We woke up on Blackburn Island near Louisiana, Missouri, and shortly after we started waking up, we saw our buddies Jake and Julie paddling by.  We waved them over and convinced them to stay the day with us and try night paddling later on.  We all enjoyed some roasted marshmallows, and a lazy day in the shade.  My friends were impressed with my ability to find a good spot to camp in the dark, (rather than finding a landing, which is what we normally do in the dark) despite the fact that I had to because I was getting swamped by the waves last night.  

After an enjoyable day and a nap in the shade, we set off in our respective three boats, to get through lock # 24 ten miles away, and get in 20 miles or so before going to sleep.  Jake and Julie had their first experience watching for shooting stars, their first experience paddling with barges at night (staying out of their way, and getting blinded by their floodlights), and tried (not very sneakily) to turn off their lights and scare us as we paddled by.  But we could hear the water lapping against their boat and see their darker than dark shadow agains the water, so it didn't quite work.  They mentioned how sleek our kayaks looked at night--the silhouettes accentuated against the black undulations.  When we got to the lock, a large barge was going through, so we opted to sleep the night on the sandbar just above the lock (a rare treat--usually the pools above locks never have appropriate camping sites), and get on the water early in the morning.  Leanne suggested cowboy camping (not setting up a tent) to make getting on the water quicker in the morning.  With virtually no bugs, I was willing to try.  
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Hannibal was just really cool.  And there were a lot more pictures to share, so here they are :)

Our first cold morning.  Gotta get going south!  The mist rose portendingly off the water this morning (more pics I'm sad to have lost).  Leanne and I stalled our movement though, as we enjoyed the company of 3 fishermen who were staying at the landing in an RV.  Surprised to wake up to a couple women in tents at their obscure fishing spot, they offered us coffee and a chair, and we all just talked about life, and how book-learning isn't everything...how much we all enjoy getting out into nature and feeling what the world has to offer.  It was truly one of our favorite mornings yet. 

Just 12 miles down the river, we stopped in Hannibal, MO--the birthplace of Mark Twain.  Right as we landed, we were greeted with the American Queen (paddleboat)'s cheerful calliope announcing it's departure--a fitting welcome, I thought, to a legendary spot.  The moment we walked up the ramp, we were greeted by a couple gentlemen who were enjoying their 50th highschool reunion.  They and their wives were enamored of our story and invited us to enjoy what food was still available at the reunion in the pavilion nearby.  That meant cookies and cake for me and chicken for Leanne.  We thanked everybody and headed into town to enjoy being a tourist for a day or so.  

We hopped aboard the trolley, and nearby the Tom Sawyer caves, Leanne requested that we be let off the trolley--she had a Jake and Julie sighting!  Sure enough--we found our paddle buddies at the Rib Festival in the park there. Yay, river family!

Jake had befriended another boyscout, Steven, and his grandmother, Mary, in town, who graciously invited all four of us to stay the night at their house!  After setting up our beds there and getting some laundry started, we headed back into town to walk around during the art gallery hop.  Three of the galleries had drawings for winning art, and guess who won TWO of them?  Lucky me!  I gave one to Julie, and am keeping the fish one--perfect for my marine conservation self.  

The following day, we bid adieu to our J & J pals, and Leanne and I spent the day being tourists, avoiding the strong South winds, and really really enjoying all that Hannibal has to offer in its quirky American splendor.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves.  

