Also FYI we have a Twitter

It's called @pierbennicklem. In hindsight we wish we'd chosen a name that isn't unpronounceable, but so it goes. 

Day 6 recipe: beans and agèd bananas

We've decided to post short pieces about the interesting meals we've prepared using only the mostly canned food we brought on this trip. 

Today we wrestled with a problem we quickly discovered will dog us for the next few weeks: most canned food is textureless, and eating textureless food for days makes you sad. 

I (Piers) attempted refried beans with crisp slices of onion and a handful of crushed tortilla chips. This packed quite a crunch, and though I perhaps spiced the dish excessively, it went down pretty well. 

For desert we had agèd bananas fried with chili powder. To achieve a properly agèd banana, you'll want to spend several days inadvertently bruising the banana, to the extent that pulverized banana begins to ooze from a rent in the peel. When the stuff around them starts getting sticky, you'll know you're in business. I fried these bananas in a bit of oil until they developed a sweet and savory caramelized skin. 

"They stuck in your teeth a little bit," Bennett says, "but they were good."

"They were good," Nick agrees. 

"Yeah, I'd eat them again," Clement says. 

Perhaps he will; only the river can say. 

Day 6: hold me closer, tiny Dan, sir

This one goes out to the small brown bugs that have been dive-bombing us for the past twenty-four hours, and that I (Piers) keep discovering I've inadvertently crushed into surfaces I had hoped to keep clean. 

Today we woke from a deep sleep to find Dan checking in on us. He observed that, as "city boys," we were given to sleeping much later than "country boys" like himself. When he was farming full time, he'd wake at four every morning, and he still wakes that early through learned habit. He lent us his bathroom key (easily obtainable by paying a small docking fee we'd somehow avoided, we later learned) and told us that he was planning on driving to Menard's, and that we were welcome to a lift. Having already discovered we lacked numerous items (Nick had no toothbrush, for instance) we jumped at his incredibly kind offer. I stuffed one of our 70+ Clif bars in my mouth and jumped in Dan's big truck while the other lads made breakfast. 

At Menard's I marveled for a moment over the sight of the Home Lighting section, the intense excess of which I found oddly compelling. Then I filled my cart with necessities, including more oatmeal, zip ties (we use an astounding quantity; thanks again to Brandon of West Marine for this suggestion!), and the astounding deal of the day: a head lamp and jaggedy knife combo for a mere $19.99. Then Dan gave me a lift to the post office to mail some of Clement's postcards. Dan truly went above and beyond, which is why we've named this post for him. This was not even the end of Dan's kindness, but some other stuff happened in between. 

I returned to find the lads scheming on several schemes, including coffee, mosquito net measurements, and our Thunder Mug. We spent a short while readying Cat-Sass for the first serious journey of our trip. We hoped to make it as far as a lock 12, about 30 nautical miles downriver. But when we shoved off and motored away from the dock, our motor sputtered and died. We tried to start it up again. No luck. Luckily (relatively speaking) the current wasn't too strong, so we handily paddled back to the pier. The marina's mechanic wouldn't be back until Monday, the following morning, so we resolved to continue our Cat-Sass-improvement projects, in particular the Thunder Mug. 

Here follows a short How-To guide for an elegant and practical boat toilet.

1. Lay out the tools for the job.

2. Tape bucket lid to toilet seat.

3. Drill holes through seat and lid. 

4. Try to countersink bolts with biggest drill bit. Oops! Your drill bit is smaller than the head of the bolt you're using. 

5. Painstakingly whittle a larger hole using Nick's new jaggedy knife, and sand down for comfort. Insert and tighten bolts.

6. Cut a hole in bucket lid. 

7. Adorn with fearsome pictogram related to name of boat. 

8. Go crazy.

As I was finishing the toilet decal, Dan reappeared. He had found a mechanic who specializes in Johnson motors, the brand of our motor, which we've named Arvin. Dave, the mechanic, quickly ascertained that our trouble related to our spark plugs. He advised us on just how to fix it, and left with a cheery wave. What a guy. Thanks so much, Dave!

We'd like to note that we've already met numerous strangers who immediately went above and beyond to help us out. This has been a rewarding part of a trip that, so far, has involved few nautical miles but many new friends.

Speaking of, Dan dropped by again with some tortilla chips we'd asked for when he offered to pick us up anything we needed from a grocery store. When I asked what I owed him, he said not to worry about it. Dan is a hero.

