Day 85

When I woke for the um tenth time drenched in sweat I decided to get up an be productive despite the lack of decent light. I made quick work of bailing the rainwater from the canoe and was on the water before the sun was up. My hope was to try and cover my minimum mileage for the day before one when the sun was sure to be cranking up to a broil. The weather report called for a cooler first half the day because it was going to be partly cloudy. I laughed as I looked over a sweeping sky void of even a single cloud. Again I had the river to myself for the first part of the day passing only a couple of small tugs. Around noon my lower back started to hurt and when I reached under the seat I could feel my lucky fix to the seat and failed to last two full days. I paddled on glad to have the pain in my back to distract me from the heat and humidity. Around on I exhausted the last of my 5 liters of water and I paddled over to the shore. I grabbed some snacks, the big water can, the speaker and my phone making a dash across the searing sand for the shade of a cottonwood tree. After drinking a liter of water I sat in the shade, pouring sweat from my body. At some pint I decided the broken seat and direct sun were not so much worse than the shade and joined the now heavy ship and barge traffic. I slogged on for another two hours before reaching a bend in the river were I panned to make my camp for the night. The sand bar was packed with locals fishing and playing. The entire sandbar was a trash pile. Hundreds of bottles, cups and other trash on the sand, in the sand and being washed into the river. I paddled past the sand bar and around the bend. When I looked down river for then next six miles I saw only one tree in the entire stretch of the river. I paddled over and climbed into the small patch of shade. The ground was was not level, the bank was muddy but it would be home for the night. After I finished my nightly routine I climbed into the tent and sat motionless hoping not to start sweating again. When I was in the Mississippi delta a few weeks ago I said I don't think the devil comes here because it is too hot.  Hell is hot but I hear fire and brimstone not word about humidity. This heat doesn't cook you, the humidity and heat drains you and rots everything around you.  Without modern A/C everyday items begin to mold and rot away within days or weeks. A new book just a few days old starts to have mold on the pages, the cardboard stick on a q-tip goes limp, labels on cans sag and peel, deodorant goes soft, bar soap turns to goo and soft gel ibuprofen melts into a blob. Add in the bugs, snakes and gators and I start to wonder how anyone decided to settle here to start with. Long day but I dodged the rain and had a beautiful sunset.