July 19 - St. Louis

Time to get going again. It's been great to take this break and spend time with family and friends. At first it was hard to adjust, but as time went by I was right back into my normal daily life activities. Even had a chance to play golf with high school friends, Chuck Dorn, Jim Umland and Bob Catron in Minneapolis yesterday. Now one would think good friends would give me strokes for not playing all summer. Instead they just took my money and wished me well on my journey! I guess I'd have done the same if the roles were reversed. (When you've got someone down, step on them!)

This morning my daughter, Heidi took me to the airport in Duluth. Tough to say goodbye to everyone, but at the same time I needed to get back paddling. Also, knowing it would not be long and I'd be back on the 7th of August for Ryan's golf tournment will help with missing family and home.

Heidi dropped me off at 5:30 in the morning and after a layover in Minneapolis, I arrived in St. Louis at 1:00 P.M. My friend, Jim McIntyre, from way back in grade school was there to pick me up. Jim loves baseball and each summer takes a trip to various ballparks around the country. So he offered to help me out on this part of trip which involves shuttling me to Kansas City and then to Yankton, S.D.

I've decided to do this Missouri River section downstream. I've talked to many people that have Missouri River experience and all said there's no way I can make it going upstream. Hate to do this, but for one of the few times I'll listen and follow the advice!

From the airport Jim and I headed over to Bass Pro to get my gear. Asst. Manager, Wendy Jennings was there to help me. I'd met Wendy when I dropped my gear off and she was the person in charge today. Bob Brownlee, the store manager, and Matt Prost who arranged for me to store my gear at Bass Pro were off today. Sorry I missed them, but I will stay in touch with all here at Bass Pro as I continue my journey. They have really been nice and gone out of their way to help me in any way they can. In fact, Jenny said she had a little care package that everyone put together for me. It included a dry bag with two top of the line hiking shirts and hiking pants in it. Nice surprise! I really needed the dry bag and also the long sleeve hiking shirt for I had nothing other than a light wind breaker for cool days. That is if we every get cool days again!

I said goodbye to Wendy and Jim and I went back to the motel to relax for awhile before we headed to the ball park and watched the St. Louis and Atlanta Braves game. What an evening we had at the ball game!

Just before game time we could see a severe storm aproaching, which turned out to be close to a tornado. Unbelievable wind and rain came down for about an hour. Everyone headed for the best shelter they could find in the stadium, which for us turned out to be under the stands above us which only provided some cover from the rain, but little from the wind. All I could think about was my canoe, which was locked to a tree back at the motel, wondering if it would be in one piece. The way this storm was I figured there's a good chance it could be damaged.

Long story short - the storm finally let up and they even played the game, which St. Louis won.

This storm, as I'm sure all know, made national news. Lots of damage in the St. Louis area and as I write this blog days later, over 200,000 people are still without power. Even found out there were a number of people injured at the game that evening. Good thing was when we got back to the motel my canoe was okay. It was sitting right in the same place I'd left it - only now filled with water. What a relief, sure didn't want to swim the rest of the way to the Pacific!

Off to bed and then Jim and I will head to Kansas City tomorrow.

Thanks again everyone at Bass Pro, not only for your help but more important, your friendship.