wear your PFD”) I headed off down a small rivulet and into a better channel, then worked my way across to the south side of the river. This is no small feat when the channels are strung like spider webs, but I eventually got over there.
Suddenly I noticed that the water was as brown as chocolate milk. “Hmmm,” I thought to myself. “How did this happen?” I looked behind me and saw that the Loup had gushed in, its swollen water running sort of parallel to mine for a ways. And then the turbulence did come as they mixed, so that although I didn’t feel in any great danger, it was like riding the surface of a blender making a milkshake. Yes, I was wearing my PFD.
The feeling was exhilarating, repeated a short time later when the canal water came in, also muddy and carrying a full load of logs and sticks. Burbles, whirlpools, waves. Memories flooded in with the muddy waters. For a while there, I was an eight-year-old on a huge balsa raft in December of ‘59 on Peru’s Urubamba River, racing along with the foam and the debris, feeling intensely alive. In a common twist of perspective, obstacles stuck in the river bottom looked as if they were racing past me upriver, leaving waves and backwaters in their wakes. I called my parents, knowing that they could picture it, and said, “This is going to be a great day!” Indeed, for about two hours I sped along at over 6 miles an hour, twice the best speed I had attained the first week of my journey. I started revising time and mileage estimates. No longer did I have to work back and forth across channels—now I could go point to point instead of back and forth with the current. Sixty miles today? Seventy? Eighty? I saw a huge log drifting beside me and briefly toyed with the idea of hopping on it, as Terry and I had done all those years ago.
Two and a half hours into this blast from the past, I blew through a crazy jumble of sticks and logs and it occurred to me that this looked an awful lot like the front edge of a flood. Surely I could not have outraced the raging waters, could I? Indeed I had. Within a few miles I was seeing sandbars again, the water was getting clearer and my speed was dropping. I reduced my expectations of the day and settled into a now-familiar rhythm of actual work.
Fortunately, the powerful wind has been at my back, scooting me along even when my shoulders ache me into temporary rests. I have been seeing more and more houses, including a high percentage of mobile homes, on the banks of the river. Wildlife has all but disappeared. And wonder of wonders, about an hour before I reached Fremont I actually saw high, tree-covered banks on the south side of the river, giving it a very different feel.
One more full day to go, if all goes well, and then around Friday noon I should hit the Missouri.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Fremont 7:40 p.m. May 30






It's a liiiitle tougher to locate Ron on the river these days.... since there is so much more of it. Also, the bridges are further apart in this section. The shortest distance between bridges today was 15.7 miles.
Ron had a great ride on the river today - all the way from Columbus to Fremont. He started out on the Platte, which was soon joined by the Loup River and a canal. He'll be writing about his fun sometime in the future when he wakes up.
He exited the river tonight at a great location - boat ramp and all - courtesy of Vernon Peterson. We're deep in airboat country now, where folks understand the love of gliding around on the river.

Plattepus Shirts!



From day one - May 18 - Ron has been wearing a "Voyage of Plattepus I" tank top, and now you can wear one, too, and help the homeless at the same time.

The tank tops come in black, white, red, or blue, and they're available in men's and women's sizes: S, M, L, XL, XXL. All sizes are $20, except XXL, which is $23.

To order, mail a note with your payment, stating your selected size and color to:

Plattepus I Tank Tops

Box 2154

North Platte, NE 69103

Also, enclose a contact number so we can notify you when your shirt is ready for pickup. Be sure to include your return address and $2 postage per shirt if you wish for the tanks to be mailed.

"Not a sandbar in sight!" he says


May 30 - 9:30 a.m.


A short distance past Columbus, the Loup River, the Platte River, and a canal all come together into a larger, more full Platte River. Ron called around 9:30 this morning, yelling, "Wooo hooo!! Not a sandbar in sight!" He says it looks for all the world like he's on a roaring river of Robert's chocolate milk, and it reminds him of riding the Urubamba in South America. The river is currently too deep for his pole, so he's using his kayak paddle to keep the Plattepus I straight with the speedy current.


Ron's oldest son Micah, daughter-in-law Jennifer, and granddaughter Elisabeth called this morning to see how he was getting along, and when I told Micah about the Urubamba comment, he said, "Dad's been out in the sun a lot lately, hasn't he?" Yes, and he's been drinking a lot of chocolate milk, too.


