Day 3 - Sand Dune and Lock - Barrel Raft Boys

Spent the night in Prescott, WI public boat dock where the freight trains run every 45 minutes…not a very peaceful sleeping spot. We awoke to a calm, beautiful and still-aired morning to find the Mississippi-St. Croix rivers confluence within a couple of yards to where we camped. What a noticeable difference between these waterways! The Mississippi River is flowing much faster than our previous 15 miles through St. Croix. The navigation channels became quite narrow today to where we powered and turned ourselves just half the day. At noon we found a large sand dune and decided to take Skully out.

aint so bad..

ok kind of steep!steeeady…

I GOT THIS!!

oh crap

play it cool…OMGGUYSDIDYOUSEETHATITWASSOCOOLITWASNEVENTHATBIGOFAHILL

Lock and Dam #3

We docked our raft before our first lock and dam to walk up to the tower to speak with US Army Corps representative about how the process works. He explained to call ahead on channel 14 on our marine radio to alert them we need passage. When the lock is ready, a stop light turns from red to green to all us to enter. This went extremely smoothly as we only needed to drop 6 inches and we were the only vessel traveling through.

Red Wing, MN was found around 4:00 pm today. After biking around town and picking some small items from the grocery store, we were on our way again. Upon departing this old historical town, Brad Smith, owner of the Harbor Bar caught up with us in his boat to say hi. He’s been on the river for almost 50 years and has seen all walks of life try the same journey we are doing right now. A couple of the highlights: A dad put his pick-up truck on a raft, retrofitted it, so the driveshaft went to a propeller and Brad saw them cruising by while the mom and daughter were cooking some food on the back haha they made it! and put the driveshaft back on the truck and drove home! Another guy (might be the baddest dude on earth) went to Itasca State Park at the Mississippi headwaters, chopped down a tree, carved out a canoe and paddled it start to finish. holy sh!@.