Spent the morning in Vicksburg. Matt H met us at 9:00, we stopped for breakfast and then had a grocery extravaganza at a great Kroger. Matt was going to take us to the NPS Battlefield Site, but his daughter's school called about a sick little girl, and kids come first, always.
Matt is a type two nice person. We've been writing a lot about type one nice people - the random strangers we meet on the street (or in some cases knock on the door) who are so generous with their time, their yards, their showers, their companionship, and their cheerful company.
We've just discovered the second type - the community of local paddlers (or friends thereof) who monitor the Facebook groups (Mississippi River Paddlers and Lower Mississippi River Paddlers) and offer help and advice. We posted to that group just prior to arrival in Vicksburg, and two Vicksburg paddlers immediately offered to help. Matt, with whom we spent the morning, has a full time job and two small children, so it's not like he's bored and trying to fill his time. When somebody tells you social media is a lot of cluttered trivial distraction, you tell them that Amy and Jim have a case in point to prove there is an exception!
About trash - we've said it before, and it remains true. There is darn near zero trash on the riverbanks. Astonishing. Amazing. It must be the case that individuals and communities in all the upstream tributaries just do not back up the truck and dump their loads over the edge. I thought we'd be seeing plastic crap that floats down, catches in an eddy, and settles out on shore. Not true. Except - this is our second campsite with a plastic milk crate! No other trash of any type. Just one super convenient chair for our little kitchen and dining area! See Jim in the first photo.
Second photo shows Jim finishing dinner, with a tow passing in the. background.
Camped, again, on a five star sand bank, river mile 418. Other than the passing tows, we are paddling through miles and miles and miles of quiet, isolated, lazy, big and beautiful river with beaches that rival the best beaches we've ever seen.
Short on birds, true, but that's almost certainly a seasonal problem. The songbirds are done breeding so nobody is singing or busy feeding kids. The migrating waterfowl are not here yet.
A friend wrote us that she determined (in a moment of conflict) that on a long road trip with a partner each day is worth 7.5 days of normal marriage. Sounds about right. In our 51 days of paddling together we have had 382.5 days worth of marital life: joy, boredom, affection, irritation, occasional severe anger, disagreements, mindless chatter, profound insights, silent pauses, pillow talk, and musings about how our bears are doing. We like each other a lot and are lucky we found each other.
We are healthy, happy, hot, muggy. Rain and cooler temps in the forecast for the next few days. We had mild to moderate headwind for our afternoon paddle today, hopefully the coming storm doesn't include strong wind - it's a drag.
JRY factoid:
We went to the Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi museum today and learned a bit more about tows. A fully loaded barge displaces 1550 tons so a 6 x 7 tow displaces over 65,000 tons, or about the same as an Iowa class battleship, the largest the US ever commissioned.
No comments:
Post a Comment