Critical Timing

Photo credit: Rod Wellington

 

This is a picture of Rod Wellington on Dec. 30, camped on a snow-covered sandbar at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.  You really need to open Missouri River Paddlers on Facebook to read his account of the recent weather he has endured.  There are very few that could keep going the way he has.

 

I've been watching his SPOT track, and noticed he arrived at Cape Girardeau, MO, and has now been there four days.  That's very uncharacteristic when he has been striving to make miles to the south.  He posted a short message, and if I interpret it correctly, the Mississippi just south of him has been closed during the daylight of each day for dynamiting of rock in the river bottom to increase depth and allow barges to keep running.  The river is open at night, but he has wisely decided not to challenge the high density of tugs and barges, plus all the Corp of Engineers workboats that suddenly start moving during the night.  He is jammed between horrible weather, the dynamite, and the possibility that the river will be closed to all traffic.