That evening, we paddled 25 miles in the dark (I saw 16 shooting stars!).  I had just finished telling Leanne about an experience I had had sailing up in Newfoundland where it was a lovely day and out of nowhere we were faced with 16 foot swells, when--BAM--we were faced with large swells of our own, leftover from the day's wind.  The swells were nice and rolly for a while, but then, as we entered the pool above Lock #22, they became treacherous.  I didn't have my full spray skirt on, and one swell after another was washing into my cockpit.  We passed the spot where J & J were camped, and planned on getting much further, but the extra water in my boat was quickly making it impossible for me to maintain control of my kayak.  I bailed.  "Leanne, we need to stop right now, I can't keep going.  I have to bail my boat out, we've got to pull over immediately."  Twenty minutes of furiously focused paddling, we landed on Blackburn Island near Louisiana MO, where we faced mud, but found a decent camping spot.  Grateful that nothing worse happened, I learned an excellent lesson:  ALWAYS WEAR A FULL SPRAY SKIRT AT NIGHT.
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With Leanne hydrated, we left Lock and Dam #20 after the morning's first 2-hour barge lock-through.  We took a rest in Quincy where Leanne was supposed to pick up some medication (alas, it was too expensive).  We stopped at the Art Keller Marina where we were able to take a shower (yay, thank you!), and celebrate our first THOUSAND MILES of paddling by treating ourselves to a hibachi grill meal.  Under a gorgeous sunset, we passed through Lock and Dam #21 and did some night paddling before tiring and heading upstream up the Fabius River to a landing where we set up camp and crashed out. 

Our first day in Missouri!  We slept in.  I explored over the berm and realized that tilled land was closer than I’d imagined it could be.  This is where fertilizer enters the river; nitrates/nitrites and phosphates seep through the soil a few hundred feet (or less) into the river, or, when the river floods, it takes these chemicals right with it. More about the effects of this here. 
 
Leanne was moving super slow when it was time to pack up, so I just enjoyed all the frogs and toads and butterflies at this little landing.  The day was hot, though, and there was no good shade at this landing.  When Leanne stood up she was woozy. She vomited once, and I decided we should get to a doctor in Hannibal since this was the 2nd time in a week that she had vomited out of nowhere.  I was pretty sure she was having some sort of overheating event, and wanted to get her some anti-emitics and IV fluids. I helped pack her boat and we set off.  The lock was only 5 miles away, but she was too weak to paddle, and vomited again.  I decided we needed to get her to a doctor immediately.  She called her father who figured out the nearest clinic was in the town at the lock; Canton.  Meanwhile, I tied her boat to mine and towed her the five miles to the lock.  The lock was closed for maintenance until evening, but the workers were super friendly, and offered to help portage around.  When I asked if there might be someone who could help us get to the clinic, they didn’t bat an eyelash.  Immediately we had a fellow (I think his name was Joey? I feel really bad I don’t remember) drive us to the clinic, wait for us, drive us to Dollar General for some Gatorade and groceries, and drive us back to the lock.  At the clinic, they did some bloodwork, called in a prescription in Quincy and told her what we already knew—she needed rest and hydration.  I decided we wouldn’t head to Quincy until morning, and that we’d use the evening to rest and hydrate.  Thus, we went directly from being badasses one day (50 miles!) to being very humbled (5 miles) the next. 

The guys at Lock 20 were awesome.  They let us camp wherever we wanted, and offered the tractor barn as cover if we wanted too.  We took them up on that, but still set up our tents inside (bugs were bad).  We had incredible electric storms pass overhead that night; two thunderheads and attendant lightning were visible on the horizon over the setting sun (one of the photos/videos I was saddest to lose).  My tent doesn’t stand on its own—you have to stake it out to support the arches.  Since the floor of the tractor barn was concrete, I was pretty happy with my macguyvered solution to set heavy metal plates I found in a metal recycling bin on the stake-guides.  

