Another 4am paddle.  For the 1st time, my brain wasn’t ready to paddle early.  We’ve had such a weird schedule the past 3 days (Night paddles! Morning paddles! Midday naps! Middle of the night naps that turn into the rest of the night!), and we haven’t had a rest day since Burlington, I think I’m just ready to sleep in and have a normal day.

We packed up and head out under the stars.  Venus, the morning star, was so bright it left a trail of soft reflected white light on the river.  We paddled in silence, listening to the morning crickets and owls, grateful for the lack of wind in our face.  The small town of Hamburg, IL was just a few miles south, and we stopped to find a trash can and some water, as we both had run out of water the night before.  On the way in, hugging the shore, we scared up some carp, some of them landing on our boats and wriggling away, some flying through the air just in front of our faces.  It was like popcorn!

As the day wore on, the wind grew stronger (in our faces) and we opted to duck out of the main channel to enjoy less wind resistance.  We found a long slough that was more like a thin canal—clearly it had been created at some point for recreational purposes.  It was like paddling in the headwaters again—just a few tens of feet wide, lots more turtles and several snakes, and the quiet that goes with small waterways.   I saw several plastic tarps washed ashore today--it was strange because I hadn't seen one before, and I saw 3 today.   At one point it got noisier as we came upon a tractor working the land right up to the river bank.  A little further, we saw a veritable showcase of tractor brands—six or seven tractors idling on the riverbank, waiting for their drivers to get in and start working the land. 
 
This morning Leanne dropped her lightning cable to charge her phone in the water, and when we exited the canal, we stopped at a landing so she could try to find her extra cable.  She was unable to find it.  Since my phone died last night, and she was out of batteries, we were really annoyed that we had lost all phone contact temporarily.  We knew we were only days from St. Louis where we could remedy these issues, but in the meantime, it was up to her Delorme satellite text-messenger to let people know where we were.  At the landing, a couple older fishermen stopped by and offered a beer to Leanne, lots of opinions on labor issues in the area, and the advice, "don't let them rednecks bother ya, a'right?".  Just after they left, we saw Jake and Julie paddling way far away on the other side of the river, just two blue dots moving at the edge, toward the next lock, 4 miles ahead.  I waved and waved, but they didn't see me.  We didn't want them to lock through without us, because it might take us a long time to wait for the next lock, so I opted to paddle my butt off and try to catch up to them while Leanne repacked all her stuff and caught up.  I never did catch up, but I paddled SO HARD, and Leanne had a really hard time catching up to me.  She had sent them a message on the Delorme, letting them know we were without our cellphones, and the confusion that started up (she had inadvertantly used the word "emergency" in her text, which had Jake and the Lockmaster getting ready to send out a boat after us), slowed the locking through down enough so that when they looked back, there we were, catching up and setting the record straight.  It wasn't an "emergency" so much as an "urgent" message.  (Leanne learned an important lesson in wording).  

The lockmaster let us know of a place to eat on the far side of the river just a couple miles down, so we made our way there.  I was absolutely beat, and did what I like to call "butterfly strokes" there (where my paddle very gently, like a butterfly's wing, barely touches the water).  It's a slower stroke, but it lets me heal my aching joints/muscles while still moving forward!  When I arrived to the 'restaurant,' it turned out to be Cedar Hill Resort Restaurant and Bar, owned by a man named Jay who, despite being closed, insisted on frying up some delicious Asian appetizers for us in the kitchen and sharing some cold Gatorades with us.  He owns the land, his house nearby, and a sweet guest house on the property, as well as the restaurant which, I imagine, does incredible business with the recreational boaters during the summer.  Jay chatted with us, offered us a shower at his house and let us camp on his dock overnight.  All in all, it had been a 25 mile day with some crazy winds, and we were grateful for the rest. 
 

​I was surprised that I enjoyed sleeping out in the open with just my inflatable mattress and sleeping bag.  I was also surprised that no bugs bothered me! Leanne woke up at 5, but there was already a barge going through lock 24, so we had to wait til 7 to get started.  We packed up camp with Jake and Julie, paddled across the pool to the entrance of the lock together.  J & J stopped in a town and Leanne and I paddled on for several hours, stopping for a midday lunch at Rip Rap landing in Illinois.  J & J paddled past us and didn’t see me wave them down.  There was a concrete outhouse at the landing, but when I opened the door, the floor was caked in more than a foot of mud, and a ton of trash (another photo I am sad to have lost).  Clearly, the parks department forgot about cleaning this location out when it flooded last time.  I cooked some warm lunch and we took a nap under the trees.  Our nap lasted longer than expected, and we were enjoying just relaxing at this spot after so many days of weird schedules, so we decided to stay the night there, too.  So it was a short day, just 10 miles of paddling. 
 