Naughtins on the River






Ron hasn't had a lot of company on the river. There are birds by the thousands, schools of fish, deer, raccoons and the occasional beaver -- but human company has been rare. He visited with a family playing volleyball on a beach, and has chatted briefly with fisherfolk here and there -- but one family, the Naughtins, have made special efforts to join him.
Matt and Dominic Naughtin kept Ron company for a while as he approached Sutherland - bringing energy-boosting treats and refreshing conversation. And Jim, Matt's dad, came to the river at Columbus to spend some time with us -- and even gave the Plattepus I a try. My bet is that the next person to cross the state by river will be a Naughtin!



Monday, May 28, 2007. Central City. Central?

Ten days have ended, and I have not. For those who are eagerly awaiting the results of our fundraising competition to correctly predict my last bridge by 9:00 PM today, it was Central City East, #43. 401.72 miles, or right at 40 miles a day on average. I’m not quite sure how this happened, but the GPS doesn’t lie.
There have been ongoing highs and lows.
Friday I dropped my radio in the river, which immediately rendered it a fancy decoration. Believe me, the time goes by much more quickly if I’m listening to the news from Lake Wobegon or Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, so this was definitely in the category of disaster. Fortunately Tammy and Sheila replaced it for me by Saturday morning.
Saturday’s big story was the wind, which slapped me right in the face all day so strongly that if I wasn’t poling, I wasn’t advancing. To make matters worse (yes, dear Reader, things can always get worse), I went over three more big diversion dams, each with a long lake preceding it. Those lakes are deeper, so my pole has trouble finding a footing, and I have no current to help me out. With the strong winds, it was challenging just getting to the dam, much less dragging boat and baggage up, over and down. Whine, whine, whine.
The greatest excitement Saturday was hearing gunfire up ahead of me. Since no one expected to see a boater on the river, it was not unlikely that they would be shooting right across my bow without ever knowing it. As I approached the battle field, I was in a channel that ran between tall weeds. I couldn’t see the shooters, so I just hunkered down on the board and went as fast as I could until I was sure I was out of range. Then I had this little prayer meeting. These are the kind of things Tammy and my mother worry about.
By the end of that day Tammy and Sheila had to virtually carry me up the stairs to our hotel room. I had so many blisters, scratches, cuts and aches that I told Tammy it would be a great opportunity to practice for when I’m an old invalid and she has to feed me, clothe me, wash me. She undoubtedly thinks I’m already there. Even I have started thinking of myself as older now, as if this trip has carried me from the enthusiastic optimism of middle age to the border of pessimistic wisdom, summarized as “I’ll never do this again.”
Sunday was better, with the wind shifting so that although it wasn’t helping, it wasn’t hurting either. My near disaster came when my pole stuck in the bottom in the middle of a fast, deep channel. My hands are so sore that I cannot hang on to the pole very well, so I went shooting off without it. Couldn’t jump in with my replacement radio in my shirt pocket – and by the time I hand-paddled over to a sand bar and got off the boat, it was a bit of a walk back. It made me realize how much I depend on the pole, and wonder how I would ever go on without it.
Sunday’s highlight was the family reunion on the bank of the river. I heard this loud roaring sound coming up the river, as if a float plane were trying to take off, but it turned out to be an airboat with about five people in it. The noise was so ferocious that they were all wearing ear protection, which I think might have put a dent in their conversations as they raced up the river. It crossed my mind that they probably wouldn’t see as many deer or raccoons as I’ve seen. Anyway, shortly after their boat roared past, sending high waves over my boat, I met the rest of the family playing volleyball, throwing horseshoes and BBQ-ing meat that I would have killed for. I stopped to visit and was told they were celebrating a couple’s fiftieth wedding anniversary and the wife’s seventieth birthday. It looked so traditionally American that I wished I could join them.
So now, day ten. For the first time in all of those ten days, the three elemental ingredients of a good trip were aligned: water, wind and will. The current has been fast, the wind strongly at my back and my will indomitable. Not really, but indomitable is such a great word.
Today, Memorial Day, I actually indulged a bit of fantasy for the first time this trip. At one point, everything was going so well that I lay down on my back and stared at the clouds while racing along a perfect stretch of river. It only lasted five minutes, but this was something I had imagined doing endlessly when I first envisioned this little lark. Alas, the reality is that as long as I’m on the boat, I’m poling. I’ve had my five minutes of fun.

