Finishing The Mississippi River 2006

The information on this site covers our "finishing" trip down the Mississippi River. This completes my total paddling of the Mississippi over a period of about 5 years. I became enticed with the idea of traveling the length of the Mississippi as a young boy when I went to the Headwaters in Lake Itasca State park where I of course got to walk across the Mississippi. As I was growing up I heard about people canoeing the River or other types of water craft.

The is the first loading of our boat at Cairo, Ill.
The first time is the most challenging as everything
doesn't want to fit in as we imaged. So lots of decisions
to make before we head on down the River.

My dream was set in place in my adult life when I purchased a sea kayak and started to do sections of the River. As I did more and more of them putting them together end to end I then had a clear image of how I could do the whole River.
These earlier section trips were in the late '90s while I was still working full time and didn't have the flexibilty to take a month off at a time for just something that I wanted to do.
In June of 05 I was able to retire from Dex Media after 41 years so the completing of the River was now a goal that I was really to achieve.

My traveling partner.
In 1993 I met Tim Goodsell on a dogsled trip in the Minnesota Boudary waters. Since then we have made numerous trips in all seasons being most paritial to traveling on water, ice, or over snow.
A interesting point of bonding between Tim and I is that we were born on the same day, same year, and Tim is five and a half hours older than I. The other major point is that at this stage of life there aren't that many people who still like to camp out and sleep under the stars in tents.

Big tows and our kayak
Here is an example of what it is like paddling next to the big tows that travel the lower Mississippi River waterway. Since there are no locks from above St Louis to Gulf of Mexico the tows are commonly made up of 35 barges and one big powerful tow boat. Interesting that they call them "tow" boats when they are "pushing" the barges.
The kayak we used for this trip was a 21 foot tandem boat which provided to be the absolutely right choice. The right choice as it has enough capacity to carry everything we needed.
In front is Tim Goodsell, a seasoned Artic traveler from Chicago, and in the rear is Jerry Sorensen, a seasoned water traveler from St Mary's Point, Minnesota. The two of us have traveled many miles together on the Mississippi River, among the Apostle Islands, over frozen water in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, and other fresh water rivers.

Prayer Flags in the Wind
I believe that when out with nature it is a good practice to recognize that I am willing to be within nature and appreciate what it is about to share with me. I or you must be ready to move in harmony with nature and flying the prayer flags reminds me to be in this mode.We will see sunrises, sunsets, clouds of ever shape, the sun to light our way and warm meus, water to satisfty our thrist, in some trips to carry us forward, and earthly elements to provide shelter.
The flags are blowing straight out as they hang from the paddles dug into the sand.