July 6, 2005 1:36pm Wednesday
Caruthersville, MO
Well, We’ve hit Tennessee and the last town in Missouri.
Last night we passed New Madrid much to my relief. It is always nice to think that you’ve made it past the major fault line. Not that if there were a major earthquake we would only be in danger at New Madrid, but it is a relief that we are past it.
In fact there were reports of some fault disturbances earlier this summer (thanks Arminda for the warning). We looked into it and there may be activity, but it is debatable whether we are just around the corner from “the big one”. The discussion around this particular situation was reduced to a bunch of academics discussing the reliability and validity of their fairly interesting experiments. I personally will embrace the idea that we don’t exactly know when the fault line will become angry and smite us. Could be today could be tomorrow. Perhaps the devastation will hold off for another in twenty years. I just don’t particularly like gambling and don’t intend to speculate at this time.
We also passed our first full crew of jerks. Ten in a johnboat. They passed by a few times yelling and carrying on, but I did not give them the satisfaction of my attention. I wonder when the boys are taken aside and told that they need to yell and scream just for attention. Perhaps it is an instinct imbedded in guys once the testosterone hits the system in full force.
John and I stopped close to 5:30pm in the middle of the east side of the New Madrid bend for a quick break. These fellas took the time out of their day to ask the most intimidating and antagonistic questions.
Did you run out of gas?
You’re not the first to paddle down, but most everyone that tried died.
What is the deal with the whole canoeing thing? Explain it to me.
TODAY, We met a few fellas sailing from Paducah to New Orleans. They were really nice and we had a bit of time to bond with our fellow long distance adventurers. They were having a bit of a time, because their sail broke in the storm that hit the 4th and will probably have a delay while getting it fixed. We may see them in Memphis or later along the way.
We all live on fault lines of sort or another, the Hayward fault is about a half mile from us as the crow flies, and supposedly past overdue, but the fault line I worry about is that line between opposing streams of traffic. Enjoy your journal when a link pops up. Tell John to include links to it more often in his tweets.
Ralph,
Glad you liked the links to Jess’s journals. I’ll put more tweets about them, as you just don’t see many women’s adventure journals out there.
Take care,
-John