The Ronocerous Hunt of May 21st



In Ron's write-up about the evening of May 21, he posed questions he didn't answer - how did Tara and Matt happen to be at Lake McConaughy? Who were the couple who knew how to get near the river before it became the lake? This should help explain:

The “Ron”ocerous Hunt
Tammy Hansen Snell

Monday morning, May 21, my friend Tara Naughtin called, wondering if there would be a good time for our families to get together. I told her I was headed to Lake McConaughy that night to locate a place to get Ron in out of the weather, and that I’d love the company.
Since Tara is a meteorologist, there was no need to tell her the forecast was calling for storms. The early days of our friendship – nine years ago – had been spent with her teaching me bits of the science she knows so well.
“We’ll come on up and visit with you,” she said, “and if we get a chance to see Ron, that will be great.”
For the rest of my life I will be grateful that the Naughtin Six came to McConaughy that night, and for what was made possible because they did “see Ron.”
Staff at North Shore Lodge left a key in Cabin 11 for me, and I drove toward the northwest end of the lake to look for places where I could get down to the river. In some places my cell phone had full signal, and in other places zero. I hoped that when Ron finally got into an area with cell phone service I would happen to be in one, too.
Bob Roche at Samuelson’s sold me a park sticker and gave me a map of the outline of the lake. Ron and I stayed at Samuelson’s when our walk took us past the lake two years ago, and if I had a better memory for names I’d have called them to check on reservations for that night. I told Bob about Ron’s current fundraising effort and said I was looking for a good place to meet up with him and get him off the river.
Bob pointed out a few locations on the map, and said, “The point at Otter Creek is the last place before he gets out on what is now the lake proper – make sure you get him off before he gets out in the lake.” He talked about how bad the waves would be with the current wind, and said it was important to get to him soon.
Bob said I’d have a great view of the river to the east and the west if I drove up on Cedar Vue. He was right. A long section of the North Platte was easily seen from the high vantage point. Not satisfied with what I could see from the car, I climbed a bluff, shrieking when a young rattlesnake zipped sideways from where I was about to plant my foot. Periodic gusts of wind blew sand against my legs and face. I searched the expanse of water I could see, but saw no sign of Ron or the Plattepus I. Occasional spatters of rain fell. I drove down a dry boat ramp and followed a few trails to where they ended in tall brush, then went back to the top of Cedar Vue.
Even if I did see Ron from up here, I thought, and managed to get his attention, I still had no idea how to get close enough to the river to pick him up without a hundred meters’ walk through a swamp. I drove to Otter Creek to check the roads there, and met up with Tara and Matt and their kids. Dominic, Bonnie, Maverick and Glory hadn’t planned on spending their evening at the lake strapped in their van, but they were their usual cheerful, adorable selves.
Tara and Matt’s crew went on to Cedar Vue to keep watching for Ron, and I went on to Spring Creek, wondering if Ron had already gotten onto the lake and was working his way around the north edge. I pulled up onto a rise and flashed my lights for a while. The clouds were getting darker, the wind was getting stronger, and my worry was now a creature big enough to need its own seatbelt.
Up on Cedar Vue, Tara was explaining to the kids that the reason plans had changed was because they were helping search for Ron. “Like a safari?” Bonnie asked. “Yes,” Tara said, “We’re on a Ronocerous hunt.”
After a couple discouraging phone calls in which I was told it simply wasn’t possible to get to the river, I called Samuelson’s to ask if they knew of anyone who was familiar with roads or trails to the river’s edge. Maybe a local guide? Cheryl recommended calling Jake and Kyna Latendresse at Al and Dee’s/JK Outdoors.
Early in my conversation with Kyna (pronounced CANE-ah) another call came in – from Tara and Matt.
“We have a visual!” They’d seen Ron’s yellow rain jacket maybe a mile or so east of Cedar Vue, which would put him in Otter Creek territory. This was good news – he wasn’t out in the lake.
But he soon would be.
I went back to the call with Kyna, and she said there was a road at Otter Creek that went along the river bank. I told her I was going there now, and she offered to head that way, too.
My phone beeped that a message had come in while I was out of range. It was from Ron, and it horrified me. I still have the message saved on my phone: “Hi! I’m feeling screwed out here,” he said, “I’ve got thunder and lightning; I don’t have any good place to pull over. I can’t tell how far I am from the lake. I’m going to put my phone in my pocket and answer it if you call me. And see if you can help me figure out how much farther I have to go to get off the river and into the lake, and if I do, do you have any idea where to pick me up – because I don’t have much time or light or anything to go very far on the lake to get to a takeout. Talk to you soon, I hope. Bye.” Attempts to return his call failed.
At Otter Creek I found the road Kyna had told me about, and went as far as a sandy patch on a bend in the river. A movement on the water quite a ways downriver caught my eye. It was Ron. I jumped up and down on the bank, swinging my red coat over my head, then flashed the car lights and honked the horn. He disappeared behind tall brush.
Kyna and Jake drove up in their truck. I told Kyna I’d seen him, pointing downriver and saying I needed to get to the end of the point but didn’t know how.
“I can get down there,” she said. Kyna jogs in the sand regularly, and told of two roads – one along the edge of the river and another on higher ground.
I climbed in with them. Kyna went along the river for a ways, then went to higher ground in the hopes Ron would be able to see us and come our way. She honked the horn, hoping he could hear.
At the end of the point Kyna and I got out of the truck and peered into the growing darkness. I waved a flashlight in each hand. Jake drove to the top of a dune and aimed the lights out over the water, flashing the lights and honking the horn. Exposed to the wind, Kyna and I were getting stung with flying sand and whacked by flying tumbleweeds.
As Jake came down off the dune, Ron and I finally connected by cell phone. I yelled that Tara and Matt had seen him, and he needed to go back upriver. He said we couldn’t have seen him – he certainly couldn’t see anything, no lights, no truck. He said he could have heard a horn earlier, but it could also have been the wind. I insisted that he turn around and go upriver, telling him that he’d get to a place where he could see our car parked right on the bank next to the river. He was dubious. He didn’t think we were in the same place. He didn’t think any of us could have seen him, and he was convinced we weren’t nearby, so why try to go upriver?
I asked him to look south, at house lights on the hills. Did he see two pairs of lights, each pair with a yellow light on the west and a white light on the east, with the eastern pair being closer together? “Yes!” Great! Now go upriver!
Jake drove back west along the higher road until there was an opportunity to get on the road next to the river. Once there, he drove east, downriver, honking, the headlights shining on the tall reeds waving crazily in the wind.
Suddenly, at a break in the reeds, Ron appeared next to the bank, chest deep in the river, pulling his boat against the current. A glorious sight.
Jake pulled the Plattepus I well up into the brush. We put Ron’s gear in the back of the truck and Ron and I climbed in with it. Jake and Kyna drove us to our car, where we transferred the gear before all of us headed towards the Otter Creek area.
The storm descended. Pouring rain made it difficult to see. I couldn’t imagine how we’d have found Ron if the rain had started even a few minutes earlier. The Ronocerous Hunt had been a roaring success, thanks to Tara and Matt spotting him, and Jake and Kyna reeling him in.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Grand Island bridge 10:30 a.m. May 28

