With mixed feelings, I got back in the pool after a long layoff. At about lap 5, I felt like a fat slug who couldn't go on. Then, after a few more laps, I was pleased that I could finish a mile. Still, I'm chagrined that it had been so long.

I've moved onto the U.S. Corps of Engineers' map page 14:
http://www2.mvr.usace.army.mil/NIC2/Documents/MissRiver/Map014-802-808.pdf

February 18, 2010, 1 mile, mile 808: Truedale Slough
The Vermillion River joins the Mississippi by way of series of lakes and sloughs, extending from Hastings down to the confluence with the Cannon River just upstream of Red Wing.


February 22, 2010, 1.25 miles, mile 807, Pierce County, Wisconsin
http://www.wrf.edu/library/arc/piercehistory.php


February 23, 2010, 1 mile, mile 806, Goodhue County, Minnesota
http://www.co.goodhue.mn.us/visitors/ghc_history.aspx

Catching Up

July 21, 2009: 1.5 miles, mile 813: Lake Isabel, Hastings, MN
http://www.ci.hastings.mn.us/ParksAndRecreation/PKBoatFishing.htm

July 27, 2009: 1.25 miles, mile 812: Prescott, Wisconsin, and the confluence of the St. Croix River with the Mississippi:
http://www.prescottwi.org/history.html

July 29, 2009: 1.5 miles, mile 811, Prescott Island
http://www.ipicture.mobi/?d=649725&s=MN&f=island

August 3, 2009: 1.5 miles, mile 809, Gores Pool No. 3 Wildlife Management Area

Langston Hughes' The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans,
and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.