Leaving hotel calafornix

I was paddling down the river and a couple guys with shotguns let off a few rounds toward me. I couldn’t tell if they didn’t see me or if they were trying to shoot me but I sent a slug their way and they retreated. Floating down the Ohio River during hunting season, in daylight one is probably in the scopes crosshairs more often than not. In Augusta, which was a cool town, a fellow called me Wyatt Earp. I had a mail drop in Foster, a letter from my folks with twenty bucks. I’d stashed the firearms in a tough place to get to that required scaling a cliff a ways about a hundred feet from the boat. On the way back I stopped at the riverside tavern, and ordered a slice of pizza. I was sitting there watching some kids playing around the boat and asked the proprietor if I he’d store my firearms while I ate dinner and played pool. He threw me out of the place. Man, it sure got dark quick.

Local police officers met me at the boat ramp. The hammers were back on their drawn weapons. I was half way out under the cliff when “Barney” said, “Freeze!” I did, and explained the situation. They wanted to see the firearms. Right away! “No sudden moves.” I slowed down. “Don’t slip!” I got the guns for them, and ended up face down on the ramp, cuffed, with a cocked 45 to the back of my head. Fortunately, State Police Officer “Andy” showed up and told “Barney” to calm down, put the gun away, he’s cuffed up, he’s not going anywhere. “Andy” let me go. From here on when I went into town I unloaded the firearms and stashed them in the boat, taking the shells with me.

All along the river I’d go into the many towns and hustle pool for five or ten bucks a game, a pack of cigarettes, or drinks. The locals loved the idea of going down the river to New Orleans. It seemed like I walked in the door as they were dreaming about it. The girls were buying me drinks. About once every other week I’d walk into Karaoke night and sing “House of the Rising Sun”. As legend tells it, the House of the Rising Sun is a whorehouse, or a plantation. Depends how you look at it. The lyrics are a warning about drinking, gambling, and hustling. It was an ironic crowd pleaser that I sang with my own lyrics. To me the House of the Rising Sun is where the force that is realized when the day begins lives, the green flash.

If you’re lucky the green flash just might hit ya with some of that special light. Starting in the east a flashing wave of pure green energy races over you to the west. If you blink you’ll miss it, if not expecting it you’ll be startled, if blind you still might pick up on it, and then its day. Seems to bring along a rush of energy with it. I like my green flash with coffee, citrus, oatmeal, and tobacco.

Paddled down the river a few miles and took shelter for a couple days from a big storm on the north side of the river. I set up camp in the lee of a fallen tree and hiked around. I do a lot of this. It is pleasant to just walk around and look at things. I think this is where I picked up the mouse that decided to live in the bow floatation box. It took me a while to figure out I was carrying my own mouse. The scratching of its toenails against the hull of the boat would wake me up. It would drop out of the box as I was falling asleep, and return as I was waking up. It served as a watch mouse while I was sleeping and would jump into its box and wake me up when something came into camp. This was nice.

I rowed into the town of Rising Sun Indiana and enjoyed a complimentary stay in the luxury suite of the “Riviera”, hot tubs with a river view, perfect! Paddling down the river at night, dodging barges. The water moves the fastest in the center of the channel. There’s lighted channel markers on the riverside that guide traffic. The barges have lights on them too and one must keep an eye out for these. The ones heading downstream are quite plus they come from behind and can easily sneak up on a fellow. They usually pick you up on their radar and hit you with the spotlight. Put your sunglasses on and close one eye.

I floated into Louisville and pulled the boat up on to the river plaza. “Joe’s Crab Shack” was jumping for the Gator’s game, I had the soft shell crabs and then went to the “Bank Shot” billiards hall. This place was nice, but the competition was a little stiffer here. Someone suggested I go to “PT’s”. This is a gentlemen’s club. My money wasn’t any good in here either! I was fortunate to have cleaned up at the “Riviera’s” executive suite. Somehow the girls recognized me here. I thought this was kind of odd. I kicked back while three or four of the Louisville girls gave me a massage, and looked into the mirror on the ceiling. Somehow the reflection wasn’t the same as the image viewed through my eyes. The girls appeared like wraiths in the mirror. A couple more girls started kissing me. I knew something was going on, this trip was really getting interesting, but I was just paddling a canoe down the river. Wow, Louisville’s “PT’s” is a sweet place. The girls couldn’t believe it when I checked out at 11:30. I hadn’t seen midnight yet in one of these places, kinda a Cinderella pumpkin avoidance technique.