Ron reached the bridge south of Grand Island on the Tom Osborne Expressway at 10:30 a.m. on May 28. For a full listing of bridges he's reached and a running total on his mileage, see the earlier posting entitled: "Bridges/Approx Miles/Progress Report."

Those of you familiar with this route between Grand Island and Hastings know that over an expanse of several miles the Tom Osborne Expressway has at least 5 bridges on it that cross different channels of the Platte River. The one Ron went under was the next bridge south of the one near the Arby's south of Interstate 80. I, of course, was waiting at a different bridge. I was reading a book on the riverbank by Arby's, ready to hand Ron a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of chocolate milk. Fortunately, cell phone service is wonderful in this area. He'd been watching for signs that he was on the channel by Arby's, because that was the section most full of water, and the section he hoped to be on. As he got closer, he could see the signs for the Holiday Inn Express and could tell he was on something different. One day he wants to see the river from a plane to see where the channels divide and come together.

Yesterday we had yet another "which bridge are YOU at" conversation, south of Gibbon. I told him a red pickup had just crossed the bridge Sheila and I were on, and he said, "A red pickup just crossed my bridge, too!" But we still saw no sign of each other. In about a minute, we saw another red pickup, going the other direction. Now we laughed and asked each other, "So was your red pickup going north or south?" Two different bridges, two different red pickups, too much fun.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Ron arrived at Kearney at 8:50 p.m. May 26




A good day on the river! The river is getting deeper, there wasn't a headwind, and he made it from Darr Road to Kearney.

Thanks for the encouragement!






Thursday morning, May 24, several people gathered on the bank of the North Platte River at Cody Park to greet Ron -- here are a few photos. He enjoyed the company!


