Day 17: got 99 problems but a beach ain't one

Hello world. Grommeter here.

Groggy-headed and a little bit sore after the previous night's bickering, we awoke to fair tidings from the River and weather. The sky was blue, just the way we like it. Crimper, Dockenstein (Piers's new river name, bestowed by the great River Dog) and I packed up our tents and cooked a mean cuppa Joe beneath a rising Jupiter while a taciturn River Hair packed his back-sack for a day's mingling in the Cape and Beyond, namely Memphis, where he was due for an appointment with a roll of bureaucratic red tape in order to acquire a passport for future ventures. After bidding the World's Greatest Brothers and a medium-to-light abstainer adieu, River Hair hopped over the dock gate and dispersed into dawn. 

And then there were three: Crimper, Dockenstein, and Grommeter. We sipped out Joe silently, thinking fond thoughts of our dear River Hair, before setting to work raising the mizzen mast and shipping out from the Cape.

Despite our sadness at leaving a comrade behind (albeit briefly), River Hair's departure signaled a lightening of unspoken agreements previously undertaken whilst aboard S.S. Cat-Sass. I, Grommeter, removed my shirt  and tanned my prodigious areolae. Dockenstein felt at liberty to sing out loud, and Crimper didn't brush his teeth, the rogue. What a day it was to be.

And thus began the first leg of the 160 miles we were slated to accomplish that day. After some time at-River, Cat-Sass pulled into a shady sand-nook just outside of the fair city of Cairo (pronounced "CARE-o") in order to fill the red bellies of our empty Terrycans. Unfortunately, South of St. Louis all marina-life disappears and River-voyagers are forced to dock at city limits and trek into town. Wise to a shortcut that would allow us quick route to the town's only gas station (one Cut Mart) Dockenstein did what he does best, dock. Crimper, Dockenstein, and I found ourselves at the edge of a cattailed morass some ways, it seemed, from civilization. But no matter; onward! we cried, to Cut Mart, to Adventure! After rambling through tall grass, tromping over the crest of a tiny hill, skirting the edge of a glassine pond, and walking the length of a dusty farm road, we found ourselves in a deserted Cairo. We walked the long, straight road into town. 37th Street. For many minutes we saw no one. The only sign of life was a barking dog whose ferocity guarded a house with signs on its fence that read: "If I find you here tonight, they'll find you here in the morning" and "There's nothing here worth dying for."

Finally we reached Cut Mart and met a friendly Eric, the gas station attendant, who told us that if we waited there long enough someone would swing by to give us a ride back to the boat. Each 5 gallon Terrycan, when full, weighs a mean 30 pounds, so this advice was much appreciated.  After sating our gas-thirst Dockenstein stood at the side of the road and stuck his thumb out, trying his best to look non-threatening and, in your humble narrator's humble opinion, achieving this goal. And yet, alas! Not a single vehicle would stop, despite the fitness of Dockenstein's thumb-form. Then Crimper had an excellent idea: if we put two Terrycans at Dockenstein's feet, passersby would perhaps think his car broke down and not that he was a blood-hungry serial killer. This immediately did the trick: mere moments after artfully placing the Terrycans a baby-faced man in a Green Lantern cut-off tank pulled his black pickup into the lot and offered us a ride. Mark was his name and small acts of charity was his game. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. 

After our gas voyage in Cairo there is little to report of the day save a Close Encounter of the Barge-Kind. At midday we needed to refuel our tank so we motored to the side of a channel and stopped there, unaware that a barge was just around the corner. During the time it took for the tank to glug that octane we drifted right into the path of the incoming barge. With a marriage of panic and fear in our hearts we finished the job with little time to spare and went to start the engine. This was hardly the time for a finicky starter, but finick it did, and we found ourselves dead in the water with a barge bearing down on us. But do not fear, gentle Reader, for the very fact that I am writing to you today proves that we were able to start the engine in just the Grommeter of time and motor away to safer pastures. With a sigh of relief we vowed that from then on we would only refuel when tied off to shore.

Over the course of the next hundred miles we discovered a refueling method of surefire safety: find a sandy shore and beach our dear Cat-Sass there. And beach with did, with considerable beachy aplomb. We even might've fixed (I hesitate to say) our finicky starter! We gave her a dram of WD-40 and she's been purring ever since.

Finally, come dusk, we pulled into the industrial harbor of Carruthersville, Missouri and tied up for the night in the shadow of a fertilizer plant. Crimper cooked up a mean chili concoction and bestowed the name "Crimper's Brown Meal" upon it. With our hearts and tummies full, we set up our tents and bedded down for the night while Jupiter lowered her astronomic bulk beneath the dusky Missouri tree line.