2004-05-27 MC KR 2 – Is there a doctor in the creek?

We met at Kevin Shriver’s house and even borrowed his Kevlar United States Canoe Association Cruiser racing canoe even though he couldn’t make it this time.  I didn’t want to use my wood strip canoe because it can break too easily on rocky shallows.  The river was a bit low in spots from Knollwood to the millpond dam at 50^th and Highway 100, but it was deeper from there to Lake Nokomis.  I would stay downstream from the millpond dam at this water level.  We also encountered 3 trees down across the river.  We had to get out and slide the canoes over the trunks on two of them, but were able to fight our way through the branches and under the trunk on the middle one.

Todd Ellison turned 43 today and Io Harberts was paddling with him in one of his beat up racing canoes.  Brett Arenz brought his C1 racing canoe.  It happened to be Todd’s 43^rd birthday and Io talked Brett into baking a chocolate cake for him.  We all ate at least one piece in front of Kevin’s house before driving to Knollwood Target to put in at the canoe landing at 6:00PM.  As we carried our canoes across the muddy grass to the creek, a bearded homeless guy tried to convince us that he had seen the Lock Ness Monster in the creek.  Then he asked Brett if his canoe was made of fiberglass and Brett said “Yes” just to expedite our get away.

I was paddling with Dr. Kelly Rood, who just finished her schooling and was hired as a pediatrician at the University of Minnesota.  She has been paddling racing canoes for almost 3 years now since she had found out about Rookie Racer Mondays.  She’s done lots of Hoigaards Canoe Derby Races and others.  When the Minnehaha Creek has enough water in it, she loves paddling on it.  From Knollwood Target canoe launch to Lake Nokomis, you paddle under lots of bridges and a large corrugated metal culvert through world class landscaped yards of expensive mansions, a golf course, and a cat-tail marsh. The Minnehaha Creek is challenging enough with many obstacles and sharp twists if you float down with the current, but we would be sprinting to try and pull away from the other canoes every few minutes.  That’s part of what makes it fun and we get more practice passing each other and riding canoe wakes.  Once you learn how to paddle a canoe at hull speed, it’s addicting.

Geese and ducks with rafts of cute ducklings huddled in the grass near shore as we paddled past them.  We dropped the other two canoes just past Lyndale Avenue to walk back to their cars at Kevin’s and continued on to where Kelly left her car at Lake Nokomis.  It had been a total of two hours of paddling fun in the fast current. By the time we drove back to the van, it was getting dark.  Another fine day on the Minnehaha Creek.