Today’s word: CAPRICIOUS (Look at that DJ, I got that word in here, and it’s appropriate!) This river is a fickle beast. That gift of additional flow from the Ohio is sporadic, and seems to let me down when I’m most beat down. And with wind and 88 degrees of full afternoon sun, beat down was the order of business today.

Last night I slept with my knife in the open position, next to the pepper spray. I also had with me a 20” length of steel pipe I got from Jeff Bromenschenkel to fix my busted cart. I decided these weapons would be no good if I had to fiddle around looking for them while coyotes tore my screen tent apart. I layed awake a while last night trying to figure out an attack plan against coyotes with three weapons in two hands; I never figured that out and thankfully never needed to. When I woke in the morning with my weapons in the dawn light, I thought it looked sorta like a Clue game, Leechman edition. Maybe I’ll call the people at Hasbro. I imagine playing with grandkids one day and venturing my final accusation: Mr. Potato Chad did it in Brainerd with the bungee cord! I’ll let you know when I get a response from Hasbro.

I got rolling a little later than planned this morning, mainly because I was trying to figure out what to do for 50 miles of undercarriage chafing yesterday. I hoped for 50 miles again today, put I couldn’t let this situation worsen. When Chad was with me, he said the solution to blisters and chafing is duct tape, “Just tear off and stick a piece of duct tape to it, that will stop the rubbing!” I’m pretty sure it says on the duct tape package: DO NOT APPLY TO MALE UNDERCARRIAGE. Right above KEEP OUT OF REACH OF KIDNAPPERS. I mean duct tape to the undercarriage sounds like something the CIA might use when politely asking a detainee some simple questions. 

Then I thought about fashioning a codpiece out of paper towels. Maybe this would also bring codpieces back in fashion; they seem to have died out once everyone realized Henry VIII was a lunatic. I know my friend Jonnie Rock would love to see codpieces back in style, maybe even in the JC Penney catalog. He’d have one for every day of the week, and an extra one for Wednesday night bowling league. But, I’m a pirate not a fashion designer, so I settled on a healthy dose of Vaseline and a hope for the best.

When I put on my paddling uniform every day, really the only choice I make is shoes. I used to keep a pair of shoes and socks in a dry bag as my ‘dry camp shoes’. But now as I’m more nimble at mounting the kayak while launching and keeping my feet dry, I’ve come to use these dry shoes more throughout the day. Unfortunately I discovered after dressing this morning, that water level gain from the night before seemed to have gone last night, so now the boat was completely aground on a shallow sloping beach. In my struggles to launch, I ended up getting both shoes and socks soaked; I kept them on though they would take hours to dry.

I was underway just after 7:30 with a hopeful plan of another 50 miles. If I could do 50 three days in a row, Memphis by Saturday would be a sure thing. The day started nice enough: slight breeze and wispy cloud cover. But, my lower back was killing me after an hour. I readjusted seat several times, but the only thing that seemed to help was a break every hour with some kayak yoga (I do a lot of reverse tabletop and downward dog on the kayak, with an occasional upward dog). Breaking every hour would slow things, but wouldn’t be a deal breaker. 

Around 9am two barges passed me headed upstream. Interestingly, these were the only barges I saw all day. I even had my marine radio handy today, thinking I might hail one of the tugs if things got a little congested today, but that was never necessary.

At 10 am I saw another eagle first: there appeared to be six eagles in some sort of flying fight on the Missouri side of the river. I couldn’t tell if this was two rival gangs, or three couples out for a leisurely flight when two guys started something. But every time I looked up there were two making lunges while the other 4 circled the skies. Then, on the  Tennessee side there were 2 eagles on the beach watching; 200 meters further down the beach, 2 more. Then one of the more distant two took to flight about 100 meters down to land next to another. There were 11 bald eagles all with my panorama. Maybe they were some kinda bald eagle Air Force, like Top Gun for eagles. That would be cool. Though I was getting a bit worried as I thought maybe I could have said something disparaging about eagles in the blog. I may have implied I don’t care for their whole class system where the old money birds get to winter in Grafton while the working class labors in the coal mines. I tried to pick up speed and move out of their war games arena just in case.

Shortly afterwards came the 50 mile deal breaker: wind, heat and sporadic flow. With the twists in the river at this stage, I’m basically going 3 miles east, big right turn towards south, then 3 miles west, big left turn toward south, and keep repeating: east-south-west-south-east-south-west… The wind was predicted out of the east, but somehow it was in my face all day. I’d like to find someone that can explain this to me sometime. And the flow is also sometimes illogical; I’ll pass one buoy that’s bouncing and swaying as the current tries to tear it from its mooring, then the next buoy looks like it’s sitting in a stagnant pool. I understand the times when the river gets to be a mile or more wide and the spread slows it down, but that wasn’t always the case when the flow abated.

Anyway, these conditions are having me go through 2 gallons of water per day: double my planned allotment. So today I stopped in Caruthersville Missouri to fill up 2 gallons. This is the saddest town I’ve seen on this trip, maybe one of the saddest ever. There were two pickup trucks by the boat launch: one contained an elderly woman with a disposable mask, and the other had a guy that was the humanization of Ned Flanders. They were both just staring out their windshields at the river, Billy Stoneking style. Another guy in a pickup wearing a large Stetson hat was watching some guy knock a golf ball around a big dry patch of grass. There was a park at the boat ramp, but no sign of water or other amenities, so I went to town through the opening in the rusted steel dike wall. I thought there was a small market or convenience store close to the boat launch, but there was only a casino in one direction, and a few businesses in the other; the Casey’s was over a mile away. I thought about marching into the casino and putting my dry bag down, “betting it all on black!” But, that would probably cause some confusion, especially as I look like a homeless man with a life vest.

Instead, I marched into Semo Title. There were two people in there in a glass conference room who could not hold back their obvious amusement at me: homeless guy in life vest and paddling gloves carrying two empty gallon jugs. Then the receptionist came back to her desk with a confused look. I explained I’m just looking for someplace to fill my water; she escorted me to a cold water dispenser in the kitchen. I told her about my journey; that I’ve been at it around 48 days, with 25 more to go. She said, “I’m sorry.” Not like, oh, I’m sorry, I don’t understand; instead it was the sympathetic style, that she felt terrible for my plight. I got a kick out of that whole situation; receptionist Hayley was nice and I’m glad to have entertained conference room people. And though it was a sad little town, their water is delicious; I’ll have to look elsewhere for my recommended daily allowance of chlorine.

When I returned to the boat, I was relieved that the wind had stopped. As I went to board, I also noticed my shoes and socks were now dry, until a rock I stepped on turned and my whole right foot was submerged and soaked again. Once underway, it’s as if the river said, “Oh sorry, I didn’t realize you had gotten going again, here’s some wind to help inhibit you as you make this crossing with no discernible flow. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to inconvenience you.” I thought, “Well, at least my left foot is still dry!”

I pushed on a few more hours and made 40 miles. As usual, it was a glorious sunset, I have miles of beach to myself, and I need some rest and recuperation if I’m going to try for 50 again tomorrow.

Again, I can’t link any music in my compromised connection state. I have two things in mind; I’ll decide and update in Memphis.

Update from Memphis – I hesitated a bit on this song link because I was afraid to draw too much more attention on the topic. But I can tell you I’m pretty well healed, even without Chad’s duct tape recommendation. And, I was never really sure what he was singing about in this song before, but now I know Bob Seger meant this for me – Fire Down Below