Ron and his radio will reach Kearney around 9:00 p.m. on May 26


7:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 26
Ron has had good water today, and not many dams -- so he's optimistic he'll reach Kearney before pulling over for the night.
Yesterday he had what he considers the biggest disaster of the trip so far -- his radio fell into the water in the middle of Nebraska Public Radio's afternoon news. He's listened to Nebraska Public Radio the whole way from the Wyoming border, and didn't want to go without it any longer than he absolutely had to, so he immediately called home to ask that we bring a replacement for the wet device. This morning he started off with a working radio, and -- last we heard -- it was still dry. We're letting the first radio dry out to see if it will function again once the river water has evaporated...

Thursday, May 24, 2007

What a Great Day to Quit







Thursday, May 24. What a great day to quit.

It only took an hour to get to Cody Park in North Platte, where a cluster of friends were waiting to welcome me. We had a fun time asking and answering questions, and I left an hour later feeling re-energized. Meaning that I didn't sleep well, what with numb arms and hands, so hadn't started off very energized. Just before I left, a gentleman whispered to me that he would send $1,000 to the shelter if I made it to the Missouri River.

I poled like a machine, past the airport bridge, past where the North Platte and the South Platte join to form the Platte (someone lacked imagination), and got my first look at the diversion dam for the Tri-County Canal. This has been one of the spots that I have "worried about" ever since "my skeptics" starting telling me why I'd never be able to do this trip. "No water," they said. I'd thought of it as a watershed spot in my journey, which is a bit ironic if it has no water to shed.

This time, the skeptics were right. When I got boat and baggage across the dam, all I could see was sand and weeds, clear across the broad riverbed. Now what? I could cheat and ask Tammy for a ride. I could sit and pray for rain. I could give up, which had a lot of appeal. Or I could press on, the $1,000 offer in the forefront of my mind.

I did some scouting to verify the obvious, that there wasn't any water, then went back for the boat. Determined to push on, I grabbed ahold of the bow rope and started dragging Plattepus I across the sand, into the high weeds. My legs wobbled, the rope gouged my hands, I instantly developed a raging thirst, and the worst of it was that I had no idea how long I might have to do this. I commited to five miles, figuring that if I had to, I could do that much in the next eight hours.

I'm not even going to try to make this sound like fun. I followed a sort of a trail, sometimes facing forward and sometimes backwards so my leg muscles could get tired and sore on both sides. Quarter mile. Half mile. Three quarters of a mile. At that point I was dismayed to find that things had fallen off of the boat, so I had to go all the way back and retrieve them.

Another thought kept niggling at me. I have several friends at the homeless shelter where I work, who came to see me at Cody Park. Chris, Dennis, Marie and Norm all have abundant reasons to quit any day, but they hang in there, pulling hard, looking for better circumstances. Surely it must be difficult not knowing how long this stage of their lives will last, but they haven't quit. If they can keep going, surely I could.

Eventually I left the boat to do some more scouting, sniffing back and forth like a dog looking for pheasants. I contemplated climbing a tree, since I couldn't see over the seven-foot grass, but I didn't relish falling to my doom without anyone around to take a picture.

Then I found it. A trickle of moss and algae. I don't know where it came from, and didn't care. It was cool on my feet and the boat would float in it. For the next while I still pulled, but finally it grew big enough that I hopped aboard and started poling, getting on and off in the shallows.

Suddenly a river of clear water gushed in from the left. I turned momentarily Pentecostal, shouting Halleluya! and calling Tammy to scream "I HAVE WATER!" I climbed aboard, thanked the universe and was off for Maxwell in a steady current. Made it to Brady by 7:00 PM, where Tammy informed me she had learned that I only have seven more diversion dams between Brady and Kearney, and then I am done with them. Seven sounds like a lot to me, but then I've already been over 15 or so. Piece of cake.

Tammy brought me back to our own house for T-bone steaks and potatoes and fried cooking bananas. If I don't sleep better tonight, it's not her fault. Although I don't have a schedule on this trip, if I did I'd now be way behind. But hey, Chris and Dennis and Norm and Marie and Mr. $1,000 and all of you who came to cheer me on, I didn't quit.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Ron hopes to be in North Platte by dark on May 23

Ron estimates he'll be at the Sutherland river bridge around 3:45 p.m. on May 23, and at the Hershey bridge around 5:45 p.m.

If all goes well - he could reach North Platte tonight, Wednesday evening.

Lake McConaughy May 22





Tuesday evening. May 22. A day we would mostly like to forget.