Our goal today was to go 42 miles in order to beat both our previous records (37 for me, 41 for Leanne).  We decided we’d do best if we got an early start, took a late afternoon nap and continued into the evening.  So, we woke up at 3:30, and were on the water by 4:40. Paddling early into the sunrise is so lovely.  We had a nice north wind which helped us a bit; we sailed about 8 miles with our tarp/paddles contraption.  A father and son (Don and Josh) canoeing from Prairie du Chien WI to Quincy IL, shot video of us sailing as they passed us.  We listened to Tina Fey’s Bossypants for a couple hours as we sailed, but when the wind died down, we had to paddle ourselves to Keokuk, where we were going to rest.  Those couple hours in the hot sun were slllllooowwww.  Leanne didn’t know how I was paddling so slowly.  I was doing what I could and it wasn’t much.  The pool before the dam got wider and the water got slower and it seemed like forever before we finally tied up at the Keokuk Yacht Club.  What a wonderful rest we had there, though. A group of people had just been to a funeral and they gave us extra sandwiches, vegetables and a fruit plate left over from the funeral.  We gladly snarfed it down, and listened to stories about Pat (their aunt/mother/cousin) who had died.  The fruit plate was especially delicious.  After some time online and being refreshed with food, we set our sleeping bags out on the grass for a nap.  The Yacht Club owners offered us a shower, a place to stay and the opportunity to lift our boats out of the water to clean them if we wanted—which made leaving a few hours later really difficult!  But we felt like we had just had such a great rest in Burlington, and we were really dedicated to making our 42 mile goal that night, and we were only about 12 miles from that goal. So we left just after dark. 

​We had gone through a couple locks at night before, but the turbulence after this lock was intense and rather scary.  Out of nowhere, a standing wave caused by who-knows-what under the water sucked me into it and it broke over me—the closest I had come to being knocked over so far.  Leanne was able to miss the worst of the turbulence.  We were both surprised by it and glad that we were traveling together at this point.  The water was perfectly calm after that initial turbulence, but I was cold and wet for the rest of the evening.  We made our goal of 42 miles and found a dock on the map at 45 miles.  When we arrived at the dock, we realized it was a barge dock, not a boat dock.  There were no lights, and as we shined our headlamps into the dark, we laughed at how creepy it seemed: fog steaming up from the dark water, eyes reflecting back at us from the trees and the muddy riverbanks (frogs, raccoons, opossums), the looming shadow of a crumbling factory with no lights…  There was no place to land at the “dock” and so we found ourselves, at 2 in the morning, continuing on to the next landing, 5 miles downstream…which meant we would paddle 50 miles!  We arrived 4:20am, meaning our day had been 23.6 hours long, with a 5.6 hr break in the afternoon/evening—or 18 hrs of paddling.  But we did it—FIFTY MILES on the upper Mississippi River!  

Leanne and I were eager to leave this morning, ready to get back on the water and paddle.  We cleaned up the house, packed our things, and Cindy came to pick us up, take us to Walgreens for some more mucinex, and drop us off at our boats.  We packed up our boats (that took quite a while, with all our new groceries and the awkwardly high dock), but we eventually got loaded up and ready to go.  Just as I was paddling out, I spied a father/son canoeing toward the dock.  They (Josh and Don) are paddling from Prairie du Chien to Quincy and are pushing for 20 miles a day—quite a rate when you’re just starting out! We got just passed the bridge, where Cindy took a few photos of us leaving, when the sky burst into lightning and we were forced to pull over at the municipal dock and wait out the storm over at The Drake. 
 
After a couple hours, we got back on the water, but Leanne was feeling really crummy.  So we only made it 6 miles downstream before we pulled over at a landing for the afternoon.  Leanne set up her tent and zonked out.  I used the afternoon to catch up to phone time with my family and to write some postcards.  We plan to have a more kick-ass day tomorrow.  

​Cindy and Tom took us to breakfast at the Hungry Bear, a diner full of people, but lacking enough service.  The company was great, though, and I enjoyed a caramel malt  (mmmmm) while everyone waited for food.  Tom was called to work—there was some glitch in the utilities at the airport which was no bueno as Hilary Clinton was flying in later in the day.  (We’ve been in town when Bernie Sanders visited Muscatine Sept 4th and when Donald Trump visited Dubuque August 25th…I think all the presidential candidates are following us).  Cindy drove us around town, showing us the cool snake alley from 1894 and Mosquito Park overlooking the river, and then bought us some groceries!  I took a nap as Leanne worked on blogging, and we decided to leave the following morning.  Cindy and Tom treated us (AGAIN!  They totally spoiled us!) to a take-out Italian dinner.  In the morning, we were faced with threats of thunderstorms and flash flood warnings, and Leanne felt awful, so we opted to stay one more day.  Mostly, we lay around and watched TV.  In the afternoon, Cindy brought us bicycles and we went for a short ride to a park where we fooled around at the skate park, intimidated by the talented kids riding there, but not so much that we couldn’t show off our skillz. 

