Greenville

Greetings from Mississippi! Im writing/ typing from a sand island in the middle of the river, just big enough to dock our boats and set up four tents. We are just past Greenville, Mississippi. I'm typing this with one hand, slapping the mosquitos off my back with the other. The bugs are officially in full effect down here and have been feasting on us. The inside of my tent Is splattered with my blood from me killing them when they're too full to get away. Even if you get them all before you fall asleep, you have to watch to not leave a foot on, or roll a shoulder into the side of the tent or they will session your exposed skin until it wakes you. Before falling asleep, you can hear a subtle, yet persistent buzz from them blanketing our tents desperate to get in. We have spray with DEET in it. Originally developed by the U.S. Army, DEET is said to cause odd effects after prolonged use, such as insomnia and/or weird dreams. We have only noticed the insomnia effect.

After Memphis we hit a nearby river casino because we have come to find out that almost every casino has a cheap, all you can eat buffet. We gorged ourselves then miserably paddled on and found another camp spot. We heard a lot of coyotes that night and woke up around midnight to two cast away dogs that somehow found us out on the middle of a huge sand bar. Shawn was still awake when I heard him get spooked by one of the dogs sticking its nose against his tent. They were skinny and very wary of us. Shawn threw them some spare Debbie cakes and went to bed. We woke up in the morning to the dogs lying in our tent shadows, out of the morning sun. We briefly named them Ark and Sas, you could guess why, and fed them what little we could. The little one wouldn't come close but the other (Ark), he warmed up to us. We packed up our stuff as they curiously watched us, then, we hit the river. Sure enough, they began to walk along the bank and follow us for some miles until they lost interest and shot into the woods. They better learn to hunt if they're planning on staying alive out here.

We also ran into a couple of Swedish fellas who are paddling to New Orleans from Minneapolis. Both named Andreas, they are planning on reaching New Orleans around the same time as us. It is awesome to see other people who can relate to the long distance paddle, and it's entertaining to hear there perception of America and the interesting people they've ran into. They are paddling kayaks, and are much faster than us. Kayaks are the way to go. I would gladly sacrifice extra gear for miles at the end of the day, and will do so my next water trip.

We saw them again at the Warfield Park in Greenville. They had just gotten back from the store when we met a fella by the name of Randy who said he would gladly run us into town to catch a bite to eat. We accepted his offer and hopped in the truck with his son and his friend. While we were eating, Randy "set us up." We went to leave and the local news was outside. We laughed and figured we'd better give them something. We said what we could, which only came out as a mess of tangled words, and hid our nervous eyes behind our sunglasses. One could easily tell we're not public speakers. Randy gave us a ride back to the park and we thanked him and went on our way. We gave the Swedes a taste of the Wendy's dollar menu and ordered them, as they requested,"a dozen cheeseburgers." All four of us paddled some more miles and found this tiny island to make camp.

It was seven years ago this week when hurricane Katrina hit, and now it looks like tropical storm Isaac is taking the same path and gaining strength. We should only get winds and rain being this far up. We will keep an eye on the radar, though. Next stop, Vicksburg!