Since the beginning of what might loosely be called “planning” for this venture, Lake McConaughy has loomed large. A couple of “my skeptics” have bluntly told me that I wouldn’t make it down the lake. I myself have wondered often how my old shoulders and arms would fare trying to paddle without stopping for several hours, unassisted by any current. I have reminded myself repeatedly that a strong head wind would be the end of me—there would be no possible way to move against wind and waves in any reasonable amount of time. So today was Lake Day. Feared. Dreaded. Ready to be done with. Ironically, the worst of it ended up having very little to do with the lake.
Tammy took me back down to the scene of last night’s fiasco, down the deserted road that ran along the lake. Almost to where the boat was, she stopped because it looked too muddy up ahead. “Nonsense,” I said in so many words. Your wheels aren’t even making a dent. Let me drive.” I mean, all wheel drive and good tires shouldn’t stop a good car. You already know what happens next. I got stuck. Not just a little stuck, but so stuck that every wheel with any energy spun uselessly, throwing mud all over the car. Never mind, I’ve been stuck a lot of times before. A little digging, a little rocking, a few reeds and weeds for traction. Nada. Tammy said she’d call a tow truck and I should get going because the wind was in my favor. I didn’t think I should, because after all, this was my fault. She insisted, I left. “I’ll call,” I said.

To make my long story short, five hours later, I was at Kingsley Dam, washed clean by thousands of waves that frequently went right over the top of the boat without fazing it. For the first time on my little excursion, the wind was pushing me from behind. I was spent and elated, but Tammy was not faring so well.

Two hours along, I finally felt like I could let go of the paddle with one hand long enough to call. “I’m practicing patience,” she said. “The tow guy showed up with a pickup that couldn’t budge our car. He had to go back for his tractor, but its battery was dead, so he’d have to charge it.”
Another couple hours along, the tractor had shown up and they were hooking up a cable to a chain because the tractor couldn’t get too close because the river was rising from last night’s torrential rains.

Finally I got word that the car was unstuck, but Tammy didn’t sound cheerful. The guy had charged her $300.00 and in the process, he had wrapped the chain around the brake line, so it was now broken. She would have to call a tow truck from Ogallala to come and get her. In other words, I got to the dam before she did.

Two helpful fishermen who’d seen my story in the paper generously ferried my boat and gear around the dam, dropping me off at the hydro plant. Whoever you are, thank you beyond measure. I forgot to ask your names in the confusion, but you were very kind. “How are you going to get around the diversion dam?” they asked. “Dam?” I said, hoping it would sound more like a question than an expletive. “Oh, I’ll find a way. I’ve already been around seven dams by now and there’s always a way. Inside, I was ready for anything but another dam.
By now, Tammy was on her way to Ogallala with a friendly, helpful tow truck driver named Steve. I found a way around the dam, probably not approved by OSHA, and scurried to get some distance between me and it, since there was a big warning sign that said the gates would lift automatically when the horn sounded. I didn’t want to be anywhere where I could hear the horn. Actually, “scurry” is the wrong word, since there is no water coming through the gates on the dam right now. This is of great concern to someone who is boating. I took consolation in the pools of water left standing and headed bravely into my future. However, there are actually three more dams just below the big one. They are really huge stretches of concrete chunks piled up across the “river,” but by then I was so tired that I just dragged my boat up and over without even unloading it. I dread seeing what the bottom looks like, but it is still floating, so I’m not checking yet.

Remarkably, as I poled along I noticed that I had a bit of current. I didn’t run aground and within a couple of bends another tributary came rushing to my aid. How this works, I’m not sure, but I have come to an unshakeable faith in the power of the North Platte to regenerate itself from nothing. It happens over and over again.

Within an hour I was in sight of the Keystone dam, so I called Tammy to see where she was. “I’ve just about finished loading everything in the rental car,” she said wearily.
“Rental car,” I asked. “Why?” Well, it turns out that the repair people at Cox Chevrolet in Ogallala, led by Jeff Johnson, a group Tammy says are the absolute best there is in customer service, had learned there was only one Toyota brake line in the entire United States, and it wouldn’t be here until Tuesday, May 29. “I’ll be there soon,” she said. It was a bad time to remember that I’d advised her to cancel our rental car insurance the month before. I was doing some mental math and calculated that this was pretty much going to be a $1,000 day.
You know what’s ironic about all this? When I got in the car to show Tammy how great our all-wheel drive was, we had already passed the boat. It was sitting in the weeds fifty feet behind where I got stuck. Not my day.

