Read part one here if you missed it.
It was 4:00 am when I gave up any attempt at sleep. The alarm would be going off in half an hour anyway and there was no reason to wake the rest of the house so I just shut it off and hit the shower. The night before the MR 340, even for ground crew, offers fitful sleep at best. Your mind races over a mental checklist and struggles to figure out what you're forgetting. Tent? Check. Water? Check. Ice? I'll get that on the way. Insect repellent, coolers, food, sun block, clothes, towels, toilet paper, flashlights, batteries, phone charger, hat and knife? Check. Drill, Skil saw, nail gun, Chainsaw, flare gun, body armor, twin Glocks, holsters, extra magazines, 12 guage, shells, land mines, a bandolier lined with Russian grenades and an EMP device? Pretty sure Jeff will have all that. By five I was at the Quik-Trip loading up on ice but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something.
"Shit! Paddlers!"
Luckily I hadn't gone very far. It would have been a real pain to come back for them after the race started and I was halfway to Lexington. I stopped by Mike's house and tossed him in the back of the car with the rest of the gear, then Jeff's and we were off to Kaw Point.
Patrick, after a couple of weeks of uncertainty following the Freedom Race, had decided he was not up for the 340 and bowed out. Since there wasn't much of an opportunity to find a replacement, (any paddler capable of enduring the race was already signed up) Mike and Jeff had spent the last week re-rigging the 27 foot black behemoth as a tandem. They had already proven it could work, finishing the Freedom Race as a duo, and by removing the center seat and various other bits of dead weight it should run almost as fast as its three man configuration.
The night before, we left it at Kaw Point with at least 100 other boats before signing in and dutifully attending the mandatory safety meeting which was by far the best one yet. With a record number of entrants the room was more full than we had ever seen it and Scott did a fantastic job as always. I have always considered the safety meeting to be my favorite part of the MR 340 but I'm a big fan of air conditioning so take that however you like.
That morning, Kaw Point was a madhouse. Even with a ton of entrants pulling out there were roughly 300 boats and more than twice that many people covering every square inch of land near the ramp. Instead of the usual one news van there were three. It looked like the Missouri American Water MR 340 had hit the big time. The solos were crowding the ramp to put in for their early start and teams and tandems were getting set to go in as soon as the solos were off. The staggered start was necessary with so many boats and it made what could have been a real mess go very smoothly.
Get ready!
Set!
Go!
Lexington: Oh good, it's hot again.
I always get to the first checkpoint too early. The first stretch of the race is one of the longest and the car is fully stocked so there is no point in stopping anywhere. Even if I dilly-dally I'm there an hour after the race starts and then it's 6 more hours of staring at the river before anything happens. It was boiling hot out by 10 am and there wasn't a shade tree for miles.
I did manage to use the time to figure out how to track the guys on my phone using their SmartTracker. I was able to see where they were, how fast they were going and their estimated arrival time at the next checkpoint as long as I had a cell signal. Boats finally started showing up just before 1:00 pm and more than a few would be leaving on the tops of cars. One paddler, and I still don't know who or why, left Lexington in an ambulance. The mood of the waiting ground crews deflated quickly after that and by the time The Paddlephiles pulled in at 3:30 the ramp was all business. They weren't making the best time, but they were in good shape despite the heat. They took on some water and shoved off for Waverly.
Yada yada yada, the boys make Waverly at 7:10 and take a longer break for some warm ramp-burgers in the shade. Now it was time to discuss a plan for the night. The next checkpoint is Miami. With the sun setting and things cooling down we decided to skip stopping there and go straight for Glasgow. This would allow the guys to bank some time against the checkpoint cut-off times, plus it's a much better place to camp than Miami facilities-wise. Frankly, we've always considered stopping for the night in Miami to be a mistake. Getting as far as you can possibly get on the first day is crucial. It's the only day you'll be fresh and ready to paddle. So it was settled, they would check themselves through Miami so I could head straight for Glasgow and make camp. Worst case scenario they would have to stop and sleep on a sand bar which, thanks to the drought, there were plenty of. I didn't expect them to make it until 6 am and not having slept much the night before I was in the tent and asleep by 10.
Mmmm... ramp burgers.
At 5:00 I was up and off to Casey's General Store in Glasgow, the center of their universe as far as I can tell, and grabbed some coffee and ice. The boy scouts were selling hot breakfasts at the ramp so I figured I'd get the guys to eat and then get some rack time. I tried to check the SpotTracker and see when they would be getting in, but Glasgow has always been the absolute worst stop on the race when it comes to cell signals. Not only could I not find them on SpotTracker, I couldn't report back to Julie who was keeping the rest of the Paddlesphere updated via Facebook. I couldn't even call 911 if I had to. All I could do was sit at the ramp and wait. And wait...
By 8:00 it was pretty clear they had stopped to get some sleep along the way. I had no way of knowing how long they stopped or where they were so I had no idea how long I would be waiting. If I wanted to get a cell signal to track them I'd have to drive to Booneville and I couldn't leave for that long since they could be showing up any minute. As the morning wore on, I did drive around Glasgow a bit hoping to find some kind of signal. I managed to get maybe half a bar, which was enough to receive a text from Julie who had been following the SpotTracker. She said it looked like only one of them was paddling. So now I knew they were moving slow. The signal was gone before I could reply though so I still had no idea how far away they were or when they might arrive. More waiting.
They finally coasted in about noon and we pulled the boat out of the way and got them off the water for a while. The extra 6 hours out there without meeting up had run them out of everything. Maybe stopping in Miami wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all. Jeff was restocking the boat when Mike came up the ramp looking for food. The hot breakfast burritos had been replaced by hot pulled pork sandwiches which, good as they were, are not ideal meals for endurance paddling. Mike was eating one anyway when he dropped the bomb on me.
"I'm done..."
Read the thrilling conclusion!