Day 5: Stayin' Alive

We (Piers, Bennett, and Clement) awoke at the Dubuque Yacht Basin to fishermen launching their boats around us. They were not friendly and did not reciprocate when, shirtless, we poked our heads out of our hammocks and waved. This is probably because we were parked at the launch of what turned out to be a very unfriendly yacht club. After waking up, I, Clement, had to poop really badly and so Bennett and I walked around to the yacht club buildings. We saw man unlocking the gate to a bathroom and ran up. 

"Where do you guys think you're going?" said the man. 

"We were just wondering if we could use the bathroom quickly."

"Where are you from?"

"Milwaukee originally, but-"

"That says it all. Why don't you guys get out of here. You can't just walk in, this is private property, it says right there."

And so it was that I was the first to poop in the bucket, beneath a privacy tarp tastefully draped over me.

After that, we had the maiden voyage of Cat-Sass, up river to the much friendlier Dubuque Municipal Marina, recommended by River Dog (advisor in planning our trip who has made the same trip a couple times before) himself. The journey was successful except for the loud beeps of the incorrectly wired low-oil alarm. We docked without issue, and started rearranging our boat tarp. A very friendly mechanic fixed our beeping for free! Soon after the rush of knowing we could boat without beeping, heavy wind and rain kicked up, and we spent the next few hours setting up tarp walls for our Bimini. 

The wind did not help, and neither did our drill battery, which kept dying. Finally we got the walls set up right as the rain stopped, and cleaned up the boat until Nick arrived at the hated Yacht Basin (we forgot to tell him we had left it).

Earlier that day, Nick ventured thru the city of Madison with an anchor in his pack. He took the 4:30 bus to Dubuque to meet up with the rest of the crew and met Delores the bus driver. Over the course of the four hour ride Nick and Delores, the only two people on the bus, talked about family, religion, giants, jewel weed and strange visitations, including the time a seven year old Delores watched a divine sunbeam arc through the window of her schoolhouse and warm her body. The two became fast friends (Nick likes to think). Thanks Delores! for all of your kind advice and happy company. Nick will not soon forget it. Nick got dropped off at the marina and had a tearful reunion with the rest of the crew as they picked him up from the dock and whooped and hollered accordingly. The gang was back together at last.

We drove back to the Dubuque Municipal, and shared a bottle of champagne to christen our beautiful boat. We cooked beef ravioli on our stove, and ate it for dinner with a side of bagel. We pitched tents on the deck, and set up our sleeping bags listening to the not-so-faint sounds of a country music show on shore. The friendly former dairy farmer Dan walked up and asked if we had any women to keep us warm in the tents. When we replied no, he sighed and said, "I guess that's how they do it in Europe."

Day 4: Life is Rich, Rich is a legend

On Friday we awoke to Rich (Boat Guy) and his dogs getting straight to business on Cat Sass. Although we had not told Rich that we had planned to camp on his farm, his benign silence suggested he didn't particularly disapprove. Rich then backed the boat into his massive garage, the Tamarack Farm barn, and got to work removing the 40hp Yamaha from Cat Sass and replacing it with a 115hp Johnson. While Rich and Corey (Rich's friend and little moon) worked, Clement and Bennett helped Rich lift the engines on and off, scrubbed the boat with Pine-Sol and unscrewed old furniture to be removed or cleaned. Meanwhile Piers and Nick drove to pick up coffee and food. The food was two "The Boss" sandwiches, each the size of a shoebox. They each each cost $6 and sustained the four of us until late that night. 

Once the motor was installed we took the pontoon back outside, hooked the motor up to a garden hose (so as not to overheat it) and started it up. The new controls worked beautifully. However, Rich suggested we switch out the fuel line and fuel tank because the existing ones were old and untrustworthy.

Piers and Nick rushed to a boat supply store, arriving 5 minutes before closing time to pick up the items in question. We hooked up the new stuff only to discover with horror that the motor had ceased working. It seemed not to be getting fuel but none of the obvious fixes worked. We still had a three hour drive ahead of us (Rich agreed to drive us and launch the pontoon in Dubuque) and we were running out of daylight. 

