(ch. 7)Again: Missouri
(ch. 7)Again: Missouri |
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If the weather hadn't changed the next day I'm not sure I could have continued. The front that came through during the night cooled it off so that the high would only be in the upper 90s with lower humidty. Most importantly there was a breeze. When there's a breeze you can always dunk your hat into the river and poor a hat full of water on your head. The breeze will keep you cool. I had taken to grabbing a fist full of ice from the cooler and putting that in my hat. The top of my head would get a little numb at times but it was worth it. Quincy was less than twenty miles away. We stopped for a rest in LaGrange and bought more ice. Then as we got closer to Quincy the wind shifted to a tail wind and we were able to sail right into town. It was still going to be tough. As you move south down the river into Missouri the population density along the river starts to diminish quickly. In central Iowa you travel from one small town to the next. In Missouri the towns are farther apart and there are often just miles and miles of thick forested banks between them with no place to stop. Normally I like this characteristic of the river in my home state. I spend delightful weekends up the river on our jon boat in unbroken solitude. But now it would have been nice to have an occasional little town to pull into for a rest and relief from the heat. It was July 19th and we were hoping to make it to lock 22 at Saverton which would have been about half way between Quincy and Louisiana. However, as we rounded the bend under the Hannibal bridge we were assaulted by a gusty head wind. The last mile into town was quite exciting as the wind was blowing directly up a long straight stretch of river and raising cresting waves that would occasionally break over the bow of the canoe. The lock at Saverton is just a few miles south of Hannibal. After that there's nothing along the river until you reach Two Rivers Marina which is across the river from Louisiana at the base of the bridge. Across the bridge in town you can see River's Edge motel on the bluff just across the bridge. We were close now. I'm a regular customer at both Two Rivers and River's Edge. A couple of times a year I'll stop at the marina for the night and stay at the motel. The motel owner considers the marina a good source for customers and will gladly drive across the bridge to pick you up. Likewise the marina owner considers the motel an attractive local service to induce boaters to stay over and will gladly drive you across the bridge. This time we got a ride from the marina staff. We had only 51 miles to go but, the hottest weather yet was forecast for the next couple of days. Actual temperatures would be above 100 degrees F and heat indexes well above 110. I suspect the folks who create the heat index figures haven't tried sitting out on the water in a canoe at 3:00 pm under a cloudless sky; otherwise they'd revise those indexes up. We were too close now to throw in the towel so on the morning of July 21st we headed for lock 24 at Clarksville. It was 11 miles to the lock, another 14 miles to Hamburg Illinois, 18 miles from Hamburg to lock 25 at Winfield and 9 miles from Winfield to home (John's Boat Harbor). We made it through lock 24 at 1:30 pm and stopped in Clarksville for a rest. As we neared Hamburg I began feeling sick from the heat. I ate and orange and felt better. We stopped then in Hamburg again to rest. We had made 25 miles and only had 25 to go. The sun was still brutally hot and there is no place to stay in little Hamburg. We were both nearing our endurance limit and the thought of another miserable night baking in the tent on some island didn't appeal to me in the least. Maybe we were both a little heat struck, but we decided to just get it over with.
It was a magical night. At times a little frigthening, but mostly it was beautiful. The moon lit the surface of the river and at times shone bright enough so that we could make out the contour of the banks. We were so very alone and it was so very silent. Isaac kept our flashlight up front and periodically he would search for channel bouys that have reflective tops. Each channel bouy reassured us we were on course. As the night progressed we encountered, what is for the Mississippi a relatively new natural phenomenon, in a particularly "in-your-face" manner. We startled feeding carp by nearly running them over. In return they would startle us by splashing violently as they swam away. Occasionally a big one would splash hard enough to get one of us wet. We'd encountered this new invasisve species before, but never like this.
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Our first day in Missouri we wasted hiding from the heat in Warsaw. That evening we headed down river looking for a place to camp. The heat was still oppressive. We selected a miserable overgrown island where we could barely find an opening for the tent. It was a jumble of nettles, vines, poison ivy, fallen branches and drift wood. We were sheltered from any breeze that might have cooled us and the heat in the tent was insufferable. The bugs outside the tent were equally insufferable. It had been two days now since either of us had gotten any decent sleep. I laid in the tent in a pool of sweat desperate for sleep. Finally, late that night a small storm passed by, there was hardly enough rain to wet the tent, but it cooled down a few degrees. I got a few hours of fitful sleep and awoke in a pool of sweat. I was exhausted. We were on vacation. I remembered what Rosemary, one of my co-workers back at the college had said about our trip, "That's not a vacation, you're nuts."
That night we slept in airconditioned comfort in a motel. Our spirits had been lifted and we were ready to try for the finish.
We struggled against the wind and waves and it became quickly apparent that we should be thankful to get to the Hannibal marina yet alone lock 22. That left us 26 miles the next day to make Louisiana and the temperature was heading for 100 plus.
We paddled down to a shaded sand bar just below Hamburg and beached the canoe. Isaac laid down spread eagle in the sand and napped. I walked in the river and sat on the end of the canoe playing my recorder. Our plan was to wait for sunset and then paddle through the night down to lock 25. Just above the lock is a giant sand bar where we would occasionally stop to fish. We figured we could sleep there till sunrise, lock through and make it to John's before it got too hot. This was going to be very different than the night we paddled to Keokuk. There we had paddled through one huge dam pool -- a lake. There were towns and homes along the shore, a road and railroad tracks along the west bank. There were always lights that shined like beacons for us to follow. Between Hamburg and Winfield there is only thick forest -- no lights except the channel markers. The river winds and bends around islands. A wrong turn could take us down a deadend slough. We were both a little nervous as darkness set in, but we also knew a full moon would rise for most of the night.
Finally around 2:00 am we turned a bend in the river and saw the lights of lock 25. As we paddled toward the lock we were in for an upset. It seems the water was high and our sand bar wasn't there, or rather, it was still there, but it was underwater. Our planned rest stop was gone. We paddled to the shore to find it overgrown and swampy so we headed for the lock. On the other side of the lock we stopped at the Winfield ferry landing and collapsed. I had to rest. Just nine more miles. After a short rest we mustered the strength to go on; we were in our home dam pool and even at night we knew each island, each bend. When Two Branch Island came into view I nearly started to cry. At 4:30 am we paddled into John's and tied the canoe to the back of our jon boat. We both clambered into the boat and collapsed on the floor. We slept until dawn and then took the canoe out at the boat ramp. We collected our gear and carried the canoe back to the grass where John keeps empty trailers. Pat, the harbor master who lives in a house at the marina came out to say hi. He said his wife had looked out the window and saw two strange guys carrying a canoe. Pat said he knew that would be us. A short time later Clare arrived to pick us up. We did it.