Word for today: RESILIENCE. There was some tough sledding today, but I made 42 miles. I’m now 260 miles from my final destination, but it’s not getting any easier.

The rain finally stopped around 10pm last night, and somewhat thankfully the wind kept blowing so when I got up in the morning, the tent was dry. That was a blessing I didn’t expect; you never want to have to start the next night with a tent that was packed wet as there’s no certainty it will dry before bedtime.

It was dark when I rose so I made coffee by the light of the headlamp. Suddenly, I was harassed by a giant moth. I guess light does attract moths, but this thing was so big I thought it was a hummingbird. It flew off, the came back ten minutes later and circled my head a few more times. Well I think it was the same one that came back; it could’ve been a different one; I didn’t get a name either time.

I was a little slow with breakfast and breaking down as I tried to figure out what to do with my still soaked clothes from yesterday and what to wear for today; I just couldn’t get myself back into those same soaking paddling pants this morning. So, I instead put on my “good” pants and tried to spread wet clothes around on top of bags in the boat so they might dry today.

As I was preparing breakfast, I also got a little distracted as I had to text Lahey. You know how we sometimes mishear song lyrics and belt out the wrong words proudly? Like Jimi Hendrix “‘scuse me while I kiss this guy”, or Elton John singing “she’s got electric boobs, a bowl of soup…” My sister Ellen used to sing the Eagles classic: “so put me on a highway, and show me a sign, and take it to the liver one more time…” Though maybe that’s a better version before heading out to the Side Car for trivia night. Well Lahey and I had a friend who was notorious for this type thing, and a favorite of ours was that Greg Kihn hit “Breakup Song”, where our friend used to sing “peaches don’t ride ‘em like that anymore!” This came to my mind and was in my head most of the morning after I made my peaches & cream oatmeal.

It was 8:20 before I finally shoved off; I was in no real hurry, but I was hoping to make 45 miles today and I should’ve been on the move before 8 to better enable that to happen. The air was still very damp and the sand was all dark brown from the moisture rather that the typical bright off-white. If the sun comes out, I can tell it’s going to be humid. But, I took a gallon of water out of the front storage and put it on back; and with the food consumed yesterday gone as well, the boat felt noticeably lighter than yesterday. So the weather may heat up, but I’m feeling a little more like back to my nimble and quick self.

I was thinking after I got underway today that I really haven’t seen much interesting in the water since that day I posted seeing the big catfish and the Butterball turkey. Bill Rohde sent me this definition regarding floating stuff: ‘Flotsam is defined as debris in the water that was not deliberately thrown overboard, often as a result from a shipwreck or accident. Jetsam describes debris that was deliberately thrown overboard by a crew of a ship in distress, most often to lighten the ship’s load.’ So I guess most of the interesting things I’ve seen are flotsam; I can’t imagine any captain yelling out: “We’re going to sink if we don’t lighten our load; quickly throw over all the frozen turkeys!”

Anyway, I was thinking the most common flotsam I’ve seen is plastic milk crates; you know, the kind you used to store your vinyl records. Sometimes these crates are upside down, like somebody had been using it as a seat while they contemplated the river with their bottle of brown. Sometimes they’re sitting right side up, like some heart-broken girl left it after tossing all of her ex-boyfriend’s records in the river when she discovered he was cheating on her. They rarely seem to be on their sides, which is odd because 2/3 of the surfaces are sides. So maybe they’re not flotsam after all, but I see several out there most days.

I realized also this morning that I haven’t really fully introduced Strom. I forgot to get a Sharpie from Ron Preston the Saturday day that Strom showed up, so it took until Tuesday before he was really “established”. I’m still not sure I like talking with Strom any more than talking to myself. Sometimes I can’t understand much of what he says, and he whistles through his teeth a lot; I also think he makes up words, or introduces foreign words to the English language. For instance, I said, “ Hey Strom, there’s another milk crate over there.” And he replied, “Yesssss, indeedy there’sssss. I’ll be sssssschwintoddle if it ain’t for the missssussss.” I don’t know how to respond to that.

It reminds me of when I was playing high school football. Our head coach was a fairly insensitive ass, the kind who motivates by intimidation and fear. One day at the start of practice, someone was missing: “Garcia? Where’s Garcia? Anyone know why Garcia is not here?” There was a kid on our team with a terrible speech impediment who replied, “Ee gont mate et. Ee got gummy gwamps.” To which the coach replied, “Son, I can’t understand a goddam word you’re saying.” But he had a friend on the team who did understand and could translate (“He can’t make it; he’s got stomach cramps.”); and that’s what I feel like I need with Strom.

