Outfitting

Minneapolis, MN--Went shopping at REI today ("outfitting" in the outdoorsman's lexicon, but never doubt the fact that it's shopping, and the kind of shopping where you nod knowingly a lot as the salespeople talk but trust me, you're not getting anything past them) and later, after we realized that the guys at REI just did not know what they were talking about when it came to kayaking (camping they could do, but somehow they inspired less than absolute confidence when it came to the activities where we could potentially actually get hurt), at a local place called Midwest Mountaineering, where we were instructed by a very knowledgeable, but somewhat blunt in both thought processes and demeanor, salesman named Guy, pronounced a la Francais, who while nice and possessing of an at least vague understanding of the word "budget" insisted that we buy the $3000 world-class touring kayak, or if not that then we absolutely had to get the $2500 somewhat-more-problematic-but-still-world-class touring kayak, or if not that then well he supposed we could make it down the river completely safely and pretty comfortably in this here more durable $1500 kayak.  So tomorrow bright and early we will arise and make our way to the store and most likely purchase (but not take with us quite yet because we're still having slight problems with the rear bar of the roof-rack) a big ol' kayak like the Arctic Injuns use, except engineered to within an inch of its life and built of heavy-duty polyurethane instead of, well, wood.

So what we have decided to do is this.  We don't want a tandem kayak.  So what we will do is alternate between driving, biking, and kayaking, one mode of transportation per person per day (the driver would have the option of taking the bike out for a jaunt because the kayak will most days be by far the slowest to the next campsite).  This will allow for fuller individual exploration and might also just be more fun--kayaking day after day after day would probably get exhausting (and potentially boring?), and I'm liking the idea.  So our plan seems to be to head up to Lake Itasca either Wednesday afternoon/evening or Thursday and camp there for a couple of days before actually leaving, so we get to explore the area.  One thing I hadn't quite realized about the trip is that we're not rigidly beholden to actually moving camp every single day, and that we can take a day trip every now and then if some site of interest is off the trail a little, and that we can adjust our distances and even skip some short sections of the River if it's safer and more expedient to do so (this last part seemed to elude Guy; either that or he had an excellent grasp of it which for quite obvious reasons he never demonstrated--a really good salesman, like a card player, never reveals his intelligence).

Feeling a little like Bartok must have the first time he did recordings, not knowing exactly how every detail might work even as he knew approximately what he was getting into.  Obviously there are better examples, but this one seems somehow appropriate in that he was cataloguing folk songs for two reasons: (A) to record for posterity and academic study, and (B) for source material for creative work.  Eve and Richard both lean a little one way or the other, maybe, but each of them, and the project as a whole, is trying to achieve some sort of mix of the two, and as I'm not sure on which side I really belong (not that I feel an urge to be on one side or the other, convenient as it might be to choose once and for all, and not that they're even at odds at all because the whole basis of the project is that they decidedly aren't).

Not sure what kind of Internet access might be possible when we do reach Lake Itasca but hopefully we'll be within twenty minutes' drive of civilization most of the time.