We are done at Emiquon nature preserve. our last day was filled with up close and personal encounters with pelicans, deer, and those dang gnats! most of the day was spent canoeing around the lakes. we used a different canoe and really missed Sarabeth. last night we did not end up camping at the preserve. the bugs and rain chased us out! so we slept at scotts house again. we did get lots of good shots of dozens of windmills glowing in the setting sun. quite epic. this will be our last entry for tomorrow will simply be a day of rest before we head back to chicago. thank yall for following our adventure and your prayers as we went on our grand journey! p.s. OFF doesn't work against buffalo biting gnats...

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It rained on and off again today. mostly on though. that's why we're sitting in the truck, waitin out the rain. we spent the majority of the day driving around Emiquon. me and scott drove around the levy, stopping a lot to take pictures and video of the landscape and wildlife, mostly deer. the gnats here number in the hundreds of millions. it's impossible to get away from them! and they're bitin gnats...ugh. we are prayin for a bright sunny day tomorrow!

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Yesterday was the last day of the canoeing portion of our trip. we canoed 16.5 miles in 4 and a half hours! we pulled out in a town just north of peoria called chillicothe. we finally enjoyed a home cooked meal, soft beds, and Terminator Salvation. all in all a great day. tomorrow morning we will be driving down to the Emiquon nature preserve to camp and shoot nature footage for a few days. we'll try and send a picture tomorrow when we get there.

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Worst Campsite Ever. that is what we are calling this particular campsite behind the marina restaurant. let's just say that we camped here on the worst night possible. a live rock band show from 9 to close...with really cheap beer.

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today was day 6 of our trip. the water was once again flat and lonely most of the day. it was again hot until about 3 this afternoon when some clouds rolled in. shortly thereafter it rained for the first time in 6 days. we pulled over in henry, il to assess the situation. because of the rain ad scarsity of dry land, we decided to go ahead and camp early in henry. we asked the manager of the henry marina if we could camp on his property and now we are chillin at our camp undereath a pavilion behind the marina restaurant. we took advatage of the situation and ate a non MRE dinner :) needless to say, we ate outside considering we haven't showered in 6 days. due to unusually high flooding south of Chillicothe, we must cut the canoeing part of our trip short. we plan to drive down to a nature preserve just south of havana. there we will camp for a few days and shoot some video and take lots
of pictures and generate more great stories! we will continue blogging throughout next week.

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today was an interesting yet uneventful day at the same time. we passed through our 5th lock today at Starved Rock. there we also watched and videoed a flock of beautiful pelicans. what a sight. we learned some information from the locksman about the river past peoria and are discussing plans for the rest of our trip. more to come on that. we went through a portion of the river just peru, il where that water was nearly stagnant, dirty, and not a stitch of wind. it was a little erie. we found a flooded that was super cool and there we took group pictures and great HD footage. we paddled through still water a blazing hot sun before we reached The Hill. its open grass stood out among the flooded trees and we had to stop. we didn't camp there but got some wonderful video of the river. God blessed us with a flat, dry campsite amidst what seems like endless flooding. a good end to day 5. p.s.
the picture is from the flooded beach.

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Today was an uneventful day until we went through lock #4 in Marsailles, IL. After leaving the lock, was entered into the waters owned by Asian Flying Carp. We were unprepared for the bombbardment of on average 8-10lb silver demons. Some rammed the canoe, other flow over. And still others wanted a ride. Two fish in particular decided to attack Barrett. Both flow out of the water with great speed and force. Taking him by surprise with one leading at his feet and the other in his lap. He to procceded to bludgen the fish at his feet with his paddle until it jumped out on its own occord. As the second fish leaded in Barrett's lap, Scott turned around and to his amazement, saw a large silver fish flopping around on Barrett's knees. Barrett was yelling at the fish as he grabbed it and throw the fish overboard. Sadly to say this wasn't captured on beautiful HD. But maybe tomorrow will bring
glorious footage of Barrett vs the Silver Demon.