In the evening, my phone stopped working.  I have been really good about keeping it dry, so I think it was just the end of its life—it was booting and rebooting itself without ever letting me access anything on it.  One of my absolute pet peeves is how ‘disposable’ cellphones are.  I hate that I have to get a new one so frequently.  I hate that they don’t last six years or more.  I hate that in order to stay current and on top of news/peoples’ lives/etc. it’s basically a requirement to have one at all.  I love what my smartphone allows me to do, I just hate that it’s not something that LASTS.  I worry about all the minerals mined that go into making each phone.  I worry about all the electronic waste and plastic that goes into making each phone.  I get seriously stressed out and anxious having to choose the ‘right’ phone that will fit my budget, allow me to do everything I need it to do, not be extravagant, and last as long as possible.  

After 5 nights at Jared's (THANK YOU!), we finally got back on the river.  Leanne and I woke up at 3 something and were on the water by 4:20am.  Definitely my earliest start so far.  I had decided when I started that I was going to avoid paddling at night if at all possible, but after getting to Aitkin at 11pm early on, talking to veteran paddlers about what makes for good night paddling (calm waters and a bright sky), and getting stuck at the lock as a barge went through last week, I feel less ominous about night paddling.  Indeed, the dark-morning paddling is awesome.  Everything is flat calm, the crickets and owls are still active, the moon and stars are bright enough to allow your eyes to adjust.  I can use the red light on my headlamp to maintain night vision and still warn any other vessels that I'm out there (I haven't seen any other vessels at that time yet, though).  As the sun rises, I'm treated to a brilliant vista of clouds and sky colors.  Every morning is different, and it's really nice to be on the river at that time.  I can get a couple hours of paddling in before the sky is even warm, which, on these hot, humid days is really important.  By 9am we've often already paddled 10 miles or more.  That means we can take a more leisurely pace as the day heats up, and get into camp after 25-30 miles somewhere between 3-5pm.  Getting in to camp so early means we have time to take a river bath if we want, set up our tents, make food (aren't too tired to eat it), and get an early sleep (8:30 or so), so we're rested for the next early morning paddle.  

For the past several days, Leanne and I paddled alongside one another.  I'm not quite as strong as she is, but she and I have a very similar pace, and she enjoys relaxing just enough to stay at my pace, and having someone to talk to.  The first day, we told one another our life stories, or, more accurately, our vet-related PTSD stories (she's a 2x Iraq war veteran, and my PTSD comes from veterinary school) and our reasoning for paddling the Mississippi River.  We determined that she's two years younger than I am, so she's going to let me finish 5 minutes before her so I can hold the "Youngest Female Solo Kayaker Source to Sea of the Mississippi River" title for a few minutes before she claims it.  She also told me I can tell my friends, 'true, she's younger than me, but she also cheated'  because she's been driven past a few sections of the river.  We really enjoy one another's company, joking with eachother and telling eachother the long version of every story that pops in our head because we have the time.   

We estimated we could average 25 miles a day (150 miles/week with 6 days on and one day off) if we always got early starts and rested well at night.  On day 68 we put in 27 miles, including a really fun break at a beach where I found all sorts of crazy plastic trash (a plastic gun, a golf club, etc), and a whole bunch of antique mussel shells with button holes cut from them.  Until the 1940s or 50s, mussel shells were harvested from the Mississippi River to make mother-of-pearl buttons. They’d drill holes through the shells and then make buttons from the circles.  When plastic became more popular, they stopped harvesting the shells which was good for the mussels, but bad for the fact that now non-biodegradable plastic took its place. It was really cool to find so many pieces of history.  I even found one un-cut button!  As we paddled to camp, I saw a power structure with more than 40 turkey vultures on it.  There are more dead fish now, and I assume this increase in carrion is what supports this much larger population of buzzards.  A while later, Leanne and I set up camp at the Izaak Walton League landing where we enjoyed a flat, grassy campsite, and I took a nap.  Our river family buddies joined us a while later, and we all realized that the spot was directly next to a railroad crossing.  The railroad follows the river on both sides, so we’re never without trains during the night, but the horn is rather intense when you’re right next to it.  Somehow, it didn’t seem to bother me when I slept, though. 

