We woke up on Sunday morning around 7:30 and thought we'd make our way leisurely back to the Blue Fin waiting for us at the marina near downtown Red Wing. Things started out normally until I pulled open the drape and looked out the window of our motel room. Through it I saw the northwest sky looking dark and nasty and I knew we were in for a good rain storm. A quick check of the weather radar on the S-phone confirmed what my eyes we seeing and it looked like we had about 15 minutes before it let loose. Mary had been busy getting herself ready and hadn't been paying much attention to me. I knew the moment to reveal to her the bad news about the weather would soon be at hand. I decided not to dance around and came right out and asked if she preferred to bike in the rain or to wait out the storm. Her response was truly indicative of how she has committed herself to making this trip a success. She said she didn't mind riding in the rain as long as she didn't get hit by lightning. Now if that's not a perfectly reasonable answer then what is? It seemed then that this sample of her unrestrained cooperation could not go unrewarded so we waited out the storm.
It took about an hour for the weather radar to show an opening in the storm and with that opportunity we made the 1.5 mile dash from the motel to downtown Red Wing. Once downtown we stumbled upon a coffee shop and decided to make a quick stop. We reasoned that we were now within 4 blocks of our boat and if the rain returned we could just hang there. Well, it did and we did. We got our coffees and waited once again for the rain to stop. After another hour we finally made it back to the marina to happily find the Blue Fin still floating and looking to be in good shape.
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Our collapsible bikes at the coffee shop in Red Wing.
The bike trailer with our luggage is hidden under the umbrella to stay dry. |
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The Blue Fin floating proudly among her high rent neighbors.
Mary in the bow stowing gear. |
After we loaded our things back on board we headed upstream to make our way back to Hastings where we put in. I quickly took note of the fact that the water levels of the river had risen quite a lot overnight. This was confirmed when we arrived at Lock and Dam #3 and proceeded to complete out lock-through. You normally enter the lock chamber, it fills up, and your exit out the upstream side where the water level is higher. Today the lock-through was reduced to entering the chamber and as soon as the gate behind us closed the upstream gate ahead started to open. The water level on the downstream and upstream side was the same while only yesterday the difference in level was about two feet. The dam is now doing nothing and has been opened to the full flow of the river. This is the result of the heavy rains we've experienced in the Midwest and the forecast is for the river to rise about 3 more feet over the next week. More rainfall will add further to this problem and cause even higher water levels. High water puts the shoreline deep underwater and the flooding of the small tributaries drag a lot of floating debris into the main river. That's not good.
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Lock chamber at dam # 3.
The water level on the upstream and downstream side is the same. |
