Day 99
September 13, 2022
Tuesday
LRM 537
1758 miles completed
I paddled 16 miles today.
Today I’m going to write about Park Neff.
Park Neff is one of the River Angels in Greenville Mississippi.
Park picked me up at the landing at Warfield point park. The first thing we did after he helped me load my kayak on his trailer, was go to lunch. He bought lunch. It was a close race between the pork chops and vegetables or the hamburger and fries. The hamburger nosed out the pork chop.
Then he took me to Walmart so I could resupply with food.
Then we were at his home. He and his wife have a beautiful place, surrounded by lots of land and trees, and they have a guesthouse in the back. That’s where they let me stay.
Park was originally in farming, but then he decided he wanted to become an ordained minister. Now he is retired but still preaches almost every Sunday.
HE's a very avid paddler. He has the greatest canoe I’ve seen. It’s a Kruger. I think he said Sea Wind. It’s a little heavy but it is fast and stable. It is a decked canoe. It’s made of Kevlar. If I continue to kayak that is the kind of boat I’m going to get. He says they don’t make them anymore but you can still buy them used. But they’re hard to find.
He was using the single blade paddle. I don’t know why he prefers that over the kayak paddle. I’m sure he has a good reason and I’d like to understand that.
He completed the source to sea in 2016. He says it’s not unusual for him to average 50 miles a day.
He’s a very prolific artist. He has oil paintings all over his house of the places he’s seen on the Mississippi river and a few of the places he’s seen hiking the Appalachian Trail.
He keeps bees. He has a honey extractor.
He’s a deer hunter. He has lots of mounted deer heads and antlers in the guest house.
It was a pleasure and an honor to meet Park Neff and his wife, and to be allowed to be a guest at their home. He is truly an active and talented outdoorsman, with many diverse interests.
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