On Thursday I accidentally learned that there is a kayak rental service located next door to L.O. Simenstad Municipal Airport in Osceola. On Friday, not coincidentally, I found myself kayaking down the St. Croix River in Osceola.
About a month ago I flew to Voyager Village near Danbury and spent a chunk of an afternoon kayaking on Birch Island Lake. That was a fun trip and I’ll definitely do it again, but the truth is, kayaking is best done on a river.
River kayaking is difficult when you’re traveling by airplane because there is necessarily some distance between the starting and ending points along the river and it’s unlikely that both of those points are near a single airport. You face a significant chunk of ground travel at one end of the trip or the other (or both.) You can’t carry a bike on most kayaks and you can’t carry a car in most airplanes. You’re left in a pickle.
While trying to decide where to spend my travel day this week, not really thinking about kayaking at all, I stumbled across Up North Action Magazine. One featured article in particular piqued my interest because it focused on waterfalls. Who doesn’t love waterfalls?
I started at the top of the list of waterfalls and worked my way down. Are any of them near an airport? Saxon? No. Hurley? No. Cornucopia? Yes, but it’s a grass strip, I’d have to remove the landing gear wheel fairings. That’s a hassle and a time waster. The logistics don’t work.
After a bunch of noes I finally found a potential yes: Cascade Falls in Osceola.
When I opened Osceola in Google Maps, I was happy to see that Cascade Falls is within easy biking or walking distance of the airport. Even better, there is an interesting annotation about halfway between the two: Riverwood Canoe & Kayak Rental. With a couple clicks I learned that they are a full service outfitter offering out-and-back trips on the St. Croix River.
I reserved a kayak for a trip from Interstate State Park to Osceola. The van ride from Osceola to the put-in point takes about twenty minutes. They provide you with the boat, paddle, and life jacket. From there you spend two to three hours paddling six miles back to Osceola through The Dalles of the St. Croix River.
The trip ends back at the bridge in Osceola. It’s an easy landmark: the first and only bridge you see. I paddled the route in almost exactly two hours. If you take your time, you could easily spend three or four hours on the river. There are no challenging rapids or anything like that. It’s a beautiful, relaxed stretch.
The bus ride back to Riverwood Canoe & Kayak Rental is quick. They pick you up on the Minnesota side and drive you across the bridge. It takes maybe four minutes.
With the kayak trip behind me, I walked about a half mile to the Watershed Cafe for lunch. It’s a nice little place directly adjacent to the upper reaches of Cascade Falls. I sat on the deck and enjoyed a fantastic chicken pesto sandwich to the sound of falling water fifty feet away.
After lunch I headed next door and down a hundred or so steps to the lower falls. There were lots of folks milling around. Evaporative cooling and mist from the falls took the edge off of a hot and humid day. The flow rate was perfect for standing in front of, behind, or even in the falls.
The trip back to the airport took a little over half an hour. I had my bike with me, but the hill leading out of town to the south on WI-35 is too steep for it and there is too much traffic to navigate safely, so I covered most of the distance on foot. It was no big deal. The bike was not needed on this outing.
When I arrived back at the airport, there was a young woman in the terminal building with several books and a laptop computer arrayed around her on the conference table. She had been there since I arrived that morning. I couldn’t help but ask since it seemed she’d now been in the same place for at least six hours. Is she a flight student preparing for a test? An instructor?
As it turned out, no, she was neither a flight student nor an instructor. She was a law student preparing for the Bar exam. She was using the airport terminal because the conference table gave her room to spread her books out in a way that worked well for her. It was an unconventional use of an airport, but I use airports for unconventional things all the time. It made good sense to me.
I planned and filed my flight as quietly as I could and wished her luck on her test. She wished me a good flight.
I hope her test goes as smoothly as my flight.
What did I learn about flying?
Nothing is a given, regardless of how mundane the situation is. Even on an easy day like today a number of little surprises popped up.
On my way to Osceola, the Minneapolis Center controller asked for my approach request while I was still almost forty miles from the airport. I was doubly surprised by this because Minneapolis Center isn’t the approach control facility for Osceola. Minneapolis Approach is. I expected to receive at least one more hand-off before negotiating an approach.
I already knew that I wanted the RNAV 28 circle to 10 so I requested that. I was cleared for the approach immediately and cut loose with “change to advisory frequency approved, cancel on the ground with Flight Service.” It was missing the “cancel in the air on (frequency) or…” part that you usually get. It seemed they were in no hurry to receive my cancellation. This tells me they don’t see a lot of IFR traffic through Osceola.
On the way out of Osceola in the evening I learned (the hard way) that the published phone number for Clearance Delivery is incorrect. All you get when you call it is “this call cannot be completed as dialed.” That’s a frustrating thing to hear when you’re sitting at the end of a runway ready to go. Note to self: remember that there is a nationwide Clearance Delivery phone number. Try that next time.
Notes
- ATC
- MSP Approach phone number in Chart Supplement is incorrect.
- MSP Approach (121.2) loud & clear at 3,000 feet.
- Cell service: 3 bars on AT&T but call to Flight Service was horribly broken up, not sure which end the problem was on.
- Travel: airport to downtown about 30 minutes on foot (biking mostly impractical.)
- WiFi: open, 12.8Mbps download, 0.7Mbps upload.