Apologies for the slow updates the past few days. I was traveling through BFE (which was beautiful) and did not have a data signal and low battery.

Yesterday was beautiful. 75 degrees and sunny. I woke up, paddled ten minutes and was in Elizabethtown, IL. There I had an enormous breakfast (biscuits/gravy, country ham, eggs, hashbrowns and FREE coffee) for $6 and shoulda had them cook me another one to go.

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After that I wanted to hurry and get on the straightaway toward Paducah. The way the winds were moving it looked like I would for the first time this trip…have a tailwind. Getting around the corner to get to that straightaway was difficult though. The first 9 miles kicked my butt with a pretty powerful headwind coming off the high Illinois sheer rock, but I was correct in my assumption and had a tailwind for the next 20 some miles thereafter.

I stopped after locking in Smithton, finding a nice sandbar around 1am. It was pretty chilly last night getting into the low 50s and there was a very cool fog that hung above the water the last hour or two of paddling.