Looking at Strom, he seems like maybe the product of Count Dracula and an angry beaver, but I’m not sure that’s possible even in the most liberal fiction books. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes with Strom, but in times of trouble he’s captain of the jetsam team. Though it is handy having him watch over the boat while I’m in the tent; no way is he sleeping with me.

Back on the water… a tugboat pushing a couple ‘black oil’ barges passed me with a friendly honk this morning. Black Oils cover a number of oil refinery intermediate products; they’re sold between refineries for further processing. I had a job 22 years ago in logistics operations where I managed a number of these tugboats; I basically was responsible for telling them where to go and what to pick up or deliver. It was interesting then and now it’s neat seeing these things out here operating in real life. While most of these tugboat operators don’t seem to want me out here, I have gained a new appreciation for these marine operations.

At some point this morning another squadron of migrating pelicans flew overhead. It was weird because they were in a ‘V’ formation, but there were about 30 pelicans on one side, and only one on the other. Then I remembered what Ron Preston told said to me Saturday: Do you know why one side is longer than the other when birds fly in a ‘V’ formation? Because there’s more birds on one side.

At lunchtime I had what I think has been the best PBJ yet. I married the perfect amounts of PB and J, and that Sara Lee honey wheat with no high fructose corn syrup is the perfect bread. I realized that’s another thing that I’m counting down: 7 more PBJs (though that’s 14 more muffin top bites!) Andrea Preston and I agreed, we would never tire of PBJs, but I’m just not sure how often I’ll have them when I’m back home. I know when I do have them, they’ll remind me of my time on the river.

I had been making pretty good time most all morning, though it was warming up. I was staying dry from the waves and no rain, but I was pretty well soaked in sweat. Until about 1:30, I had been averaging nearly 5 mph, then came Natchez MS.

There’s about a 9 mile straightaway coming into Natchez from upstream, so you can see it approaching for a long time. The current was moving at a relatively normal pace for the first 4 miles of that straight section, then it stopped. The river got wider, and apparently sufficiently deep all over because there were no more channel markers, no kanks to be had. This was annoying because it meant the barges were unpredictable in their route, and I had to hug the shoreline. That 5 mile stretch into Natchez took me nearly two hours. And one point I thought, “Did I fall asleep? Can I possibly still be approaching Natchez?” Then I thought, “Did I pass it already and now I’m turned around and paddling back upstream towards it? It sure feels like I’m going upstream.” At some point I took the peddles out for a quick inspection to make sure they’re working; I feel resistance against the water, but it sure doesn’t feel like I’m going anywhere. Then leaving Natchez, 5 miles of the same. This rivals the Ohio River confluence for the worst two stretches of the river. Natchez looked like a lovely little city, but I loathed looking at it for so long.

My earlier plans for 45 miles, and hopes for 50 were now unrealistic. The flow did return to normal 5 miles after Natchez, but by this time it was getting late in the day.

At 5:30 I pulled up to a typical massive sand bar and made camp: 42 miles on the day. I wanted more, but given that loss in the Natchez vortex, I was content. I only hope that going forward there’s not a lot more of those anomalies.

I now have 260 miles to go in 7 days; that’s about 37 miles per day. I would like to make a bigger dent tomorrow to bring that average down, so I’ll push for an earlier start, especially as it’s supposed to be 85 and sunny.

After I set up camp it got dark pretty quickly. There was also still a lot of tugboat traffic, and I was in a narrow channel so I was on full display. As I was sitting with my dinner, a tugboat was passing who decided to train his search lights on me. He didn’t honk, didn’t say hello, he just kept his bright lights on me. It was sort of like driving towards another car at night when they forget to turn off there hi-beams. I’m sure they thought this was fun, but he was ruining my sunset and contemplative dinner. As he was moving on out of range, the next boat behind started the same thing (I suspect tipped off by his buddy that was just past me.

There were more boats behind, but thankfully the second boat turned his lights off as he got parallel to me, and no others followed suit. It was a beautiful night; the sky was mostly clear and there were a lot of stars to be seen. But, the biting flies drove me into the tent, and the sub 60 overnight forecast meant the rain fly was on.

Today’s playlist addition had to come in and some point, and today seems appropriate as I saw the American Countess again today in Natchez, and despite the heat and frustrating sections of river, I kept rolling. I know Ike Turner was a jerk, but I think this is the best version of the CCR classic; and Tina is praiseworthy for so many things: Proud Mary