Today’s word: RECOGNIZABLE. I had gotten bored of sitting in Memphis. Maybe one day off would’ve been plenty. I was concerned how I’d feel getting back into the grind alone after such a break, but it all felt normal. Routine. It was familiar, and it was good.

I forgot to say yesterday – when I went to dinner last night, the hobo stick was gone from the garbage can. So, I had breakfast at the hotel: French toast that tasted like it had been grilled with hamburgers and some chewy eggs; instant oatmeal is sounding good. Then got an Uber from Jeremy to the Marina. We talked about good bbq, since I didn’t experience any in Memphis – Cozy’s is the place apparently, but go for lunch before they run out of ribs and burnt ends. We crossed over to Mud Island and Jeremy told of a friend of his that lived on the island: “”It’s very safe; safest place in Memphis.” As a frequent island resident, I would say islands usually are, excepting of course the Bikini Atoll from 1946-1958.

At the Marina I was pretty well packed by 9:00, but I still needed to fill my 4 gallons of water. John said he wouldn’t be in until 10, so I phoned him. He described where there was a spigot with very good drinking water; I thanked him for this and everything else. As we said goodbye he said, “Oh, did you bring my stick back?” I don’t recall him saying he expected it back, or even implying it was anything but my new hobo stick. I apologized; apparently he used this on his boat to check for depth in the muddy water. I apologized, and didn’t have the courage to tell him I broke it in half and threw it away! He said he’d find another. But it was a great stick.

Things were very routine for my 37 miles today. In fact, I took only one photo and two videos the whole day on the water. I guess I was just focused on the task, or on the heat. But there were occasions when the wind blew to cool things, and one stretch in the afternoon with some generous cloud cover. Nonetheless, I felt pretty wiped out after 37 miles and quit for the day at 5pm.

I was thinking of stopping at a nice beach 2-3 miles earlier, but quitting at 4:30 seemed unnecessary. I spotted another beach that looked like it was on the left bank just around the start of the next bend, so I made that my objective. However, when I was approaching I realized, it was on the right bank, the Arkansas side. Knowing it’s in my list of 10 things to avoid, I stopped anyway. I suppose I was bound to sleep in Arkansas sometime.

The beach, like many, is vast. And, it’s far from trees, with no sign of humans or angry critters. There was a dead catfish onshore that had attracted plentiful flies, but a deft swipe of the paddle put the carcass back into the current to show up on another shore.

I should mention, shortly after leaving Memphis, I left Tennessee. I’m now across from Mississippi. And with this I realized, days ago I forgot to share my final photos of Illinois.

Just before the Ohio River confluence is the southern most tip of Illinois. I floated up and beached temporarily here. So in the future when I’m complaining about the morons in southern Illinois, and someone says, “You’ve never really spent any time in southern Illinois!” I can say, “I’ll have you know, I was once the southernmost person in Illinois!” That’ll shut them up.

I’ll have to cut and paste this all back a few days, but I didn’t want you to miss it.

This morning while I had breakfast at the hotel, I could hear the talking head weather lady giving the short range forecast. 89 today, 90 tomorrow, 88 Thursday. As I loaded my bags on the boat at 9am I could already feel the sun beating on me. So, today’s playlist addition: Spoon Hot Thoughts