Mississippi River Source to Sea: Gulf or Bust
Spoiler Alert: I finished.
75 days. 2310 miles.
Source-Lake Itasca, Minnesota
Sea-Venice, Louisiana
It’s been just over a week since I’ve finished my source to sea rowing trip down the Mississippi River and I’m still processing it all. But really I’ve adjusted back to “the real world” in a snap. I was beyond ready to be done and off the river. I didn’t really need time to reflect over the trip because I had 10+ hours a day to think about it while I was rowing. Plus I had only been back on the river for 16 days after taking 6 weeks off to go work an event in New York City. So it was the final push and my eyes were set on the gulf.
I put back in on September 27th, where I had got out on August 12th, just North of Greenville, Mississippi. I was expecting to be a little rusty and not able to do the big miles I had previously worked myself up to, but the cooler temperatures for the first couple days helped me get back in the swing and I was busting out 35+mile days. I was also facing a shorter amount of daylight hours so I tried to get off the river around 5 to give myself enough time to set up camp and cook dinner before the sun set around 6:30. After the first couple days of cooler weather passed it was replaced with super humid days in the 80s. I remember sitting in my tent at night sweating. I never felt I could get clean and wasn’t washing up in the river due to being paranoid about alligators. I also decided to leave the rainfly on my tent at night, which kept it warmer because no air flow, but was necessary due to the dew in the morning. Everyday I woke to a wet tent that I then hung from my mirror on the canoe to dry throughout the day. And the bugs! The bugs seemed to be more of a problem. I made the mistake of exiting my tent one evening after a short rainfall to get water and pee and was instantly attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes. Once I got back in the tent I spent a good 15 minutes killing the dozens of mosquitoes that made it in there while the flap was open, my tent and sleeping pad streaked with blood battle signs. It was a running “type 2 fun” joke for me, the mosquito massacre. Every time a mosquito got in my tent I said, “this motherf’er wants to die”. I shined my headlamp and could see and hear thousands of mosquitoes in the section between my main tent and the rainfly. Ugh. I just kept thinking, how did I do this for 2 months prior!
After a week back on the river I made it to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and from there the river was a clusterf**k. I absolutely hated that stretch of river from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. I would have skipped it if I had known how shitty it would be. The river was full of parked barges lining the river banks, tugs, and ocean-going ships. Leading up to that point I already had a contentious relationship with the barges; I loathed them. I didn’t use a marine radio (probably a good and bad thing), but I thought the barges were intentionally out to get me. I just kept feeling like they didn’t want anyone else on the river and that since they’re the big dog they’d do whatever they want. I thought they were rude and mean just from interpreting how they navigated the barges. Okay…it all seems a bit ridiculous once I type it out, but I was really worked up by them on the river. I would hug the banks and try to be out of their way but I wasn’t going to just stop for them, when they had ample room on the half-mile wide river. Plus it was difficult to see what they were doing from far away and from the low perspective of the canoe. Sometimes I would just sit there staring at them trying to figure out what they were thinking and if I should cross the river or not to be out of their way. It was a constant strategic move. But anyway, back to the devil stretch of river, it was full of industry so I was passing oil, gas, pipeline, etc stations/docks lining the river and being the fossil-free, environmentalist that I am, I hated it. Then since the banks were lined with barges I was forced to row in the middle of the river with more traffic and was exposed to the wind and wily currents. One of the worst days was when I was rowing in the middle facing an extreme headwind and I could literally stand up in my boat holding my oars to push through the choppy 3 ft wave water and stand still that’s how hard the wind was. Every stroke was back-breaking and my canoe bow would slam down on the water after coming down from a wave. I could see people on the decks of the ships towering 10 stories over me looking down at me and I imagined they must have thought I was insane to be out on the river in that. At one point I think a rescue boat came out to check on me, but I kept pushing.
I was getting closer to New Orleans when Hurricane Michael was approaching the Florida panhandle. I was dealing with wind and there were a couple days when I did low-mileage days rather than fight it. It pushed my finish date back by a couple days which was difficult for me to accept but luckily my dad was around and I was able to stay the nights in a hotel. I kept checking the weather and luckily for NOLA the hurricane completely bypassed and we didn’t even get any rain. Then immediately after New Orleans the river traffic dissipated and I was able to follow along the banks again. What a relief. There was even a brief window where I had it all to myself again, and it made me nostalgic for the upper sections of the river when it was like that and I took it for granted.
By then I was really on the lookout for alligators. I had been paranoid about seeing one since before Memphis, but that worry proved fruitless as I never saw one. I actually feel a bit gypped, because I did want to see one, as long as it was not coming after me. As I approached the town of Venice, Louisiana, I had to make the decision of whether or not to continue all the way to the gulf. Venice was at the end of the road system which meant that if I kept going I would either have had to row back upstream or get a hitch from a boat. Venice is 10 miles from Mile 0 at the Head of the Passes where the river splits into different routes to the Gulf, which is still aways from the Gulf. After checking out the main resource I used on the trip, the Mississippi River Paddlers facebook group, I decided to just stop at Venice. Sure, I’m a bit upset that I didn’t get to see the Gulf of Mexico and as the trail purist that I am it bothers me, BUT I’ll reference the trail slogan “hike your own hike.” This is my trip and I can do whatever I damn well please. So I stopped at Venice on Saturday, October 13th, after one last stroke of millions that I made over 2310 miles.
Now, if you’ve been paying attention at all you’d probably have gathered that I didn’t have the best of times on this trip. I definitely suffered through most of it. Most days I didn’t enjoy it and I was angry. There were days where I had break down upon break down. It would have been easy to quit since I wasn’t having fun, but that’s not who I am and I would rather suffer and get through it because that’s where the growth lies. I believe in constantly challenging yourself and digging deep to persevere. And that’s a great way to really get to know yourself. This adventure wasn’t Sara vs the Mississippi River but rather, allowing the river to continue sending me on the never-ending journey of becoming the best version of myself. Not to mention giving me a new perspective of the world from the middle of the big muddy, aka the mighty Mississippi.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, which describes this force of nature river so accurately that when I read it I could tell he was intimate with the river and that only those that had spent countless days navigating her would recognize the cruel monotony and solitude he speaks of.
“League after league, it pours its chocolate tide along, between its solid forest walls, its almost untenanted shores, with seldom a sail or a moving object of any kind to disturb the surface and break the monontony of the blank, watery solitude; and so the day goes, the night comes, and again the day—and still the same, night after night and day after day—-majestic, unchanging sameness of serenity, respose, tranquillity, lethargy, vacancy—symbol of eternity..”
A huge THANK YOU goes to my DAD who supported me throughout this adventure. He met me at boat ramps here and there with chocolate milk and hostess cupcakes on hand. He did my laundry while I cleaned up at a hotel for the night. And as he claims, he drove across the river hundreds of times searching for places to meet up with me. I know for a fact this trip would have been 10x harder without him.
Can’t get enough of my Mississippi River trip? Check out some random thoughts and stories I had on the river HERE
Video Blog #10 Finale. Days 72-79.