There is a lock and dam to descend the former Falls of the Ohio just below Louisville. It was just below here, I think, that I saw a guy down by the river sleeping next to a fire trying to stay warm. I’d read about and had been warned again, just a few days before this as well, not to sleep next to a fire. The best thing to do is dig a hole and start a small fire, stay close to it while it’s lit and later cover it up with sand and sleep on top of it. Then you’ll be warm all night long. The tendency when sleeping next to a fire is to roll into it as the fire gets smaller. Then you catch on fire while you’re sleeping. Apparently, this kills a lot of people.

I saw the guy roll into the fire. His sleeping bag started to burn. I was more towards the other side of the river and just a little downstream when I saw this. If I had been closer I would have immediately tried to help, but I was far away. For a few seconds I debated in my mind whether I could actually get there in time to help this fellow. The sleeping bag’s fire grew. I decided I couldn’t get there in time and if I had the fellow might be so burnt that he might not be happy I pulled him out, and I kept floating downstream. The sleeping bag was engulfed in flames. I was crying. I’d been presented with an opportunity to try and help someone and I didn’t. I’d missed my chance when I entered into the debate in my mind about whether I could have an effect and if it would be good. The timing and proximity of the opportunity as it presented itself tortured my soul. If I had been ten seconds earlier or closer to the shore I could have easily saved this fellow’s life.

I woke up in duck blind to a light snow Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I was so thankful, and was thinking what the chances were of me landing at a Thanksgiving Feast. I literally paddled around the next bend and saw the biggest house I’d seen yet. I was on the other side of the river a quarter mile away when a fellow stepped out on to the second floor landing and hailed me. I paddled over of course. This place had ultralight airplanes and a Jet Ranger helicopter in the back yard. Two guys walked down to the river, one of them looked like the lumberjack Paul Bunyon. I thrust my bow up on the shore and Mr. Bunyon said to his buddy, “Well hell, he can’t be that bad he’s got a sawed off shotgun and half gallon of whiskey in his boat.” This was funny, apparently they were worried about me being some kind of tree hugger. I sure had a good disguise. Turns out Paul Bunyon owned the largest timber operation in the area. They invited me up for Thanksgiving dinner.

The owner of the restored wick dam lodging house was a very nice fellow and his wife graciously washed all of my stuff while I oiled my firearms and boots. They thought I was a trip and were extremely interested in what I was doing. It was the best Holiday meal I ever had, duck, goose, turkey, ham, beef, venison, four different kinds of salad, casseroles, cake, 3 or 4 different kinds of pies and enough happy people to eat most of it. I was pretty fortunate here, floating up just in time for the biggest spread on the river. After dinner the owner and I stayed up late drinking JD and coke and talking about fortune and JC. He told me if anyone found him, I would, if I kept up what I was doing. Just before we fell asleep he said he wanted me to surrender my firearms. I told him they were in a bucket in the basement and the shells were in the boat. He fell asleep. They must have left the heater on that night or something cause when we woke up in the morning it felt like it was a hundred degrees. The next morning after breakfast, I jumped in the boat and they gave me a half dozen turkey sandwiches, a turkey fuelled run.

Paddling down the river at night in sometimes freezing rain or melting snow conditions, dodging barges, while running a beaver gauntlet in late fall, might sound bad. It’s really kind of exciting and calming at the same time. I listen to NPR. The river is warmer than the air and water vapor rises from the surface and condenses into fog. It kind of looks like the river is on fire. The riverside is lined with great herons, a tremendous bird that rise startlingly with an ancient cry when approached. A dramatic violin introduced into a calm musical piece will get one stirred up, too. It seems like there is a great heron about every half mile, or the same one I spooked up goes downstream a ways. At any rate, when near the side of the foggy river I begin to anticipate this creature launching itself out of the bushes towards the open water and me, unfolding its monstrous wings, and squawking like a pterodactyl. It seemed that when approached regularly the bird was anticipating my arrival. This could be because the heron overheard the previous confrontation or was the same bird that flew down stream. This resulted in the heron taking off twenty feet in front of the boat, not that scary. However, if a heron hadn’t been rustled up over a few miles the proximity to the beast when eventually encountered decreased in some kind of proportion to the increasing distance from the last encounter. So, if I hadn’t disturbed a heron over a long period of travel I knew that when I did it would be very disturbing.

Herons are partly cloudy or fog colored and stand motionless along the river in the bushes. It’s a challenge to spot one before he spots you. Just as I was figuring all this out one night I went down the river for several hours without running into a great heron. Of course the rivers fire was smokier than usual and the light snow was melting into rain. The public radio station was playing haunting music that extremely slowly faded into silence as the batteries succumbed but periodically pulsed so the whole spooky ensemble was not forgotten. Over the last half dozen miles I’d gradually ended up more on the balls of my feet than sitting on the edge of my chair. I was attempting to find this creature before it found me. It got late and I was tired. I slid back in my chair and decided to pull in and go to sleep. Oh! This looks like a good spot. The creature was here. The radio throbbed as the “terrordactyl” dove out spreading its wings and screaming.

