Guideposts – August 2019

62 GUIDEPOSTS (^) | August 2019
PH
OT
OS
BY
EA
RL
RI
CH
AR
DS
D ON
ark and rainy on the mis-
souri River. I paddled my kayak
through choppy water. Some-
where ahead of me was the finish of the
race I’d begun almost 15 hours earlier,
the South Dakota Kayak Challenge.
The course runs 72 windy, wave-tossed
miles from Yankton, South Dakota, to
South Sioux City, Nebraska.
Many racers had finished by now.
I still had eight miles to go. I was 65
years old and exhausted. I have Type 2
diabetes and had badly misjudged my
nutrition intake. I’d been miserable for
much of the race.
It was 10 p.m. Lights from shore
danced on the water. Wing dams on the
bank threw off confusing vortexes.
A NEW YOU
All these years I’d been searching
for a reason to believe my life ma
ered
The Wind
and the Water
BY WALT VOSICKA, Omaha, Nebraska