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Right now I'm sitting in the Day Inn in Red Wing. Mary and I decided to take a test run that simulates our planned trip as closely as possibly. We put the Blue Fin in the water at Hastings, MN and boated the 25 mile distance to Red Wing, MN. Our goal was to travel to a typical river town, find a marina, unload our luggage, bicycle to a motel, get dinner, and then reverse the whole process the next day.
I've included a map above showing our route. The part from St Paul to Hastings is on the road while the Hastings to Red Wing segment represents our travels on water. The weather was reasonably nice with milky skies and temps near 80. That was good because it prevented us from worrying about getting sunburned.
We made a quick stop into a man made cove of sand beaches that is popular with summer boaters. I like these because you can float around inside them without worry of the currents and fast boat traffic of the main river channel. The coves come from the dredged up silt of the main river channel that's removed to keep the depth safe for the big boats. I've come across the Corps of Engineers making these things a few times in the past and while I don't know all the details I've watched as a gigantic vacuum hose is lowered to the river bottom and a slurry of water and soil is pulled up and through an equally gigantic hose to the shore where it piles up. I suppose it's a courtesy to the recreational boaters that the Corps takes the time to shape the dredge waste into a nice cove.
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| I'm standing about 40 feet above the water on a sand hill. The Blue Fin is just over my fight shoulder. The little girls slide down the sandy hill and splash into the water. Mary's finger is in the upper right. |
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| Entering the sand cove. The sand hill in the distance is where Mary and I were standing in the above photo. |
We arrived in Red Wing around 3:00 and asked around at a few marinas about overnight dockage. Two places were able to accommodate us which was reassuring. I should explain that the purpose of this rehearsal run was to check the equipment and see what things we still need and what we just plain forgot. The second purpose was to travel with no plans whatsoever. Yes, I said no plans and if you know Mary then you also know it was just short of painful for her. No planner book, no reservations, no regard for the weather, no place to sleep, and no plans for lunch, dinner etc. To make do as we go was the only plan we had. Everything went perfectly until we were docked, got unloaded, and traveled the short distance into Red Wing on our bicycles. We stopped at a motel and they said no vacancy. OH oh, Let's go down the street and check there. Same thing, no vacancy Another, and another and still another motel and all the same result, no vacancy. We came to learn that some famous musical band was in town and that, along with peak wedding season, caused everything to be booked. Finally we found the Days Inn about 1.5 miles south of Red Wing with one room left. By this time we had ridden around on the bikes for about an hour covering maybe 3 miles. It was an extra 1.5 miles to the Days Inn but with it being the last room in Red Wing we were motivated to peddle hard and we made it OK.
Now Mary has become a bit more nervous about this seat of the pants planning and said we should have more and better plans as we travel. I said we shouldn't travel on weekends to popular small tourist towns when special events are scheduled.
I'll try to add some info covering our trip home tomorrow. Thunderstorms are forecast so maybe we'll get to try out our fancy new rain suites.