Day 37: A long day on the river

On Sunday morning, Richard woke up at 5:05 AM - daylight savings ended began during the nighttime hours. The “moon time” was the same time as the previous day, thus his early rising on Sunday.

Immediately, he looked out of the doorway of his tent and discovered the thick fog covering the river. He took a picture from his tent’s doorway where all he could see was his kayak because of the dense fog. As the fog on the river started to lift, he continued to snap pictures to document the fog of the morning lifting from the surface of the river.

Up on the bluff across the river, he spotted a hole in the trees along the top of the bluff. He thought it made a cool picture, so he snapped a few pictures of this interesting natural composition.

He had his usual cup of coffee for breakfast and started his journey down the river around 7:40 AM. He paddled for 11 hours on Sunday, finally wrapping up at 6:45 PM that evening - he paddled 25 miles in his 11 hours on the river.

During his journey on Sunday, he stopped at Elm Bluff and unpacked his tent and set it out in the sun to dry. He threw his trash in the garbage can and while his tent was drying in the sun, he walked around a parking lot nearby to get some exercise. While walking in the parking lot, he found a penny and a quarter with the heads up on both of them. Richard took this as a sign that today would be a lucky day. After his tent was done drying, he packed up his gear and continued down river.

A few miles downstream, he met a man by the name of Tim Roberts who was out in a Carolina Skiff motorboat. Richard pulled his kayak over to Tim’s boat and began talking to him. Tim lives down river, just past River Oak’s Bed and Breakfast, which is situated right along the river. Tim and Richard made their way over to River Oaks - Tim was going to take some guests staying at the bed & breakfast on a ride down the river in his boat. Once they arrived at River Oaks, Richard met Donna Lowrey, who runs the B&B. Three of the guests were out on the porch, awaiting Tim’s arrival. Doug and Nancy Catrett and Nancy’s sister, Pat Gibson, were all staying at the River Oaks for the weekend. They are all from the Montgomery area and they came to the B&B for a weekend of relaxation.

Richard stayed for a while to visit with Donna and her guests before continuing on his journey. He paddled like a maniac and when the sun started to set, he started to look for an Army Corps of Engineers park - there should be one nearby according to his map of the river. He kept referring to his maps and GPS to double check, but he did not find any parks in the area.

He ended up stopping for the night in an area with lights and a big field with low cut grass. He did not know exactly where he was, but he knew that it must be a populated area since there were houses nearby and someone seems to be keeping the lawn trimmed. When he stopped for the evening, he was tired and cold. He got out of his boat, went up to the bank to see if he could get an idea of where he was, but he didn’t see anything that gave his location away. He decided to stay there for the night. He skipped dinner and went to bed shortly after arriving in camp for the night.