May 19 2001 15 Saturday

2001 Race - May 19, 2001, Saturday
The Great Mississippi River Race for Rett Syndrome, May 2001
We are Going the Extra Mile..... The Extra 2,348 Miles to Find a Cure!

Teams called in for Safety Check between 5 and 7 AM

Team Name	Time Called	River Mile	Nearest City/State	Estimated Position
Alaska MSC	6:50 AM	Mile 523	Near L&D 13	3rd
Amazons	Withdraws 5/12/01		Stops near St. Cloud, MN	5th
Double Helix	5 AM	Mile 240	L&D 25	Tied 1st/2nd
Kruger	5 AM	Mile 240	L&D 25	Tied 1st/2nd
Rebels	Withdraws 5/13/01		Stops near Monticello, MN	4th

1984 Record 5/11/84	Day 15 12:20 PM	Mile 170	Jefferson Barracks

Updates/Comments Received from Elizabeth Tynan, Safety Officer, 5-7AM calls
You can even feel the South seeping into their voices now, as the two
teams in the lead prepare to leave the Upper Mississippi behind.
Team Alaska:
Kerm and his crew hadn't had any pie either, but Bud is cooking up delicious "surprises" for supper. One of the hundred-member-crew, Eric, a former Rebel now fighting for the Alaskans, said one of his favorites is a main dish Bud makes with wild rice and sausage. My mouth waters just thinking about it. ..
Kerm was bright and cheery this morning too, when he reported at 6:50 a.m. that they were just preparing to leave from river mile 523, near Lock and Dam 13. He said it's a little hard to rouse the troops in the morning, but decided he'd get them going with a "gong" from now on. I'd be a little groggy too after paddling hard all day, then feasting on Bud's wild rice and sausage at night.
When I asked about adventures on the river, Kerm said that Tony--our biologist birdwatcher--has now duly documented over 100 species along the river. Seems some of them are a bit querrelous, two blackbirds having been witnessed "fighting to the death," with the victor sending his victim over the falls at a dam. Surely the stakes couldn't have been worth such violence--unless it was sausage they scavenged from Bud's stew. "Grackle murder," according to Kerm.
Team Double Helix:
Having been awakened by a booming loudspeaker system blasting "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits" at 4:30 a.m. in the workhouse at Lock and Dam 25, river mile 240, where they were kindly allowed to spend the night, small wonder that Andrew M. Gribble was so chipper when he called me at 5:00. I, on the other hand, was grasping about half-awake in the near-dark of 6:00, Florida Saturday--made-for-sleeping-at-least-till-7:00-morning time. Had there been some mistake? Had one of my children been in an accident during the night? Another sheriff's raid?
Slowly the fog lifted, along with the light outside, enough to remember Andrew saying everyone was doing great, and that Clark and Kurt took off around 5:00 a.m from "Chateau 25," a segment in that most unique chain of Mississippi Riverfront Bed-and-Blasting Music Inns they have grown to love. Whatever happened to the "Breakfast" part of B&B's? That used to be the best part, but Andrew said not even Mississippi Mud pie was on the menu. I'll try not to wax so nostalgic.
Team Kruger:
At 7:45 AM, Stan reported that his team is still traveling with Team Double Helix, the paddlers having decided to stay together until after their "press conference" under the Arch at St. Louis. (They too left from "Chateau 25" this morning at 5:00, river mile 240.) Stan said he has contacted as many of the media as he possibly can, and that he expects at least three TV stations to meet them there. At the same time, some land crew switches will take place, before they take off to navigate the "chain of rocks" on the river just below.
END OF SAFETY REPORT

Teams called in for Safety Check between 5 and 7 PM

Team Name	Time Called	River Mile	Nearest City/State	Estimated Position
Alaska MSC	6:35 PM	Mile 457	L&D 16	3rd
Amazons	Withdraws 5/12/01		Stops near St. Cloud, MN	5th
Double Helix	5:10 PM		Below/South of the Arch, St. Louis MO	Tied, or 1st or 2nd
Kruger	5:49 PM	river mile	Below/South of the Arch, St. Louis MO	Tied or 1st or 2nd
Rebels	Withdraws 5/13/01		Stops near Monticello, MN	4th

