1JUN2012 near Blytheville, AR - Once the rain started it stayed around yesterday and last night.  I was awakened by rain and thunder after midnight and right now it is cloudy.  If the canoe survived intact and was not affected by strange peolple I should have a good day.  The owner of the Super 8 motel has agreed to carry me to the river, so I should be underway without much humbug. 
It's interesting to note who one meets while traveling.  I just had breakfast with Tony Kallas who's son is the head of Homeland Security for Wyoming.  Tony has homes in Biloxi, Dixon (IL) and Hanoi ... yes, that Hanoi.  Interesting.
The owner of the Super 8 gave me a ride to the river.  I am touched.  Mr. Patel is of Indian extraction and possibly an immigrant (I did not ask).  Yesterday he told me that he would be my backup plan should i fail to obtain a ride ... so he was as he did.  Wonderful fellow. 
Though out of my watch for two nights, the canoe was just as I left it ... except for lots of water to bail.  I pushed away quickly, bailing as I drifted, wind aiding the drift.  After about 5 miles The Mississippi bent right and I lost the wind boost.  Temperature, though was wonderful, so drifting along was a joy at any pace.  One can sense that Memphis is getting closer.  Airplanes are more noticeable, more people seem to be out on the water and the residences seen are more mansionesque.  Something different is the left bank (Memphis side) having high hills.  Any and all higher ground draws one's gaze basically continuously.  "Bluffs" ... not "Hills" ... often I forget to use the river folk's term for this topography. 
The boat ramp at Osceola is beautiful.  While it is a stretch to call a boat ramp spectacular, this one at least approaches such.  Mark Twain found it special also, using the site in his "Life on the Mississippi", calling it Point Pleasant.  Were I to paddle here again I would opt for two nights here rather than Blytheville.  Let me elucidate ... at the top of the wide, concreted boat ramp is a camping area in which one RV was established.  Room for several more, this is not a large camping area ... just very nice.  The paved parking area is huge and easy to maneuver.  All this is at the north end of a waterfront that occupies about 600 feet of riverbank.  At the south end is a gentle slope down to a wide, sandy beach.  About ten folks were fishing and enjoying the river at this beach and this is the better place for a canoe to beach ... and I did.  Osceola is about 4 miles away, but one gets the feeling that beaching here and obtaining a ride for those four miles would be fairly easy.  Certainly hiking past a sewage discharge and through an industrial area would not happen.           
It was later than I knew when I spied a roof line way up the slope.  Figuring it may be a riverside subdivision I went up and discovered a ruined house, a tractor shed and various agricultural implements.  I set up me tent beside the International tractor under the shed roof and settled in .. and not long before sundown.
Today I paddled from river mile 810 to river mile 767, a distance of 43 miles.  It is now 105 miles to the bridge just below Helena, Arkansas.  I saw one bald eagle today and many herons.  Wildlife sightings are decreasing.