Monday, October 26, 2009

October 25th - Day 23 -Slough north of Greenville, MI to Transylvania, LO




No sign of aligators as I poked my head out of the cabin at 7am - just the ugly rodent we saw last night. Looked it up and turns out to be a mammal called a nutria. Not even comparable to the cute beavers and muskrats of MN. And, no, I did not take this picture - I found it on google and added it for your benefit. Really wished it was an aligator. That would have been so cool! Anyway, Wade thought we were capable of taking off in the morning without him so he slept in and Jenny and I pulled anchor, motored out of the little stream we were in, and put the tiller on. Since it was Jenny's shift, she took over and I went back to bed. She was surprisingly happy, which is odd for Jennifer at such an early hour. (Evidentally, she sat up really fast in bed last night and knocked her noggin. It woke Wade up because he thought the bottom of the boat was hitting rocks, as it was hard enough to make the fiberglass make a cracking sound. I think this event contributed to Jenny's unnaturally good mood - she temporarily was jarred from her normal train of thought and perhaps didn't know how early it really was.)


When I woke up, it was 8:30 and we were almost to Greenville. Wade was up and helping Jenny pick a spot to dock. They considered the marina there but if you dock there we're obligated to buy their overpriced gas, too, so we chose a spot downriver a ways. We noticed the water must be extremely high, for as we pulled in left of the boat launch (no docks, just pavement that was steep enough that boaters could take off from the shore) right onto the front lawn among a flock of Black Scoter and Northern Pintail ducks. We couldn't see very far down into the water, so we couldn't be certain how high the water really was but all along the banks we have seen small trees and shrubs submerged.


We gathered our gas cans and made for town. As is the norm for us now, we had barely gone two blocks when we met up with a super nice man in a pickup that had pulled over to offer us a ride. Gene was a fellow in his 80's, I'm guessing, and was on his way to church in his Sunday best. The picture perfect little old gentleman took us to the gas station wanting to know all about our adventures. We gased up and he waited as we grabbed what snacks we wanted from inside the store, and took us back to the city boat launch bidding us farewell with a friendly, "May God bless you."


Back on the river, with barely an hour spent in town we made good time the rest of the day covering a total of 85 miles. Wade spent most of the day on the computer working, Jenny resumed driving for the majority of the day, and I pulled all the cushions out of the boat and strapped them to the deck. It has been getting progressively smellier in our cabin and something had to be done. Every morning the inside walls of the boat are coated in wet condensation and with little air flow in the cabin (especially in the front where Jenny and I sleep) it started to smell like a combination of mildew, the porti-potty stored under our bed, and unshowered people stuck in a small space for 24 days - something HAD to be done! So while the cushioned aired out, I scrubbed the walls down and cleaned and sprayed as much air freshener that I think Wade could stand. With that done, and it being a beautiful day I took advantage of the beautiful sunny day and cushions strewn on the deck to lay out in the sun and read. That is, until Jenny realized that she could be doing that too! She asked for a change and since she had been driving for a steady 5 hours, I couldn't exactly say no even though I wanted to stay on my makeshift cushion throne. She went through at least a dozen music cd's as she drove those 5 hours - singing all the time. It's really refreshing actually and if I know the song I sing along! I asked Wade earlier in the day if maybe I should relieve her, he replied, "if she's singing, she's happy..." but whatever else he said was drowned out as Jenny attempted to strike the high note on a Hilary Duff song.


When Wade was finally done with his frustrating work on a computer that refused to keep internet connection, he took over for me at 4:00ish. Shortly after we found a reasonable place to stay for the night and threw out our anchors. We had a minor gas leak from one of our containers, so the cabin smelled awful and Wade found the leak and cleaned it out as I made supper and we aired out the cabin. Chicken and rice once again, the beginning of a movie of Wade's (Lost in Translation) that was so scratched up that it froze and we couldn't finish it, and then bed!


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