yes, WE MADE IT

oh my my. we're in winona.

meaning, we've come 100 miles so far, slowly going and well.

it's been quite a thing so far, this thing.

met with infamy tv stardom, met with the same three questions, met with new friends, met with saviors, met with pleasure boats, and jetskiiers, and fishermen, and lockmasters, met with all the flora and all the fauna, met with the weather.

there are probably too many stories to convey here now, but a brief synopsis of life on the river would be: wild current river floating and bathing and foraging and technical difficulties, easy as pie lock and dam, then red wing where we were quite the attraction, where we were looked at by many and befriended by a select few wonderful wonders really swung it in motion, thank you, fourth of july and millions of wakes too big and to the head of lake peppin and little fireworks, and then lake peppin. everyone before that place was pretty sure we'd never make it down. lake peppin lake peppin. and everyone since we made it through, even a little, thinks it will be no problem, of course, the delta, of course. it's pretty amazing. we weathered five storms, one tornado, and a fallen off paddlewheel there. some of the most beautiful skies and some of the most hospitable people, thank you. wabasha finally and we fixed up the paddlewheel situation and life's been good since then, cooking and eating and floating and figuring it out more and more, it's been a lock a day for the past few days, #5 had a great fish float deliciousness at its banks and #5a let us up into their bat cave during a horrid thunderstorm, which was amazing, and we took a long backwater way to latsch island.

we just ate hotdogs and drank some cola. we got a solar powerer for our battery. lindsey's horrible terrible poison ivy is maybe going to be under control soon.

we're currently staying with the posterchildren of winona's houseboat community: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WinonaMNboathouses2006-05-09.JPG (just picture all the trees green and a lovely blue sky and our boat tied out front of the house with a chimney), who are kind and fantastic, and we're about to have our first longerterm guest, a bike buddy we'd met in redwing is gunna be our paddle buddy until la crosse, yeehaw.

at the rate we go we'll have more things to smile about and more things learned than we'll know what to do with, more people to thank heartfeltedly, oh my, and we might be in st. louis by sometime in 2009. ha, oh but it's good.

in other news, although we got a digital camera at the dollar store to replace the one that broke, it's apparently unfriendly with library computers. so there's sadly not too much to show you other than that wiki page and this picture of us, sunburned and determined, north of alma:

if anyone has photos then and can email us, please do: mississippiriverproject@gmail.com. and i know a lady in red wing took a million photos that are on photobucket or flickr or shutterfly, if you find them, please email as well.

okay, over and out, and much love, these ones of c.bernadette able.