At this point along the Mississippi trip, the river is so large that the main goal is just to stay in the main river channel which has the swiftest water to help with additional mileage daily. Besides the occasional barge or flying carp paddling is become a fairly mundane chore. Now the goal is just to maintain a steady pace somewhere between 8 and 9 miles an hour just to click off miles and focus on efficiency. Towards the end of the day, I will be stopping at New Madrid to restock my food and supplies that Sam and Daron left with the police chief a month ago. About 5 miles prior to New Madrid the river is very winding and I noticed a small takeout with easy access. I thought it was a odd location for such a nice ramp. Looking on the realized that if you take that takeout and portage a 1/4 mile, you can actually skip 10 to 12 miles of River! I was incredibly interested in saving the mileage but realized 5 or 6 miles down river in the middle of the turn was New Madrid which I had to go either way so I continued paddling on. I’ll add that note to my master file for future paddlers. I approached New Madrid I contacted the police chief who agreed to meet me at the boat ramp. The boat ramps on this river are a mix of wide open concrete pads, nice parks and super easy to see from the water to hardly visible muddy ruts that give
You the same feeling as entering a haunted house. Rounding the bend in the swift water, dodging floating trees and debris I located the ramp and was instantly excited. I noticed there were two kayakers on the ramp loading boats! I haven’t seen many other kayakers on the trip, but then recognize the two women from Facebook, who has been doing the river in stages over the last five years during the summertime as one of them to the school teacher. Just as I stopped at the ramp, the police chief showed up, I quickly loaded my gear and supplies and the three of us decided to head out for a leisurely paddle of about 15 miles hoping for a campsite prior to dark. It was nice having the new company on the water and I it worked out great for them to kinda get their feet wet without jumping into the river at flood stage completely solo again. As we approach our campsite, it had a small concrete sidewalk that broke off in flooding that worked as the boat ramp and a picnic table that has been there for many years and had sunk about 12 inches into mud but still functional. After quickly setting up camp, we decided on a shared meal and then dove into our tents to avoid the mosquitoes. The next morning nervous wrestling of inflated sleeping pads squeaking started at about 5:15am. as the bird started to chirp, we all got up, had a quick breakfast, packed our gear and hit the water. We paddled together for a few miles and then I headed out solo with a slightly faster pace for the day.