Two days after Thanksgiving, I could hear the Jet Ranger coming down the river and started spinning my canoe around in circles. They gave me a very close fly bye and landed in an adjacent cornfield. I got off the river and the owner of the place ran out from under the helicopter and explained they were almost out of fuel and couldn’t figure out how I’d gotten down this far on the river in two days. He was laughing, I told him it was the turkey sandwiches. He gave me a carton of Viceroy’s (tobacco) and twenty bucks. He told me I’d make it. Jet Ranger Special Delivery.

If I went into town during daylight hours I invariably ended up in a confrontation with a 15 to 16 year old girl who curiously would look like Laura Ingles, and was on the verge of running away on some wild adventure. I advised them to go home. The repetition of this scenario was hilarious. I asked for it I guess, so I had to deal with it. It’s hilarious to slide into another town for goods and find this almost identical girl seemingly stalking me again. After a while I got the joke, this is what I’d asked for. I took note and became very careful about what it was I requested, or made known I wanted.

The beavers periodically slap their tails on the water while slipping down the river at night. At some point in a long trip alone, what with all the free time you have to think, you may consider what it is that you’re thinking about when the beaver slaps its tail on the water. Could the two be connected? This seems nuts at first, but if considered and practiced, can be revealing. To me, as I practiced beaver tail control ideas it seemed that I could predict the event before it happened. Then I ended up snapping my fingers and getting some tail action. This lead to my own beaver symphony. Man, I’m running the show, this is wild! And then unannounced, or was it?, one slaps its tail right next to me and I get soaked. Hmmmm.

Something really weird happened around Shawnee Town. You can probably see that this trip down the river has turned into some kind of mysterious, puzzling trial. Going into town is part of the show and the characters one meets are unbelievable, and what they say is incredible. Plus, they give you all kinds of stuff. I wanted to make sure I collected all the clue’s that presented themselves. Several times throughout the day as I floated down the river, folks, mostly in boats, warned me about rough water ahead. They mentioned roiling bubbles and a misty smoke rising from the whole mess. I knew it was a navigable channel, but they waved this idea off. Their descriptions of this rough water were unusual.

After dinner I got back on the river and paddled a few more miles. I took a sip of whiskey and wished I had a soda pop to wash it down and a doobie to go with it. I got into Shawnee Town before midnight and the place was slow, three or four buildings and a dusty unpaved parking lot. I tried to get in one establishment but the proprietor turned the open sign to closed and locked the bolt as I walked up to the door. Hey, can I get a coke? Nope. I was standing around in the dust of this town wondering if a clue would show up. I’d had interesting things happen in every town I’d been in, good stories to tell and a doobie at every spot. I waited for a couple of minutes. The same instant that I figured to head back to the river, I heard a car stomp on the accelerator and could see headlights coming down the hill racing in my direction.

The guy was driving like he was late for an appointment. A minute later an old dark colored sedan screeched to dusty halt next to me. The trunk popped open as he stopped, I couldn’t tell if it was just broken and he hadn’t fixed it yet or he was planning to load or unload something. The fellow, who could best be described as “Beatlejuice”, the exorcist, stayed in the car. He was in character as well which added to the drama. He raised his elbow and showed me his armpit. We sort of sized each other up. Betelgeuse is a red giant star, the second brightest in the Orion constellation, or the armpit of the central one. He turned away from me and reached across the front seat into the passenger footwell and rummaged around in a bag. He pulled out a soda pop and cracked it open and took an obviously delightful swallow. He looked at me for a reaction, which I gave him by subtlely cocking my head, smiling, and raising my eyebrow. Soda pop was kind of what I was thinking I desired when I came into town, helps get the whiskey down. He offered me one which I accepted. He had several doobies too, layed out on his dashboard but I passed on them. Beetlejuice gave me the wildest warnings and directions about this misty smoky rough water ahead, too, cause I asked him about it.

“Cave in Rock” is infamous for its history. During the western rush the skull shaped cave lied below some rapids on the north side of the river just around the inside of a bend. River travelers with everything they had on a raft, had heard of the rapids. They undoubtedly were looking for some local knowledge to help them through the fearsome stretch. This would present itself on the river or its side. A fellow might promise to guide them safely through for a price, or just as easily in this case tell them to stay as far to the right as possible. At the end of the rapid, the wash out, the big eddy, the same forces that carved out the cave are on the right side. Here, they’d be “saved” by some friends of their guide, who would take ALL the stuff. Then they slit open their bellies and sewed them shut full of river rocks and sank them. The Mason Gang hung out here, followed by Wilson’s Liquor Vault and House of Entertainment which was a more advanced and easier way off separating a family from their stuff. Then the Baptist church moved in. Now it’s an Illinois State Park.

