Most of this post was written from a tent during a thunderstorm! Day 50 was full of rain, but more on that to come at the bottom of this post. We’ll start where we left off, just below Saint Louis, on day 41.
On the 41st day of the trip, we woke up at a muddy campsite and began paddling. Soon after, we met fellow source-to-sea adventurer Russell and his unnamed canine companion. They let us know that beaver tastes like rib-eye. We visited briefly before carrying on to the Wittenberg Boat Club at mile marker 88. The ramp and accompanying picnic space were immaculate. Three of the club members happened to be hanging out that morning. They shared local lore and tidbits about the surrounding area, including a site-to-see called “Tower Rock.” Though I wanted to stop to try to scale the cliff, we were on a deadline and have a general policy of choosing safety over adventure.
We continued to the Trail of Tears State Park, which had open showers and very brave armadillos. With abundant water, we took the opportunity to do laundry and refill our supply. The campground host helped us drive everything back down to our boats. Later that night, we dried our laundry by campfire.
After waking up the next morning, we paddled past Cape Girardeau. It looked like a very cute, historic town— we’ll be sure to spend more time visiting on the Great River Roadtrip 2065!
Around 5:30, we reached the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Leaving our boats bobbing, we climbed up the observation deck for a better view. I expected a dramatic color difference between the two rivers, or even just a more violent swirling of water where the two rivers met. The Ohio comprises nearly 2/3rds of the Mississippi’s total volume, but it’s been a low water year for both bodies.
After the confluence, we were hoping river speed would pick up. It did not. Nevertheless, we paddled on!
We ended the night camped on the Kentucky side of the river, making the most of our proximity to Leah’s home state.
Partway through the 43rd day, we saw a large billow of smoke appear above the trees. It ballooned across the sky, lit from below with flickering orange light. Large particulates akin to corn husks fell while we debated whether or not we should call the fire department.
We decided that the passing barges were in a much better position to know
A) whether or not this much smoke is normal for this part of the river and
B) which part of the river we were in if it wasn’t normal!
We ended the day in New Madrid, where River Angel Bud Henry met us at the town’s boat ramp. He generously gave us a tour of the town, including a restored one-room-school house that he’d attended grade school in during the 1940s. With his help, we were also able to grocery shop and shower before heading back to camp to pack for hundred-mile-day. We scarfed down a large pizza before piling our sugary snacks across the park’s picnic tables. We were a little nervous camping in town, but all was quiet through the night.
Our chosen spot was evidently a great place to fish, as a fisherman snuck past us before we woke up the next morning (day 44). He eyed us while we took down our tents and set off to paddle.
Our lunch spot for the day was also a popular fishing spot. Rather than block the boat ramp, we tied up in the rocks and picnicked at the top of the hill. The boat ramp was in a narrow curve of the river, so the water was speeding past! Passing barges came closer to our boats than we would have liked, but all was well.
We continued paddling until five, stopping early to to prepare for 100-mile-day. It was too hot to sleep, or eat, or think, but we managed to get to bed by eight-thirty-ish before waking up at 11 PM.
Since 100-mile-day merited its own post, we won’t rehash it again here.
After the amazing and grueling experience of paddling for 24-hours-straight, we woke up to light rain around 4 am, thinking to ourselves, “it’s not supposed to rain today!” We nevertheless checked the weather app to be sure.
First glance: 18% chance of rain.
Reloaded phone: 55% chance of rain.
By the time the phone re-loaded, it was actively raining and our tent was blowing away. We were soaked, cold, and still very sleepy. I managed to go back to bed despite the drizzle, while Leah watched boats and waited out the storm.
Despite the downpour, the river still dropped in the night. We got up around seven-thirtyish and paddled about three miles to the Memphis Yacht Club Marina on Mud Island, a very paddler-friendly spot. There we left our boats before transporting the rest of our sodden belongings to a nearby hotel.
