Dear Family
Because you probably want the whole story I'll write as much as I can before my hand gets cramped.
On our first day out we only went about 10 miles from home. We were having some trouble with
the bikes so we stopped early to get them fixed. The place we stayed was under a bridge over the
Buffaloe River. All we had along to eat for supper was some rice and cinamon-sugar. All the wood
around was wet, but we had a can of Sterno cooking fuel to make a fire with. As it turned out
there was not enough heat so our rice was hard and tasted horrible. So that night we went hungry.
We figured we could last till the next day without too much trouble. Well the next day was Sunday
and we couldn't find an open store till we got to Crookston. It was about supper time and as
Jack would say
, "We were sooomme hungry".
After that we didn't have any trouble with hunger at all. We started eating better food too. For instance a typical day food would be: Cereal or pancakes for breakfast, soup and sandwiches for dinner and spagetti, noodles, romonoff, or macaroni and cheese for supper. We had cookies and candy bars for snacks.
At crookston we met another bicyclist who was going from Chicago to Oregon. We decided that we would like to go in that direction too, so we started heading for the Black Hills.
From Glynden to Crookston the land was real flat, but as soon as we headed west it got hilly, but it was realy beautiful countryside. If you ever want to go on a nice Sunday drive you should go follow the route we took for a while. At Crookston there is a realy nice park. We stayed at a rest stop about a mile east of Crookston. There is a river by the park inside Crookston, and they have swingsets and all the rest. If you go west from there you will come to the James river. The river has carved out a beautiful valley, we stopped and marveled for awhile, but not too long because we wanted to coast down to the river. Going down was really great, we coasted at about 25- 30 MPH for about two miles. I won't write about our walk up the other side of the valley because it's all anti-climax, but when we got to the top we kind of wondering how we were going to make it up the Black Hills.
Chapter two:
To get an idea of how their boat looked with the bikes strapped on Click Here
And we went on our way down the rushing river-------for about five miles. Then the river current started to slow down and widen out. After carefully consulting our charts we learned that stretching out before us was a 200 mile long lake!!! ake Oahe (pronounced OH-wah-hee) is supposed to be one of the longest lakes in The U. S., but we just said "Oh Well", and decided we could row across it.
So after three days we hadn't gotten 50 miles and we decided to sell the bikes and get a small moter. That nite when it was just getting dark we saw some lights off in the distance. Our map said this was probably Ft. Yates, a pretty good sized town (about 3000 people) built on an island. We thought we could row that far before dark but it was dark for two hours by the time we got there.
After we had slept for a couple hours it began to rain. It was the worst storm that I can remember , but I suppose they look worse when your ouside and it's the middle of the night. I was already scared because to get to the Island we had to row through a bunch of partialy submerged trees and we ran into a few because we didn't see them in time. On top of that it was pretty wavy. It was lightning so much that for about ten minuets straight it was as light as day. The wind was blowing like crazy, and we had to strugle just to keep our tarp over our heads. The next morning we found our boat upside down in a small cove, but it didn't have any holes in it or anything. Our bikes were somewhere on the bottom of along with our food, cooking utensils, notes, identification and lots of other stuff. This when we started saying "Oh Well" a lot. We still had most of our essentials, though, because before we went to sleep we brought up our cloths, sleeping bags, tarp and travelers checks. Searching the beach we found our oars, life jackets, and a few other things that floated. Realy it was kind of fun, like a treasure hunt or something. The water was real cold, but we wnt in anyway to look for our bikes. Just as we were about to give up I stubbed my toe on the handle bar of one of the bikes. Ninety percent of the bikes were under the sludge, but we finally were able to yank them out.
We went into town and put an ad in a store window saying we wanted to sell the bicycles and buy a motor. Before dark we had sold our bikes for $50 and bought a motor for $60. The motor didn't work very well,(it was 3 horse) but we just said "Oh Well" and the next morning we putted away from Ft. Yates never to return again.
The motor made a horrible noise, but we rode from morning till dark so we could get off the lake. It took about five days. Some days we were slowed or couldn't go at because of rain. Oh Well.
Now I start telling you about good things that happened. The night before we reached the dam we stayed at a small camping area along the shore. There were three sets of campers there besides us. After we had a hearty meal of pancakes and were sitting around playing our instruments and watching the river a guy from Wisconsin came over. He gave us a very large plate of shrimp salad that his family couldn't eat. We were prettu well full from pancakes but you can't turn down shrimp salad, so we thanked him and offered him a 'chair' and sat around and talked for awhile. Around dark three guys from another group came over and gave us an inch thick bar-be-que T-bone steak, three hamburgers and a bun. They sat down with us too and after we finished the steak they offered us some two layer chocholate cake with ice cream but we just didn't have room.
