By Keith Bartram
On October 23, Pat Cretan, Rich Benavides, Chris Bagdons, Keith Bartram, Josh Hendrickson, Alfred E. Wright, Matt McCrady, Matt Richards, Josh Kilen, Jesse Walker, Jesse Carlson, Dave Zytkoskee, Brian Nelson, and Douglas Berg took leave from MHS at 7 a.m., set for a day of unexpected surprises. Now with most of us in the Barge and a couple more in Youngun’s Bronco, we set off for Grays Bay Dam.
When we got there, we unloaded the canoes, life jackets, paddles and any other stuff we brought. After that, Doug brought the Barge to Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park, our take-out point, and came back in the Bronco. At that time, Doug informed us that the people in charge of the dam (who said it would be open) had closed it down and in return, the Minnehaha had dropped two feet. Now it would certainly be hard to paddle across an area of just wet rocks. so we had two choices ahead of us: go back to school, or find a different route to a different destination. After all the cursing and frustration that could possibly be done, we decided to go under the bridge at Gray’s Bay Marina and head over to Sunset’s Restaurant, where ultimately, we would eat.
When we arrived, we discussed our upcoming situation on just plain courtesy and behavior. After that ordeal we walked over to the restaurant. We were then seated and went to business on chow. Overall, everyone ordered normal breakfast combinations except for a few. Here’s the details: Meatball and Cretan ordered cappuccino and Walker decided for expresso which he swallowed in two gulps. Zytkoskee picked his fate by having Coke with pancakes and maple syrup. After that we passed around a glass of water with tabasco sauce in it. The majority liked it (personally I liked it) while the others’ stomachs internally hurled. While eating our meals, we decided on a nickname for Pat Cretan. He will now be known as Ichabod. And another highlight of the meal was when for some odd reason, Al’s water rebelled and exited from his nose.
Now with breakfast done with and the money figured out, we manned our canoes again. Doug decided for us to have two canoe races. The first one was a warm-up, or should I say….cool-down. We lined up and Doug started us off. As some of us paddled furiously away, Meatball, Walker, Youngun and McCrady were pushing each other around in the canoes, and one thing led to another and before you knew it, Jesse was flying through the air. Meatball and McCrady were going for a brief swim. Now, how Youngun stayed dry, well that will always be a mystery.
After going to shore and getting dry clothes, which Doug had packed along just in case of such a mishap, we were on our way. When we got back to the dam, we docked our canoes and went ashore. While waiting for Doug to return, we kept ourselves occupied with sports like “Aerial Frogs” and “See How Hard the Crawdad Can Pinch Bagdon’s Finger!” We also found a painted turtle. Doug returned and everything was loaded up and we left.
But while writing this report and reminiscing about the trip, something occurred to me—we never did get to have that second race.