04-16-2015

Thursday April 16, 2015

Awoke to continued rain after it rained almost all night. Hopefully there will be more water in river and not so many rapids.

Sadly, Amilio’s was closed, which means the restroom was closed. Yikes! So John went to find another available restroom since they frown upon peeing in public places. My hero found a restroom at a car dealership. Upon returning from his restroom hunt, John discovered an apple, caramel, and a canister of fuel sitting outside our tent. Apparently, Emma had secretly visited. Wonderful people!

Kyle (Detroit free press, Philadelphia paper, covered the story when Mandela was released, Rwanda, etc.) from the Pharos Tribune came to take our picture for Tuesday’s paper. Not just one picture but an entire photo shoot from different angels of us eating breakfast, tearing down camp, packing boats, rolling boats to “boat launch” (a very rocky slope), taking off wheels, re-packing the boats, launching, and paddling down the river. (He drove his car down the river following us and taking pictures of us.) He is going to post a photo gallery for us of the photo shoot.

Lots of shallows (I call them rapids) again today. This is stressful to me. I thought we would be passed the rapids by now. The foliage is changing, becoming more lush, while the soil is sandier. (Is this mire?) As we continue there are more islands. (John says the difference between an island and a sandbar is a tree. So if an island has just one ash tree on it and it dies, it becomes a sand bar?) Although I was aware there were islands in the Mississippi, I didn’t realize there were islands in the Wabash.

Our wild life spottings for today were our first Cormorant, and a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers.

We found a great campground along the river, French Post Park, French fur trading post. It had a boat ramp, pavilion, port-a-pot (Al Buttice, the caretaker, just had it delivered yesterday – God is preparing the way for us), water, electricity, (Al turned on the water and electricity when he came to collect our $10 camping fee), and a teepee. (it is a very historical spot.) Al lives on SR 218 near here and goes to ER (a seed store outside of Monroe, Indiana) to buy seeds for his garden (the same place I buy seeds). He also takes some antique trucks to the Tractor and Engine show in Portland, Indiana. It’s such a small world!

We then talked with Cyndy Evers (our Food Cache Coordinator) to arrange for our next box to be delivered to Covington, Indiana. We had her remove some items from this box too. After this, we should be back on schedule, since not as many people are feeding us.

We saw our first powered watercraft when a fishing boat used the French Post Park boat ramp to launch.

Tonight’s entree was Southwestern lasagna and strawberry shortcake. Now we are sitting by a fire – what a treat! Camping without a fire (our norm) just doesn’t seem complete.