Day 2: Thursday, September 6, 2012

Underway: 8:02 am        Motor Off: 6:08 pm        Miles Traveled: 38        Stayed At: Anchor

First Things First: First boat bath (water looked a little too green to swim in), first meal cooked on the grill, first bottle of wine enjoyed at sunset (see Random Events).

After a quiet night at anchor, we passed under the Prescott Highway Drawbridge and stopped at the city dock to run a couple of errands and left at 8:49 am downstream to a destination to be determined. River very quiet today – only a few tows hauling rock and some fishing boats – we had the mighty Mississippi river pretty much to ourselves. Kind of amazing when you think about it.

Our first stop was Red Wing where we tried to track down a dinghy repair kit, mailed a few things, got ice and bought some storage bins to hold some miscellaneous items still cluttering up the cabin. After a scenic motor downriver, we anchored in a cove just south of Lake City Marina, had pork chops on the grill, and crashed early.

Random Events: Walked miles to track down a marine/sporting equipment store in Red Wing to find a repair kit to fix a leak in our dingy – they didn’t have what we needed but the business next door was cleaning our their ice cooler and we snagged five bags of ice for free –free is good – perfect for adding a little ice to our cooler and chilling our first bottle of wine.

Wild Things: Eagle circled the back of the boat and dove down and caught a fish (too quick to get a picture) and flocks of pelicans souring on the thermals before heading south (do they know something we don’t know).