Day 49 Mississippi River
The morning sky was painted with a blanket of dark grey clouds. The forecast called for rain and wind today, and based off the cool air and uninviting cloud cover it looked as though the prediction was spot on.
After a quick breakfast I broke camp and hit the water at a decent hour. Much of the morning consisted of on and off again rain showers. By noon the rain fell consistently, with a fair headwind chipping in as well. In my rain jacket, pants and boots I continued to paddle, and by mid afternoon arrived at lock 16, just above Muscatine, IA. As I entered the chamber I asked the Lock master if there was a good place in town to stop and dry off at. He recommend the Mississippi Brewing Company, and with that I heeded his advice.
As the wind picked up and the rain rolled on I ferried across the river to the local marina. Pulling up to a public dock, I unloaded the boat and lifted the empty canoe up onto the floating walkway. A short jaunt across a railroad track and down a few blocks of downtown Muscatine put me outside the neon lights of the Mississippi Brewing Co.
As I walked up to the door I noticed two road bikes propped up against the window, both loaded with saddle bags and an exposed folded sleeping pad.
Two fellas sat at the bar. After asking if the bikes were theirs I learned that the pair were in the midst of a cross country cycling trip and had taken shelter at the watering hole for the same reason as me; to escape the rain and wind. The pair had started in Seattle with plans of biking to NYC. Funny how our paths crossed at a random bar in Muscatine, Iowa.
We shared a brew, told stories of our adventures and shared any insights we had regarding life on the loose. One such tip I picked up was an app called Warm Showers. The app is a community of cyclists who either host long distance bikers or adventuring cyclists looking for a place to stay, or for a warm shower.
After a bite to eat the two cyclists rolled out with plans of crashing at a farm outside of town.
Because it was getting late in the day and the wind and rain continued to roar I hopped on the app hoping to find a dry place to sleep. I contacted 4 people, but had little faith anything would come to fruition. After 2 hours of waiting out the weather and no response from the new resource I decided to paddle across the river and set up camp. The rain had held up for a short time and I figured I should take advantage of the dry spell.
After loading up the boat and skirting across the river to a large sand bar I finished setting up the tent just as the rain began to fall again. I crawled into the tent around 6:30pm, with water now dropping from the sky at a heavy rate. Just as I laid down I received 2 texts from my Warm Shower contacts offering to put me up for the evening. Due to the rain, my location on the river, the wind and the darkness of night, I had to decline both offers, much to my dismay.
The rest of the night would be long, cold and wet.
With wind whipping the outer rainfly into the inner lining of my tent, a steady stream of dripping water made its way from the tent ceiling to the tent floor, pooling up to the right of my sleeping pad. I also started to come down with a sore throat and cold, coughing up a light phlegm every now and again, and shifting from cold shivers to warm bouts.
Between the wind, rain and cold I didn't get much of any real sleep in. Around 1am the storm finally ended and I hopped out of the tent to go to the bathroom. As I stood outside the door I noticed something concerning; my boat was nearly floating away.
When I originally arrived at the sand bar I set up my tent and pulled my boat several yards onto the bank, where I was confident it would be safe from any water...I was wrong.
In the midst of the the night the water level rise drastically, and I ran to grab my canoe. The front end of the boat was loaded down with gear, and thus stuck in the last patch of dry sand around, while the back end floated in a few inches of water. Feeling lucky to have gotten out of the tent to notice my mistake, I pulled the boat deeper onto the sand bar. Before getting back into the tent I noticed that not only had the water risen to my boat, but it was also getting awfully close to my tent as well. Not wanting to deal with moving the tent and all my gear, I set out a bucket a few feet from the tent and told myself that if the water rose to the level of the bucket, I would get out and move the tent.
Sure enough, an hour or two later, the bucket was surrounded by the Mississippi. I hopped out, pulled out all of my tent stakes, and in the darkness of the early morning hours, dragged my home to the center of the shrinking sand bar. The water had also gotten uncomfortably close to my canoe once again, so for the second time I dragged the boat higher up, this time as high as possible, and tied it off to a nearby post.
Now confident that I was out of the path of the rising water, I slipped back into the tent and worked on a few hours of shut eye.
All in all, my toughest day of the trip yet. I knew days like this would happen, so I can't complain. It's all part of the journey. But I'm glad I still have a boat.