Updates/Comments Received, 5 to 7 PM Calls:
From Don Keller, official time keeper, Saturday May 19 PM Report
Team Alaska 6:35 River Miles 457 Lock and Dam #16
They are sleeping at Lock and Dam #16 tonight. Kerm said they would have to happy with the 60 miles they made today.
Team Double Helix 5:10
The team has just left the St. Louis arch, heading south. Two Rett families set up "Italian food for everybody" including amazingly good pasta and salad. They had a wonderful time, and both their stoamach and their spirits were filled. The St. Louis KDNL TV news team was there filming for broadcast.
I was asking Andrew about the difficult of finding places to sleep. Andrew said that last night Bob Branford spied the Double Helix kayak sitting on top the levee, crawled into it , pulled the "bubble/ Happy Hut over him , and went to sleep. The interesting thing is that the water was within a few inches of the top of the levee, and people were commenting on whether the levee (and Bob) would be there in the morning. This morning the support crew woke up from their sleep in a machine shop, and went out to check on the sleeper. Lo and behold, there was Bob, still on top of the levee, and still sound asleep !
Team Kruger 5:49
A few miles below "The Arch" Stan called to say that his team was also "heading south" and should be nearing Jackson Barracks soon. That is good news. Even though all the paddlers have been held up for what amounts to days due to high water, at this time they are only 6 hours behind the 1984 record.
SPECIAL NOTE: Since May 11, Dubuque, Iowa, the two leading teams have had to travel together under special Coast Guard orders. Now that the teams are out of the "closed waters", they are free to separate and paddle their own styles. Each team can, and does sleep while moving (one of the paddlers staying awake, of course. So we might see some "leapfrog" lead changes, as one team passes another by, and then gets re-passed.
This wacky sleep/paddle/nap/paddle regime leads to some rather interesting scheduling challenges for the road crew. The road crews must constantly being searching ahead for a non flooded place to set up a kitchen, grab the paddlers off the water, feed them and send them on their way.
END OF SAFETY REPORT MAY 19, 2001

Webmaster/Event Organizer Note from Mary Potter: Just received a call from Andrew Gribble at 6:30 or so EST (so 5:30 Mississippi River time :-)). 2 Rett families met the lead 2 boats under the arch in St. Louis and supplied a generously catered Italian style dinner, complete with table set up. Andrew said as Clark was getting everyone together for one last picture, Team Kruger jumped in the water and took, with a 10 minute lead! Guess the love affair is OVER!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Webmaster/Mary Potter says - I don't have logs from every team, but I will share what I have:

Team Kruger Log - By Bob Bradford, Enhanced by Stan Hanson May 19, 2001 Saturday
In the morning of May 19, everyone came back. They gave me a hot meal pack. All you have to do is pour a small bag of salt water over a magnesium grate below the food. I put the food pack under my seat as we took off. It was cold that morning. I zipped up my spray skirt to hold the heat in. By the time my meal was hot, I was too. The meal was spaghetti and meat balls.
We had lost over 10 hours during the stop the night before.
By late morning, we were rounding a long bend near mile marker 207. We had some wind in our face. That's why we didn't hear the tug barges coming up behind us. He was sure close when he blew his horn!
The 1989 Corps of Army Engineers chart shows Lock and Dam 26 at mile marker 203. Since that time, they have moved the dam down a couple miles. They also call it Mel Price Lock and Dam now. We discovered that when we called on our marine band for 26 and they didn't respond right away. Finally, they told us it was Mel Price. It was the newest lock and dam on the Mississippi.
We arrived at Mel Price at 11 :45 a.m. Team Helix's support team fed us again By 1 :15, we left Mel Price for St. Louis. We took the Chain of Rocks route to the right. Team Helix had pulled ahead and was paddling strong. By the time we got to the Arch in St. Louis, it was 5:00 p.m. Clark Eid and Kurt Zimmermann of Team Helix were already on the shore. We had a great meal there on the shore. The Rett families had set up a table with pasta, salads, and cold drinks, courtesy of a local Italian restaurant. We also met Stan's wife Dana for the first time here under the Arch. She became our official map keeper and provider. She also kept wonderful notes and took care of getting witnesses along the way for the world record which we hoped was still in our grasp in spite of several bad decisions to stop us unnecessarily.
When Verlen and I had eaten all we could, we put back into the river. All of the shore along St. Louis was flooded. When we pulled up to the Arch, we had actually paddled over a flooded parking lot. There were horse-drawn carriages taking tourists by the arch, cars driving past and a television crew filming us. After the race was over, we learned that a few weeks after our stop in St. Louis, the river had risen even more, and the road was also flooded between the Arch and the river.
It didn't take long before Double Helix came paddling past us as we were leaving the city. We wouldn't see them again until we stopped for another meal that evening. They were just leaving when we arrived. They had been moving very well, but Verlen and I didn't want to overdo it. Remember this is a matter of survival as much as a race.
It was almost dark when Verlen and I set out on May 19th from this last stop. would take a short nap, then Verlen would go to sleep after my nap.
That night, the barge traffic got very heavy. When we arrived at Mississippi Lime Company on river right, there were some parked barges. They also had some harbor tugs going back and forth across the river. I didn't realize it at the time, but some place prior to this, I had passed Double Helix. It had been dark and they had stopped to let Kurt go to sleep under the dome. Verlen had been sleeping, and I was very busy watching the map and checking buoys and navigation lights. Soon I saw a light behind me coming up fast. It was Clark paddling the Double Helix.
End of Team Kruger Log May 19, 2001 Saturday