July 1, 2005
Chester, Illinois
1224 miles
We dropped into the town of Herculaneum, MO yesterday to pick up some water and grab breakfast. Honestly we also wanted to go to the town just because of the name. How can you go wrong with someplace called Herculaneum?
We hid the canoe as best we could then hoofed it into town. The beach area looked like the local hangout, with beer cans and exploded firework scattered all over the place.
After passing an old industrial area we arrived at the combined city hall/police/county business office. We asked for directions to the closest breakfast joint and were walking off when the mayor (John Chamis) flagged us down. Not ten minutes later we were being shuttled to a Jack-in-the-Box and brought back for the royal treatment.
When we got back from our breakfast run we were given a copy of the history of the city, t-shirts, pens, and neckerchiefs with the city logo. Just twenty-four hours after being stood up for three interviews in St. Louis I’m sitting in mayor’s chair calling home. The only thing that could have topped that would have been to grab a beer at the Bucket of Blood Saloon. Too bad that place closed in 1850. Great name for a bar though.
Seeing the confluence of North America’s two largest rivers was an incredible sight to see. The silty waters of the Missouri combined with the brown of the Mississippi over the course of a mile. The Ohio River is the next large river the Mississippi takes in, and we’ll reach that in about three days.
I can’t get over the expanse of land that the Mississippi drains, and the amount of water that eventually ends up in its channel. There are no more locks and we are now making about six miles per hour. I think we’ll be able to pull off some of these fifty-mile days without killing ourselves if the river stays like this for a while.
Wow — bucket-o-blood, jack-in-the-box, water-o-plenty.
This is such an incredible trip. I’m sorry to hear that my home town of St. Louis stood you up. Would have love to get that story.
Where are you sleeping at night? How do you have access to the Interweb?
Maude,
We slept on sandbars and islands most of the way down. Minnesota has several established campsites that we used as well.
Herculaneum was a great town visit us. Great folks there. We’d like to take a car upriver sometime and revisit.
We used public libraries for computer access for the most part. I’d probably take a little netbook and IPhone to tether it to if we do another river trip. I’m actually playing with several IPhone apps for adventure travelers now, and will post a list of the one’s I’ve found the most helpful soon.
Take care,
-john