Day 16 (9/28/20)

Paddling no Where fast

Start: River Mile 820

Finish: River Mile 796

Day Total: 26 Miles

Segment Total: 437 Miles

We spend the wee hours of our evening last night listing to the Packers play the Saints on Sunday Night Football.  It’s fun to see your team be 3-0, but there is a long road again. We knew from watching listening to the NOAA radio that it was going to rain over night and into the morning today. Most of the forecasts showed the rain stopping by 9;00 am. 

Around 2 am the wind really started to pick up. An hour later we had gusts of 30 mph! The rain came with the wind, It was nice to be in a warm, dry tent and sleeping bag. When all was nutso outside, it was all toasty inside.

I started getting my gear in the tent organized abut 7:00am, hoping that the forecast of 9:00 am clearing would hold. My 8 am I was loading my boat. Just we I had all my gear near my boat on the shoreline, the rain started again. So, I was wet, my boat cockpit was wet and now all the gear I had worked so hard to keep dry, was wet. Sigh.

He had a good first hour of paddling, the rain stopped and wind was coming at our backs. Everything changed 6 miles into the day. We went through a 2.5 mile segment with the wind in our faces, 2 large barge tows all kicking the water into a frenzy. There was a 1 mile section were even though was was paddling as hard as I could, I was going backwards!! You can’t make this stuff up. The aforementioned 2.5 mile section took us 2.5 hours to paddle, that’s not right!

We made camp at the Ashport - Keyes boat ramp. Our camp sits high on a bluff with a beautiful vista of the river below. We met an older couple at the boat ramp and they offered to take us to a convenience store, so Jon went with them while I finished getting camp set up.

Tomorrow and Wednesday need to be 30 miles days. Christina and Nik will be meeting us in Memphis. It’s been almost three weeks since I saw them, and I can’t wait to see them!!                          

Rainy, wet, miserable camp this morning.

Jon and I paddling into the late afternoon magic.

We have really come to look forward to our evening campfires.