I landed at BJI airport (Bemidji, MN) Sunday the 18th of May (Mt. St. Helens eruption day for those who remember the 1980s).

University Towns!

Monday was spent ensuring that Tuesday would be a good start.

Food shopping was pretty basic; nothing I really buy for food is going to replace LV restaurants so I bought canned stuff. Easy to cook, at least.

I wanted to ensure that my load would be reasonable on the boat, so I drove a rental car to the storage locker (Lake George storage).

There, I inflated the boat, tried mounting enough of the sailing kit to let me use the wheels, and ensure it all worked.

Thus was the first serious error: I tested the wheels without loading everything and so it seemed good, but in fact, wouldn’t work in production.

Then I brought all the equipment, gear, and junk I was going to take with me back to the hotel so that I could do a final round of packing.

Here’s the contents of the various bags spread out:

Gear on the bed at Bemidji

My load was basically three dry-sacks and a back-pack. The back-pack wasn’t water-proof but held things useful while afloat (and would be used to haul groceries back on later stops).

There’s way too much stuff on that bed; sure, each part seems reasonable on its own, but over-all, it’s too much.

What’s not showing is the brown duffel-bag that holds all the sailing kit — all 60 pounds or so of it.

Somehow, I can travel by jet internationally with only hand-carry, but get on a kayak and I want to haul a hardware store around.

That came back to bite me later.

Monday evening, I had a great dinner and crashed with visions of the River in my head.

Keep the Light!