Thursday, June 18, 2015

Day 23: "you don't get to meet a state trooper every day"

We awoke in the sunny town of Natchez, Mississippi, halfway between Vicksburg (or Sicksburg (sick in a good way) for those in the know) and Baton Rouge (or "Red Stick" for those in the know). We were tied off to some trees along the bank just too far to get ashore, so we drifted downstream a touch to a boat ramp where Bennett, Piers and I (Clement) jumped ashore with our nine Terry cans. We began the long walk to the gas station, but, as most gas runs tend to go, someone offered to help us. A woman named Gail stopped us while walking her dog and asked if we needed help. We certainly did, and Gail, who turned out to be friends with Lane (of the Vicksburg chapter of the Lower Mississippi Paddlers Club), told us we could use her truck. NB: she did not drive us, she gave us the keys to her truck and told us she hoped the starter would work. 

We were very happy to drive ourselves around, and stopped by the gas station and The Donut Shop (purveyors of some of the finest coconut donuts this writer has ever had). After unloading the Terrys and dropping off Gail's truck, we could no longer resist Ole Man River's siren song, and pushed off into the eternal current of time and the Mississippi. 

The day passed uneventfully, causing this writer to remark that he always gets the boring days and guess that Boethius' Rota Fortunae has a four day period. The most interesting things that happened were: when Nick and I had to hold onto a tree limb so we could refuel and lots of little bugs crawled off the branch and into our hair; and, when we realized that we ought to dance at the front of the boat when we passed barges, regretting that we had not done so earlier.

Since not that much happened, we have decided to take this time to thank the people without whom this trip would not have happened.

Mark Mitchell (from Maine, not the Muscatine Contrary Brewing Company), who sent us the charts for the Upper Mississippi River, Quimby's 2015 Cruising Guide and a marine radio. Without these things we may have died, either from getting caught on a wingdam, getting eaten alive by mosquitos or getting sucked into the turbines of a dam.

Our parents, for supporting us in this endeavor. Nick's mother picked up Nick and our bags from the airport, let us ship hundreds of boxes of supplies to her house, let us use her car to drive around Milwaukee picking up more supplies, helped us rent the pickup we used to ferry all said supplies to Pewaukee and beyond and, in the words of Nick himself, "put up with this crazy idea."

The Gelly parents had us to stay in Peapack, made us a huge breakfast, drove us to the airport and, in the words of me myself, "put up with this perfectly reasonable idea."

The Gelly's Uncle John kindly donated some weatherproof speakers to the cause, which were used frequently and to great effect.

Manon Lefèvre disabused Piers, her boyfriend, of the notion that a hammock would be sufficient sleeping quarters for this journey, and lent him her nice tent, in which Piers and Clement have slept nearly every night. Thanks, Manon!

River Dog (https://bacshortly.wordpress.com), who has completed several journeys on the river and gave us a huge amount of information and advice without which we would not have known where to begin at all.

Though I was resigned to another slow blog day, the blog day was not over, and some small amount of bureaucratic adventure was still to come. Upon arriving in Baton Rouge, we docked on the side of a casino boat, and Piers walked inside to ask if we could dock there. Fifteen minutes later, Bennett got a text from Piers reading "I'm in the security office and they have my ID." Bennett, Nick and I furiously untied the docking lines and were ready for Piers to sprint out the door and jump onto our escape boat, until we received another text two minutes later which read, "I think it's cool, somebody inside casino broke glass on slot machine so they are on edge." We calmed down and were ready when a few security dudes came out and started chatting with us. Apparently, since the casino is a government organization, they have to report all such incidents to the state police, who have to come get a statement. This is a stupid rule from a stupid government that runs money-sucking hell barges, and alas we were thusly caught in a bureaucratic wormhole for the next hour.

Piers sat across the desk from the head of security while she and the head of surveillance watched footage of the alleged glass-breaking on a loop, trying to determine whether or not they had evidence on their hands. Evidently the suspect had also threatened a casino employee, saying he was going to go to jail for beating up the staff member. 

"It's a dumb reason to go to jail," the head of surveillance said. "You get there and you're like, Why did I do this?" Then he seemed to realize anew that Piers was in the room. "Not that I've ever been to jail," he said. 

Two more officers entered the room. "It's like somebody cracking the whip," one said, and explained that she'd just returned from breaking up an altercation at the hotel. "It was like, 'My ex-boyfriend slept with my next boyfriend,'" she said, shaking her head. "Too many boyfriends."

All three officers gathered around the screen, which Piers could not see, and tried to make sense of the tape. "See," the head said, "there he goes. Whack. Whack. Whack." The head of surveillance said he'd need to see the guy draw back and deal the thing a real blow in order to be convinced.

More bureaucratic cogs were set in motion and eventually, because I am not of age to be on the premises of a casino, I was left outside with a surly security guard who really really wanted his cellphone to contact his "side bitch." I tried to engage with him: 

"Do you see lots of crazy shit working here?"

"Crazy shit? Uhhh yeah all types of crazy shit."

"Oh nice, like what type of stuff?"

"...I dunno, people getting drunk and doing stuff."

"What's, like, one thing that's happened?"

At this point, someone got back to him via radio about his cellphone, and he became otherwise engaged.

Inside, State Trooper Evans gave Piers a few rudimentary sobriety tests, and generally tried to flex his government appointed muscles. Nick commented that when Evans first walked in, Nick thought he was the guy who had broken the slot machine.

He walked us onto our boat, and offered to take a picture. "You don't get to meet a state trooper every day," he said, and we thanked our lucky stars this was true. The picture turned out to be a picture of us, not with us, which is not really an exciting thing for him to offer to do.


We left the casino, found some nearby trees to tie off to, and slept on the deck.

1 comment:

  1. Now it all makes sense. When I told you to read my blog, you have been reading the wrong blog, that of an earlier trip. My blog covers 3 separate Mississippi trips, that of Livinlif.com/wordpress. Check it out sometime! Thanks for the mention though....

    ReplyDelete