The short bike ride was a great way to move our legs, get outside for a bit, and remind ourselves how hot it was and that we were both recovering from being sick.  We returned to the cottage and rested for the rest of the evening.  I made some green beans and soup for Leanne and I; good Get-Well food.

Reminder of why I include these health checks here.  

I had a cough for a while after being sick, but it's finally gone.  

Feeling stronger and stronger.  I can actually SEE and FEEL muscles in my upper arms now!  Leanne tells me she has to paddle harder alongside me now (she's still stronger). 

My body revolted one night against the grossness of my clothes--my sweat and the same dirty clothes for too many hours created an uncomfortable red-dots/red welts rash all over my torso one night.  With an all-over spray of gold bond, most of it was gone by morning. Some of the welts took 36 hrs to disappear.

The day after long paddles or hard winds, my elbows really hurt and I have to be sure to wear kinesiotape on them and dose up on ibuprofen.  

My inflatable mattress no longer holds air longer than an hour or two, so I was waking up to a deflated mattress for a while, which meant all the joints that need the most support (hips, mainly) are the heaviest and all the lighter parts of my body are supported, causing a vector toward the joints that need support.  So I now sleep on the ground, with no mattress since this at least keeps my whole body flat and supported equally.  It's not the best night's sleep, but I'm starting to get used to it.  Sandy spots are the most comfortable, followed by dirt and grass.  Hard mud with sticks and leaves is okay, but gravel and concrete are terrible.  My pillow has also lost a lot of loft, and my sleeping bag is starting to get clumpy (it's down, and keeps getting wet).  All of this combined with a very bright moon this month meant that I didn't sleep well several nights in a row, and am taking some sleep-aid medication occasionally now.  It's been over 3 months since I've needed any!

Still have: trigger finger, synovial cyst, occasional numbness on forearms, charley horse/cramps in my forearms and legs. Left hip bursitis has been pretty bad, making standing and walking difficult and regularly waking me up in the middle of the night in pain.

Diet: I eat about a jar of peanut butter a week.  I depend on fresh produce like carrots and cucumbers to keep good fiber in my diet.  I eat a lot of oatmeal.  In town, I crave warm meals, but am usually disappointed by the quality of the food and the low nutritional value.  I expected this, knowing which states I'd be traveling through, and packed good food for myself.  But as my stores dwindle I have less options for varied good food. Also, our strange schedules have not been conducive to a regular schedule for meals.  I make a warm meal for myself when it's convenient, and it's never convenient.  Sometimes I make one anyway, but I pay for it in lost sleep (takes a long time to take those extra bags out, do the actual cooking, eat it, clean up, and then re-pack all those bags).  I usually just grab some quick-bite foods from my big food bag in 4 day quantities and subsist on a diet of peanut butter, chia seeds and coconut milk powder (what I like to call "pudding"), juice boxes, water, oatmeal, nuts, dried fruit, and some fresh produce. 

Mental: Leanne and I have been traveling together for almost a month, and it's been great to have someone to share the experience with, chat with during the day, talk me down when I'm feeling glum or being hard on myself, and motivate me (she's an amazing encourager!).  Sometimes I miss paddling alone, and doing this all on my own, but I'm pleased with how easily we communicate and respect one another's space and needs, and I enjoy her way too much to say sayonara. Plus, our parents are super duper happy we have a paddle buddy for safety's sake, and putting them at ease is worth a lot.  
Dropping my camera in the river represented a huge disappointment in my ability to do well, and has provided opportunities for me to examine why I'm so hard on myself.  I recognize how irrational this can be, and try to just be kind and move on, but it's something I struggle with.