The night was miserable. It poured rain all night. My tent was leaking, I should have sealed it before using it. My sleeping bag was wet, everything I had was wet. Fortunately, I was warm still. The benefit of polyester and polypropylene clothing is that when wet will still keep you somewhat warm. Even my sleeping bag, though soaking wet, kept me warm.
After checking to see if my boat was still there I noticed that the creek did not rise more than about 6 inches but I was sill happy that I was wise enough to pull the boat to a very large older tree to tie it up for the night. I drug it back to the bank and started to load it up. Everything was muddy. Everywhere I walk I slogged through the mud. The morning was beautiful, a lovely sunrise and nice warm temperatures. There was nothing much on the agenda today but it would be my longest day so far with 33 miles to paddle I got to it.
My destination was Captina Island, another one of the Ohio River Refuge Islands, but this would be the first one that I camped on. On the way was a McDonalds and Dollar General (there was one of those about every 5 miles on the entire trip.) I found a place to pull over near the town Warwood, West Virginia with Big Macs in my eyes. Irv Oslin had introduced me to a plant called Japanese Knotweed earlier in the trip. Little did I know then that this plant would be my nemesis the rest of the trip. I had about a hundred yards to go to the store, it was entirely up the side of a old train track bed that was covered in my favorite plant up to 6 feet tall at times. I made it to the top and to McDonalds and the Big Mac meal tasted all the sweeter.
As I was going down the hill, I strained a hamstring muscle. Oh that hurt so bad. Limping back to my boat, I was on my way. Miles and miles of endless river finally led me to Captina Island. I found a ledge of a tree root that I could pull my boat up on and tie off. I hacked away at the weed, found a level place. I dug and pulled roots and made a place suitable for my tent, set it and not long after went to sleep.
A Good Paddling At 66! 