After checking in and drying off, we made our way to the Blues City Café, where we split a full rack of ribs and learned that we both dislike the standard southern bbq sides of coleslaw and baked beans. We nominate mac’n’cheese and more mac’n’cheese to be the new southern standard.
Several friendly strangers spoke to us as we walked back to our hotel, including a man who told us that “it’s called glee!” and invited us to dance across the street. I danced with him while Leah watched for cars.
Once back at the hotel, we re-organized our bags, did laundry, went to grocery store, had dinner, and had second dinner. We were assisted greatly by my mom, who made the drive up to Memphis when she got off work. After much visiting and errand-running, we finally made it to bed around midnight.
Day 47 (Community Paddle Day) has a separate post as well. We had a blast sharing the river with the kids and can’t recommend paddling with Matthew Burdine of Memphis Expeditions highly enough! We ended day 47 with a campfire and smores on the Arkansas side of the river.
As a Mississippi native, I was thrilled to have my home state on our left for all of day 48! In the morning, we stopped at Tunica River Park to refill our water. The park included a beautiful event space, boat launch, dock to tie up, and river history museum. We stopped for lunch at unmarked boat ramp shortly after. Though spirits started high, as the afternoon dragged on, heat and misery brought us down. By the time we got to camp, we were pretty ready for day 48 to end. Nevertheless, we retreated our clothes with permethrin (pronounced in our river rat dialect as pa-ruh-SEE-tuh-MIN-uh-fen) before collapsing to bed.
We paddled past the Helena Bridge on the 49th morning of our journey, catching a few moments of cell service through our brief brush with civilization. The 5 days above and below Memphis were characterized by heat, isolation, and slow moving water.
In an effort to get as many miles as possible each day, we attempted a ‘drifting lunch.’ Despite our hopes for this strategy of mile-recovery, we were plagued with stagnant air and slow current. We decided not to try this technique again. At least night paddling isn’t hot!
We made it to camp for the night, still on the Arkansas side of the river. Because we preferred shade in the evenings to recover from the heat of the day, we rarely camped on the Mississippi side of the river. Though this saddened me greatly, I’ve come to terms with the reality that a Mississippi River trip is not about connecting with the great state of Mississippi! It turns out that the Mississippi River is really more of a Midwestern thing?
In the hour it took to pull into camp, set up our tents, and start our campfire, about 15 barges passed us. This was our greatest barge density of the entire river trip. If anyone knows why barge traffic pops OFF on Thursday evenings, please tell us. Otherwise, we assume they were on their way to a captain’s conference downstream.
And though we have no pictures, please know: we could see the stars.
As previously mentioned, the 50th day of our trip was marked by storms. In the morning, we’d hoped to dodge the worst of the forecasted thunder. We kept just ahead of a cell until lunch, but we’re never as quick with our stops as we hope to be! Once we realized the thunder was on pace (read: outpacing) our forward progress, we stopped for safety. The rain drizzled and the thunder boomed intermittently for the rest of the afternoon. Mike Stewart played telephone, relaying information about the weather forecast. While we had enough service to text, we were far from able to pull up any websites or apps ourselves.
And so to make up for the time lost in the storm, we once again decided to paddle through the night. This was our least pleasant night paddle of the entire trip. We were wet, tired, and without the light of the moon due to clouds. We kept hitting sandbars. Fortunately, with Leah’s previous quicksand experience, we knew that we’d need to keep firm grasps on our boats every time we got out. The sand is never as solid as it seems!
As though that was not bad enough, we eventually paddled into a cloud of industrial off gas so thick and oily you could taste it. Choking and spluttering, we paddled several miles through the cloud, coming uncomfortably close to barges and rocks along the way.
We chose our final Mississippi campsite in desperation, near a road to a hunting club at the top of a rocky cliff.
Though it sounds bleak and awful in hindsight, and we hated it in the moment, we really do look back at this trip with fondness. Ironically - this was one of our longest no-fighting stretches of the whole trip. Too busy being mad at the circumstances to be mad at each other?