750 miles by truck to pickup my canoe!

Scott Smith, the builder of my canoe

Saturday was a long day. I drove to Iowa to the Illinois border to meet Scott Smith from Superior Canoes to take delivery of my closed deck canoe. He kindly drove half-way from Michigan so I didn't have to make a 23 hour round trip to get the boat. As it was I didn't get back to Lincoln until after 1:00 a.m. It was worth the trip, though, as the boat is a beauty, exactly the canoe I've been dreaming about owning for over 30 years.

This morning I tinkered with packing her and it rapidly became apparent that I needed to rethink and rearrange my bags. I have three large food bags holding eight weeks of food, enough to make it to Florida. Thus, food is 3/4 of my starting load. It all fits in the boat but there's little room to spare!

I did get a chance to sneak over to Holmes Lake this afternoon between Mother's Day activities. The boat paddles like a dream, even heading into the strong wind gusts (it felt like the wind was blowing 30 miles an hour today!) I had little trouble. The rudder system is quickly mastered and I was able to make good time when paddling into the whitecaps.

I didn't load the boat with all my gear today. Too windy for a loaded maiden voyage. I'll do that later in the week so I get a feel for how she rides.