St. Joseph, MO

“The heat is on, on the street. Inside your head, on every beat. And the beat’s so loud, deep inside. The pressure’s high, just to stay alive. ‘Cause the heat is on.”-Glenn Fry

People, it’s hot. To this point, the temps (not the rain and wind) have been ideal.  That has changed the past few days.

Sunday August 24th

My intention was to paddle 35 miles today.  I surged ahead 47. I wanted to stop around 4:00 but could not find a suitable camping spot.  It was sticky, it was hot, I was drinking boiling water, I desperately wanted to get a good camp night (i.e. stop way before sunset).  Ultimately, it worked out better than I could have imagined.

Today I spent much of the time “floating”, it was really hard to paddle given the heat.  I approached multiple boats asking for “anything cold”, fortunately my fellow boaters (with power) were more than accommodating. Is it bad that I go into full “mooch” mode?  During the trip I have had many encounters with boaters that are more than happy to offer up cold drinks, today is was almost necessary.

KC is well within my sights so I wanted to stop a little early and take it easy this evening.  At 4:00 I started to spy out possible camping spots, the river wasn’t willing to reciprocate.  The banks were steep and rocks are no place to tent.  I finally found an opening on river left (MO) just past the KS/NE border (which is on river right) where I saw a hammock and a chair.  I decided to pull in and check out the location and hopefully the owner would allow me to camp.  I pulled in, walked up the bank and this was clearly a good camping location…although there was a trash container full of cans, a camping pit, a makeshift  bar with sunset view.  I went ahead and walked up the road leading to the clearing to ask for permission to camp and a saw a truck driving down.

I met Michele and Danny Weber, who own and farm the land, and the were absolutely cool with me camping on their property.  Their son, Kelby (he and his uncle actually do the farming), and his buddy Levi came down to hang out. Levi insisted on going to town to get me something while I set up tent.  He came back with some beers and Diet Coke’s.  This is really getting embarrassing, I am exhausting ways to show my appreciation for all the good people I have been encountering.

Michele and Ben headed back home and Levi, Kelby and I hung out for a couple hours.  They are in their early 20’s and I honestly felt like I was 25 again.  It was like it was 1995 and I was hangin’ out with my buds.  We talked about farming, life in MO, the history of the Weber’s land, etc.  It is interesting when you get a little older and you meet younger individuals and listen to their life perspective, in this case we were like “brothers from another mother.”   I wish we could have spent more time together, perhaps sometime in the future.

This is probably the only downside to meeting all these great people.  The show must go on and your time with them is limited.  That was certainly the case this week.

After jamming out to some good rock, they left since A)they have to work early tomorrow morning and B)the pesky mosquitos came to play.  It was another hot night in the Lynch tent.

Indian Caves behind me

debris is heavy at times

campsite view

Levi and Kelby, rock on!!

Monday August 25th

Levi stopped by in the morning with a breakfast burrito and headed off to work.  I gathered my belongings and prepared for launch.  As I was getting ready, the Weber family dog stopped by to play.  I tossed the stick around and said goodbye to the dog.  She didn’t want to leave.

I got in my canoe and started to depart and the dog hoped in the river and followed me.  This made me uncomfortable, I didn’t want to lead the dog down the current filled MO river so I kept paddling back to shore and hoped she would stay.  After 3 attempts I realized it was fruitless, I called Kelby and then Levi and he suggested to keep going, she will turn around.  I found out later this is exactly what happened.  Great dog.

It was another steamy day on the river, I paddled downstream of St. Joseph, MO and landed at the St. Joseph Boat Club.  I met the “comodore” Chris Parks and boat club member (since 72) Dick Lawson.  Chris was more than happy to let me camp at the club and yep, more food and drinks. It almost like there is a secret network of “river rats” who call ahead and try to up the ante for my arrival. Dick has an RV at the camp and he graciously volunteered to let me stay in his RV.  The AC was clutch.

Dick recently lost his wife of 48 years and Chris’ mom passed last year.  We all agreed to remember the good times, celebrate the individuals life.

At this point, I am at river mile 444 and need to get to 367 by Thursday, I will probably hang here today since we may get some storms and I have a nice sheltered environment for relaxation.

I avoided the local buffet today as well, this is good news.

Texas bound?

too hot to paddle

St. Joseph

Dick and Chris