Ron's note regarding evening of May 21




Tuesday morning, May 22. A couple of my “skeptics,” as I’ve come to affectionately refer to them in my head, were sort of right. “They” said I’d be lucky to make it to Ogallala on this trip. If only they’d known.

I left my camp Monday morning on a sandbar about four miles east of Lisco at 7:10 in the morning. Sunny, calm. The river had been less than fun Sunday, with such a wide bed that the water was spread thin. There is a reason why Broadwater is named Broadwater, and every canoer should take note. It’s one of those unusual places where you could wade across the wide, wide river and keep your socks dry.

Happily, within a mile or two it narrowed, and that became the story of the day—wide spots alternating with narrow spots where the current swept me along at a hair raising 2 miles an hour. I added another mile or two per hour with my pole and made the Oshkosh bridge ahead of schedule. I pumped my fist, recorded the accomplishment on my waterproof list of bridges, talked and laughed to my audience of a thousand bridge birds. So where did the bridge birds build their nests before the pioneers built bridges? In the river? They were undoubtedly elated by the coming of roads.
Lewellen. Still ahead of schedule at 4:45 PM. Forecast not great, as in widespread thunderstorms coming. But it was too early to stop, although I was so tired I wanted nothing more than to lay on the boat and sleep. In fact, I did lay on the board for a few minutes, stretched out in the water, mud and gravel that accumulates as I hop off and on in shallow places. But I got back up within a couple of minutes, knowing that if I dropped of to sleep, I’d drift onto or into something I’d regret.
The wind came up. Blasting hard wind, right in my face. It was as if my skeptics had ordered it to slow me down. Still, I wanted to get to Lake McConaughy. On a trip like this, sometimes the only thing that keeps you going besides the skeptics is setting a goal and refusing to stop until you get there. This time, that was a bad idea.
By 8:00 PM I was spent, but things weren’t looking good. Masses of clouds were building, with tremendous rumbles of thunder that shook the earth, and powerful flashbulbs of lightning. Storms like that are fun to watch from inside the house, but not nearly so much fun from a thin boat. In addition I had no idea where I was. On the Platte River, to be sure, but when would I get to the lake?
My mileage estimates to different bridges have been right on target all along, but for this section I had no idea where the lake actually started, given the long drought that has drastically shrunk it. The current was flowing at a pretty good clip, and I was at a crucial decision point: Get off the water onto an exposed bank of mud and brush, or push hard to get to the lake where Tammy might be able to pick me up and take me to a hotel for the night. I pushed on.
About 8:45 I finally hit the lake. The current stopped and the waves started. The blasting wind turned tornadic. I switched to my kayak paddle and tried to make headway, but found it nearly impossible. Paddled across to the south side of the channel for protection from the wind, but that didn’t work, so I paddled back across to the north side, worrying now. My cell phone had gone dead the day before, but a little super-charger allowed me one or two minutes of conversation. I called Tammy. Bad connection. I yelled, “If you can hear any of this, I’m screwed. Nowhere to get out. I’ve got mud and brush on all sides, it’s getting dark, I don’t know where I am and the wind and waves are throwing me everywhere. My phone is going dead, but I need you to see if you can figure out how long the lake is right now and if there is anywhere I can get off of it.” More battling against wind and waves and emergency planning going on in my head, as in “Okay, force your way into some of the brush and weeds, lay down on the board and just hang on for the night.” Little did I know that an amazing series of events were about to save me.
Ten minutes later my phone rang, and I let go of my paddle long enough to answer it. It was Tammy, yelling into her phone. “Stop where you are. Matt and Tara saw you. We’re coming after you.”
Matt and Tara? They are friends who live in Sutherland. They saw me? How could that be possible, since I couldn’t see anything anywhere in the storm induced darkness and the impenetrable tangle of brush that I had nevertheless penetrated?
It is a long story that happened in a few minutes. Through broken cell phone calls, Tammy yelled at me to go back up the channel and look for the lights of a pickup truck. The only way I could do that was to get off the boat into chest-deep water and pull it, feeling along the bottom to know I was staying close to shore. The wind had increased to sixty miles an hour, dead into my face, with proportionate waves. I was still skeptical—there just wasn’t anything anywhere that looked like a road, a car, or any hope, but ten minutes later there they were, Tammy and a young couple I didn’t know, on a desolate dirt road, lights on. We threw my stuff in the truck, drove to Tammy’s car, transferred everything and took off just as buckets of rain hit. One minute later, the road was a river. So how did Matt and Tara see me? Who was this couple that took Tammy to the one dirt road within 10 miles where I could get out of the river?
When my skeptics predicted that I’d be lucky to get to Ogallala, they were right. Except I don’t believe, in the end, that it was luck.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Ron made it past Lisco by Sunday night





(The pictures posted above are from earlier in his trip. The camera is on the Plattepus now, and Ron says he took some fun photos this morning before breakfast. Later today I hope to download those and get some posted.)