It was Rich against the machine. As options ran out we stood by and watched Rich cuss out the motor, parts and other entities while racking his brains for the answer. We were getting ready to spend another night in Rich's yard. Rich looked at the motor and shook his head. "I'm running out of gumption" he said. He disappeared into the garage. He reemerged a minute later with his iconic cup of coffee and a fresh cigarette. He had in fact far from run out of gumption we soon found. He continued to toy with the motor. Suddenly the motor was up and running. The Gelly brothers hastily packed the bags and got on the road (Nick had already left to return the U-Haul truck to milwaukee and meet us in Dubuque via bus the next day). Rich drove us, all our equipment and supplies, and the 30 ft trailer holding Cat Sass with great skill. He could have been driving a golf cart, at one point he held a banana in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

By we arrived in Dubuque it was after midnight. Rich backed the boat into the launch of the Dubuque Yacht Basin, a private club, and Cat Sass was on the river. We could barely believe it, high fives all around. Everything was perfect until we tested the motor which began making an ear splitting beeping noise as the controls were designed for a different engine. 

It was 1 a.m. and Rich, a true American hero, had to be on his way (he had to return our trailer we rented in Madison on his 2.5 hr drive home). Rather than move our boat that night, we slept on the bottom of the launch of the club. We set up our hammocks on our cluttered deck, expecting to be woken by early rising club members launching their boats to fish. We were happy to be finally on the river but were preoccupied by the new problems we were facing. We were also exhausted and very thirsty as we had no water. 

Day 3: we are exhilarausted

We're all crammed into the cab of a Uhaul truck and we're feeling:

Clement: "pooped"

Bennett: "exhilarausted"

Nick: "plum tuckered"

Piers: "exhaustarated"

Today we started in Milwaukee, renting this truck, after Nick made a mortal enemy with the staff of a rival renter. Renter, you know who you are. Then we loaded this truck about as full as we later filled ourselves with Culver's burgers--but that's getting ahead of ourselves! 

We filled the truck and drove to meet Boat Guy, LLC, whose name turns out to be Rich. Rich had a lot to tell us. "Let's be real, baby," he said upon learning that we hoped to get our boat in the river by nightfall. 

We were floored. But we quickly unfloored ourselves--and then floored the pedal on our new plans. Piers and Clement gave Cat-Sass the scrubbing of her short life. We learned from Christie, the amazingly kind former owner, that "Cat-Sass" was actually her father Burt's pun on "Cat's ass." Meanwhile, Bennett and Nick drove to Madison to pick up a trailer, and then picked up quite a large quantity of mosquito netting. They also grabbed some tie-downs, which we used to secure the pontoon to the trailer as the sun set. Bennett and Nick had a nerve-wracking drive back to Rich's abode, but now at long last we're done for the day. 

We're going to camp on Rich's land, unbeknownst to Rich himself. Hopefully he'll swap out the motor with amazing speed and we'll get on the water by nightfall tomorrow, but who can say what tomorrow holds--besides my radar app, that is. Tomorrow we're expecting rain. It'll be a test of all our waterproof things, that much is for sure. 

Yours in Uhaul,

The lads 

Day 2: Electric Bugaloo

At almost 10 pm in Walmart, I asked an employee where I could find a French press and he brought me to a bench press. We did not buy the bench press, but we did buy so much chick peas that Piers got laughed at, enough tarp to enclose ourselves in a 8 foot tarp-cube if it rains, enough Clif bars to get two free water bottles at Target, and many buckets.

We saw the boat formerly known as "Cat-Sass" in person for the first time today, and lovingly ripped out part of hir rotting carpet to keep in a brooch during the time we court hir. We also took measurements for the tarp enclosure and general inspection; we definitely got what we paid for. Bennett and Nick drove to Chi-city and picked up our outboard motor, and we all met to eat lunch at Oakland Gyros, a Milwaukee classic. Most of the rest of the day was spent at Home Depot and Walmart buying supplies. Piers and Nick dropped off the rental car and on the way stopped at West Marine to return a few supplies, and were once again aided by the very kind Brandon; thanks a lot Brandon!

New diet

"I'm not eating anything except adventure" -Bennett

A boulder shade of blue

We're sorry to announce the first serious mishap of this journey: the relevant Newark Airport officials would not allow Nick to bring his grapefruit+ sized rock onboard the plane. Nor were we permitted to photograph the rock for posterity. 

This rock means a lot to Nick. Our friend Jack found it on the street, and in addition to being very large, it is uniquely smooth, as if it spent a while in a river. We were sorry to see the rock go. 

Goodbye, rock. You rock, and ever shall.

Security

"You heard it here first"

Loomings

We're in the car en route to Newark airport. General Mitchell International Airport, we will be reunited soon.