River and Bayou

Today’s blog entry is going to read a lot like yesterday’s — only shorter.

Woke before sunrise, made coffee and watched the sun come up over the river. Broke camp, loaded the canoe, and was on the river by 8:30 AM. I wanted to take advantage of the cool morning air before it got too hot. Which I did for about two hours. But by 10:30 AM the heat was oppressive again and, once more, I was drenched with sweat.

I carry three litters of water in the canoe’s cockpit with me. Yesterday I drank over two liters while on the river. Today looked like it was going to be a full three liter day. And by noon I knew I wasn’t going to get my twenty-five miles. So I adjusted my expectations and called it a day around 4 PM when I spotted a nice shady campsite along the right river bank.

The beach at this site wasn’t as sandy as yesterday’s. Half sand-half mud, actually. Still, after unloading the canoe, pulling it ashore, and setting up camp, I took a refreshing dip in the river where I somehow managed to keep from getting both my water sandals stuck deep in the muddy river bottom. It would be disastrous if I lose them.

The past two days while camping ashore, the mosquitoes have been pretty tolerable. But tonight, not so much. It probably had to do with the shady site I chose as much as my failure to apply enough bug repellent. And the fact that a few of the buggers found their way into my tent when I finally turned in at sunset just made things a bit more exasperating than usual. Anyway, when I woke the next day, I had half a dozen bites on my ankles where the skeeters had been feasting. But it’s too warm to sleep with a blanket to protect myself, so I guess I need to do a better job of mosquito management in the future.

Anyway, that’s the extent of my day today. Sun, heat, mosquitoes, and .. oh yeah … the second of the four Chicasaw Bluffs to break up the scenic monotony.

Tomorrow I reach Memphis. With any luck, I’ll be catching up on my daily blog posts from the comfort of an air conditioned hotel room. Looking forward to that.

P.S. I’ve attached screen shots of the Mississippi River Charts for today’s paddle, I hope they’re of high enough resolution to be useful.