At 1:20 p.m. on May 20, Ron reached the bridge at Broadwater. The highway runs alongside the river near Broadwater, close enough that people had full view of Ron standing on Plattepus I. Many honked encouragement as they went past! The 3 of us sat on the boat while he told us about the large schools of carp and catfish he'd been seeing in the crystal-clear water. The fish are large, well over a foot long. He's seen turtles bigger than dinner plates, and birds of all types keep him constant company. Much to Ron's delight, there was NOT ONE dam between Bridgeport and Broadwater. After dealing with 6 the afternoon before, the break from them was an enormous relief.

There are always 2 sides to everything, though -- when there are dams it means the river is narrow enough and deep enough to make the dams worthwhile. The river between Bridgeport and Broadwater didn't have any dams, probably because "broad water" is an accurate name for that whole section of the river. Instead of a single strong channel, or a few strongish ones -- the river widened out into a wide sandy space with a dozen or more channels, making it more difficult to find the current. The other reason there weren't any dams could be because all the water from now on is meant for Lake McConaughy...
He arrived at Lisco's bridge at 7:00 p.m. on May 20, where several men were fishing. Ron says one told him, "You're doing a great thing!" and another wished him good luck. He stopped for the night a couple of hours later, between Lisco and Oshkosh. He estimates that he'll be at Oshkosh around noon today, on May 21.
Ron called last night after he'd made camp, but shortly into the call his phone cut off. The battery had died. He has a battery-powered charger along, but it wasn't functioning. Both of us spent time overnight wondering how we would coordinate the rest of this trip without cell phone contact. When we were positioned on the same highway on the same river north of Melbeta - but 30 meters apart under different bridges - cell phones helped us find each other. This morning, in the better light, Ron discovered an on/off switch on the charger, and we're rejoicing.

Last I spoke with him, around 7:00 a.m., he was having rehydrated scrambled eggs and hot chocolate for breakfast. Thank goodness for tiny campstoves and freeze-dried food. He said he was in a good place overnight, but still everything was damp from the dew. With thunderstorms in the forecast today and tomorrow, I'm going to see about finding him a place out of the weather tonight.








Sunday, May 20, 2007

Side notes








In between visiting with Ron at bridges and bringing him extra food, Sheila and I have had some interesting encounters this weekend. We wanted to show Ron the Saturday edition of the Scottsbluff Star Herald, with the great picture of him on the front cover and the story by Roger Holsinger - the same reporter who came out and interviewed us on the 1000-mile walk. (Roger sprang his daughter, Claire, from 3rd grade for an hour and brought her along to watch the launching of the Plattepus I.) While running other errands in Scottsbluff we forgot to pick up a paper, so we drove into Melbeta (population 116) to get one - but we were 1 quarter short of the dollar needed for the paper machine, which led us to Al's Cafe and Ruth Neal, the 89-year-old owner who we now consider family. Ruth bakes 15 pies a week, and is the cook, waitress, and dishwasher at the cafe named for her late husband. She's been operating this cafe since 1952 - or, as one of her customers, Mike, told us, ever since he was 1 year old. An upcoming column I'm working on will contain the results of fun math calculations regarding how far all of the pies Ruth has baked would stretch if you lined them up. That's Ruth with Sheila.
Sheila and I visited the zoo in Scottsbluff at feeding time, and came across a friendly lady getting ready to feed the tigers. She gestured to us, laughing, encouraging us to peak through a wooden gate and see Desh the white tiger in one of his favorite poses - hiding behind the warning sign. As she talked to him, he would peak over the top, then duck his head back behind the sign.
When we arrived in Bridgeport - Sheila spotted a business, "Las Amigas," and started wondering if there was a fun story behind the change in the sign. We don't know if Raquel somehow aggravated Annie... but that's our current hypothesis.
On Friday night Sheila and I had the good fortune to be invited to stay with Steve and Amy Hodges' house, where we enjoyed catching up on happenings in each others' lives. The first time I ever spoke with Steve it was about faxing him Ron's resume for the job as the Director of Lincoln County Community Services. Thanks for everything, Steve and Amy!