P.S. We had warm MRE's tonight.

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today was a great day! we had great weather and went 25.5 miles! we finally reached the illnois river and the current finally decided to flow with us and we traveled much faster. we realized today that scott forgot toilet paper, and i got hit in the face by a fish, and it wasn't a flying carp. we have high hopes of hittin 30 miles tomorrow and gettin past ottowa. we love yall and please continue to pray for us! p.s. the MREs are still tasty :)

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this is a picture of our first campsite. this was taken at the begining of day two. and yes, we are smack dab in the middle of a hicking trail :)

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Today we were blessed enough to go through our first 2 locks! thatls what the picture is of. however, today we were also plagued by a ridiculously strong headwind and water that seemed to flow against us...for the second day in a row. we are trying to not let these things discourage us. it helped that we found a great campsite tonight. we went through our maps and discovered that tomorrow is entirely industrial. oh boy. please continue to pray for us, that our strength and will stays strong! barrett typed this.

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It is morning on Day Two. We are having a great time. We are hoping to paddle 30 miles today and try to make up some of the distance from yesterday. Each day we need to travel about 33 miles.

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The MRE's are great for

The MRE's are great for now........ We are tired and are going to sleep soon. Will send more later.

So we have come to

So we have come to the end of our first day. We are currently in Lemont, IL and have paddled about 20 miles from the start.

The naming of our vessel

For the past couple of weeks, Scott and I have been pondering on what to name our canoe. As in all classic adventures, the adventurer's vessel has a catchy, meaningful name. So, we felt it necessary to name our beautiful vessel. This morning, while cleaning off the canoe out in the Greyslake suburb Chicago, Scott and I decided on the perfect name for our canoe: Sarabeth.

We have the canoe and are taking it back to the city! Another step closer.

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Testing out the canoe

On May 4th Scott and I went out to the Greyslake suburb of Chicago to Matt Sargent's house and tested out the canoe we'll be using. Scott and I had discussed before that I would sit in the bow and power us and I would sit in the stern and steer. So that's what we tried. And in that we found success! As you can see in the picture I have already found my relaxed paddling position.

For those of you wondering why we aren't wearing life jackets, there are a couple explanations. First, we were so dang excited to finally get to paddle around that we just plum forgot. Second, despite the apparant expanse of the pond, it's only about 4 feet deep.

We also checked out the canoe for leaks. And thankfully we found none, although that will not deter us from takin' some sealant with us. Just in case. While out in the suburbs, Matt's mom also took us to the local Sam's Club where we purchased the last remaining food items. And Scott convinced me that we should take some Snickers bars along too.

This preparation filled us with excitement and draws us ever closer to the launching of our great quest!


Hooray for digital camera timers!

Paddles Arrived!!

I ordered paddles on ebay and they came in the mail today. And of course we had to test them out. There are 63 days until our river journey.

It is beautiful.

This is 1978 Starcraft aluminum canoe. It is 16' 8" long and weighs about 78lbs. It is owned by the Sargent Family. Barrett and I went out to their home, off the Grayslake Metra stop, to look at it for the first time. It was lighter and smaller than we were excepting. It was talked about like it was a massive 19' three person beast. It is small by no means but better than we thought. Barrett and I are very comfortable with this boat.

Once it gets warmer and the ice melts, Barrett and I will return to test it out on the pond next to Matt's house. We were told it has a very slow leak in the bow section. It won't threaten our trip one bit. When we get it out in the water and find the leak, we will seal it up and that's the end of that. And just for safety precautions, we will add sealant to our list of supplies to bring. Also out on the pond Barrett and I will test the canoe and see how she handles.

Barrett and I are now even more excited about our trip.

Let the planning continue!

Test photo. We are coming back from looking at the canoe we will be using. I will post a photo of us in the canoe later.

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New, Comments and Photos from the river.

Barrett and I will upload comments, news and photos about our trip to this blog.