I listened to the warnings about rough water but ignored the directions I had been given and trusted my judgment, which I formed using my own faculties. There isn’t any rapids now, the river has been damned. A few minutes after I showed up at the cave a fellow about like me came down with a hookah, bubbling smoky water. The Cave was a perfect natural made bar. When viewed from the river it is shaped like a human skull. Inside it’s got a counter top wrapping around the cave, and even a storage room. I started a fire down by the river in front of the cave and cooked supper. When the spoon scraped the bottom of the pot I was illuminated from above. “You can’t sleep here”, said the park ranger standing on the cliff above the cave holding a flashlight.

One cold crispy night I had just consumed my ration of whiskey and was sitting very close to the small fire I’d just cooked dinner on when I heard some creatures scrambling around in the patch of woods behind me. It sounded like one large creature was chasing another even larger creature. It was getting closer and sounded violent and desperate. I grabbed my shotgun turned around without getting up and tried to see into the dark woods. A very large coyote or wolfish dog burst out of the bush and appeared to circle something in the wood and was coming closer to me. This was exciting, something was going on. I stayed focused, making sure I wasn’t on the menu. Suddenly, someone hailed me from the river, “Hallo”! I spun back around with my sawed off and there was a dwarf sitting on a milkcrate in a kayak paddling upriver! This was bizarre and the timing was interesting. The dwarf hailed me as the scene behind me reached a climax. It was wild to have a large Canis stalking something several feet away from me and then have my attention diverted to a kayaking dwarf. The dwarf disappeared quickly upstream, he may not have found the shotgun very welcoming. The Canis melted back into the wood. Sometimes I get the feeling this is some kind of trial. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do either.

I pulled into Paducah, Ky at night and strolled into town. I met a woman who said she’d been sent out to help me in particular and gave me ten bucks. This is funny, trying to be a river hustler and having little old ladies give you money. She had a neat sparkle in her eye. We talked for a while.

I was cleaning my firearms while I listened to the game. It’s nice to have two firearms, then you’ve got one ready to go while you’re cleaning the other one. I’d already cleaned my shotgun and had taken my pistol apart when a beaver emerged from the river, walked up to the fire, and rose up, leaning back on his tail. He had a stick in his hand. He started smacking the palm of his other paw with the stick and let out a fierce rasping growl. Then he lifted the stick and chewed on it aggressively, lowered the stick and growled again. He looked like he was going to make a move. So I drew out my sawed off and fired a #7 upland game round (this is mouse ammo, but it’s still a lot of lead) at four feet. The beaver didn’t flinch, and I hit him with the whole cartridge, he growled even louder than before and chewed on his stick menacingly. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with this one, and kinda sat there stunned for few seconds. I figured I’d better stand up, as it looked like we were going to fight. He was big, but when I stood up he very slowly turned and went back to the river. A bulletproof beaver. I still slept well.

The night before I got on the Mississippi it dumped snow. In the morning I couldn’t find my anchor, it was gone. I’d lost my anchor on the Ohio. Watch out for the wicket dams on the lower Ohio, they’re wicked perhaps more so because the water level was low. I almost bought the farm on the last one, it was treacherous and extremely close to unnavigable.

Tell Barge Story

Cairo, Il is pronounced “kayro” like the corn syrup. Which makes sense cause a lot of our corn comes down past here. I went into town for supplies and was also looking to find “Jim” and descend the Mississippi together. I really wanted to drop down the Miss. with a black fellow, I thought this would make for a good story. I couldn’t find “Jim” in town and had accepted the apparent solo fate. When I got back to my rig with groceries there was a black guy sitting there on a block of concrete next to my canoe. Man, what luck I figured as I excitedly approached the situation, this is unbelievable! Turns out somehow this guy seemed like he knew what was on my mind, and immediately explained why he would not be accompanying me downstream. It was to #$@!% dangerous, but I’d be fine he assured me. I was disappointed to hear he wasn’t coming but appreciated the vote of confidence. This was hilarious.

I’d made it to the Mississippi and was now heading south. This was great because it was getting cold. A quick glance at the airplane chart I’d been given on Thanksgiving showed that the river formed a big bend around Wolf Island Bar. It looked like I could leave the main channel and shortcut the bend in the river by paddling down the inside of the island. This would cut several miles out of my trip. I stayed in the middle of the river as I took the shortcut. It was a great day and the wind was calm. I listened to the radio and enjoyed a cold floating lunch of sardines in mustard sauce drenched in 52-20 hot sauce on crackers with an apple and water. I few miles away a tugboat tower could be seen above some small trees on the tail of the island. It looked like he had stopped and I was sitting there wondering why when I noticed some extremely rough water on the river.