Well the next day we reached the dam. We thought we could just carry our boat over but we would have had to carry it about a mile and a half. So we sat around and said "Oh Well" a lot, for about two hours as a matter of fact. But then all of a sudden a Forest Ranger pulls up to us and asked if we were the ones who are trying to get over the dam. We say yeah and he tells us to get in the car and help him get a boat trailer. When we got to the Marina below the dam they told us they would take us over for $15, but the ranger pulled some strings and got the trailer for free. On the way back to the boat the ranger picked up another ranger who had a camera and was supposed to take a picture of "the great flatboat portage". We had a real good time loading the boat, getting our pictures taken and all that.
The Foresters told us that the U. S. Army Corps. of Engineers would take us over the rest of the dams for free so we didn't have to worry about that any more. There were three more dams and we went over each one in a differant way. At one they picked up the boat with a crane and put it in a truck, in another they used a trailer and at the last one we rolled on logs because the water was so high on both sides; right to the top. We only had to portage about one quarter mile, but when we got below the dam we were in a lake, not the river. So we had to portage a short distance to the river.
On the Fourth of July we pulled into a sall town called Sprinfield, S. D. I don't think I will ever gorget Springfield. When we got their the whole town was down on the beach having an ice cream social. Pretty soon a few people came over and asked the usual questions of where did we start, how far are we going, etc. After we talked for a while they left, but about an hour later two of them came back and said they made an agreement, that one of them would feed us and the other would find a plce for them to stay. We thought that was a pretty good agreement. So that night we had a collage dorm all to ourselves, including showers, TV and a laundry room. One of the men was a college Dean. The next day we were treated to a chicken dinner by Norm of Norms Tavern. After we ate the Resident Head of the Dorm wanted to buy us some groceries. It was a holiday though and the store was closed, but the owner opened it as a favour to us. We got $5 worth of groceries. Then they drove us down to the boat and helped us launch it.
From there on we had current so were just lazing along the rest of the way. For awhile we had a raft which we built, but our pontoons would fall oout when we hit logs, and low branches along the shore would sweep off all our gear. We coudn't figure out any way to steer it, so we abandoned it. Oh Well.
When we got around Jefferson City, Mo. we were a little short on cash. We had about $100 but we wanted some security. So Dan decided he was going to try to sell portraits which he does in pencil for $3. The first place we went was a park. We met a collage student who offered us a place to stay while we were making our millions. He suggested that we hitch a ride down to The Lake Of The Ozarks and try to sell them there. So the next day we went down to the lake. After not getting a customer all day Dan decided to do a girls portait for free. Byt for some reason he just could not do a good job of it so he decided to liqidate the business and return Jefferson City. Before he left he mailed a postcard to Ron. We made it back before dark.
One rainy morning we arrived at the mouth of the Missouri River. The rivers meet at the smelliest place in the world, St Louis. It smelled so bad we had to bunch up towels and put them over our noses in order to breathe. All along the shore you could see see sewage and industrial waste emptying into the river. Some of it was vomit yellow, some of it was yucky blue, but most of it was brown. All that junk going into the river made it look metalic, sort of a mercury color. On top of it all that the barges were going by us on all sides. It was real bouncy. We just bounced passed most of St. Louis. We finally pulled in at the edge of town and took a bus downtown. While we were there Dan was interviewed by U. S. NEWS and WORLD REPORT. They wanted his views on the national situation. He said he thoght everything was mostly O. K.
That night in St. Louis we were going to go to a Rock and Roll Revival with Jerry Lee Lewis, The Coasters, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddeley, but we decided we didn't have enough cash. About $10 counting bus fare.
From St. Louis on it rained everyday for the next two weeks. By the time we got to the Tennesse border we were fed up sleeping in a wet sleeping bag everynight, hardly ever getting dry wood for cooking and just feeling miserable, so we decided to sell the boat. No sooner had we decided to sell the boat when someone in a speed boat to talk to us. We asked him if he wanted to buy our boat, he said how much, we said $75 and he said sold! and we were off the river. Later some other people said they would have given $100 for it. Oh Well.
