Day 114 on the Mississippi River

Day 114

October 1, 2022

Saturday

LRM 186

2109 miles completed

29 miles today.

The day was pretty much uneventful until late afternoon. It would not have been such a successful day, mileage wise, if I had been able to find a place to stop. I started looking for a place to camp at 5 o’clock and I wasn’t able to pull off until six. That’s how I got the additional 4 miles.

The first major obstacle was a mile wide sandbar it was only inches high. It looked like the birds were walking on water. In order to get around it I had to paddle a mile to get to the green buoy, the edge of the channel. I tried to stop just passed the sandbar but it was muddy. There were some parked barges on the right so I went around them. Behind them were more barges, behind them were more barges and I ended up paddling past a mile parked barges before I finally found a place to camp at 6 o’clock.

The spot I found was only minimum adequate. It was about half sand and half mud mixture. A little higher on the beach it was hard enough to put the tent and my dropcloth for my gear.

The first thing I did was put up my folding chair and have one of Tracey‘s beers. Warm beer is better than nothing, but one is enough. I still got camp set up before it was completely dark. I did have to eat dinner in the dark with my headlight.

There was only one mosquito all night and my sleeping bag was dry and the wind was mild.