When Leanne woke me at 3:30am, I was in the middle of sweating out a fever.  I was delirious and felt terrible.  I requested another hour’s sleep, and she let me sleep til I awoke at 5:30.  I still felt sick, but I wasn’t feverish anymore, and I felt like my arms were still able to paddle, and since I wasn’t doing anything else, I may as well get on the water.  We had a short day, mostly, I think, because I was feeling poorly.  But also because we were easily distracted.  As we passed Muscatine, we smelled something heavenly, like French toast or something baking.  A brewery?  Maybe a sweet-feed granary factory?  Anyway, we opted to look for something to fill our bellies that tasted the way the smell smelt.  We docked and locked our boats at the wharf, and walked uphill directly to a sweet little diner with AC, wifi, and delicious food.  I have felt cold in AC most days since I’ve lived on the river, since I’m totally acclimated to the weather.  However, since I’ve been sick, the AC feels amazing.  It’s like it gives my body a break from trying to cool down, so that it can focus on getting me better.  We hung out for a little bit, then headed back to the wharf, and met J & J on the way! They had stalked Leanne using an iPhone app that shows where Leanne is to find us.  As we left, they headed in to repeat our awesome idea J.  Between a couple islands next to Muscatine, Leanne and I found a collection of handmade rope swings and water slides into the river.  Leanne got out to try them, but the water slide was too dry and ended in the mud instead of the river, and the rope swings were too tall for her to reach.  And I was too sick to try them myself.  So we found the next spot to camp (only 12 miles total), just downstream of the Monsanto factory. 

I felt better on day 70, and we put in a solid 29 miles.  At one point, Leanne and I decided to see how fast we could paddle for an hour—we did our best mile yet, covering 5 miles during that time!  I like how Leanne pushes me and encourages me.  We ducked behind an island to get to the landing where we were going to camp, and were telling stories.  All of a sudden, I broke off—“Listen!  What is that?  Is there a waterfall?”  We saw a large motor boat gunning its engine toward us and not moving, and then realized it was trying to move up a set of rapids.  When we realized there were rapids, we didn’t have time to think much about it.  We shot the rapids—Leanne had a fun boost to her speed, but I got stuck on a rock.  It was only momentary and everything was fine, but I missed the fun boost in speed!  As we turned the corner, we passed several houses on stilts.  When we arrived, hot and sweaty, Leanne and I set up our tents, did some planks, and then jumped in for a swim!  It was the first time I’ve submerged myself in the river, and it felt marvelous.  The current was swift.  I soaped up and enjoyed the cool, then hung my clothes to dry and made myself some dinner.  A couple in a john boat pulled over and chatted with us for a while.  The husband said he’s built most of the john boats in the area over the past several decades.  They have one of the houses on stilts as a weekend/summer house and spend as much time there as possible.  They offered us a beer, and headed home.  Jake and Julie arrived, hung a laundry cord, and we all joked and carried on before sleeping.

On day 71, Jake and Julie got an even earlier start than Leanne and I!  They tend (like me) toward the 10am start, so I think they just wanted to prove to themselves that they could get going earlier.  Especially since they like arriving to camp early, and it gets dark at 7:30 instead of 9:30 like it did when we started, getting an early start really helps to maximize one’s enjoyment of camp in the evening.  At every hour, Leanne has an alarm set to remind us to take a break.  We stop paddling for a moment, drink some water, eat a snack if we want, and she smokes a cigarette.  We stopped for a break and I ate some oatmeal since I hadn’t eaten in camp. When we were finished, we pulled away from the beach, we both got stuck in the sand and had to pull ourselves off the sandbar.  As we were getting unstuck, we missed the fact that our friends Jake and Julie were catching up to us—they had stopped less than an hour after leaving camp to find coffee and breakfast, and had already fallen behind us!  We had a good laugh, and a great paddle with all four of us bantering and suggesting funny video topics for us to make in the future.  We passed lots of bird blinds, some under construction before we approached (and barely beat a barge to) lock #18.  On the other side, we took another little beach break, resting out of the heat.  J & J left, Leanne and I followed.  We rested in the shade near some barges, where a big pontoon, self-proclaimed “Texas All Day,” pulled over to chat, and offered us peanut butter sandwiches and beer! Just a few moments after they pulled away, Leanne vomited, probably a combination of getting sick and heat exhaustion.  So we stopped at Big Muddy’s in Burlington to finish some blogging, re-hydrate, and enjoy some AC.  We planned on staying there through the rest of the heat, and then continuing at night for another 10 miles or so.  

While we were at the restaurant, one of the followers of the Mississippi River paddlers facebook page noticed we were in Burlington and offered aid if we needed anything.  I wracked my brain and realized we did need some crucial supplies for the fun our river family had just planned:  we needed marshmallows and a white board.  Kyle S. was super awesome and arrived not too much later with just those things!  We laughed at how random our requests were, but were truly thankful to Kyle for helping us find these items without needing to leave the river.  Just then, a woman named Cindy overheard our conversation, explained that her son is biking the entire west coast, and offered a place for Leanne and I to stay, as a sort of pay-it-forward karma thing for all the people helping out her son.  My head said that staying in Burlington wasn’t our plan, but my heart said it was important to take advantage of this generosity and opportunity to actually finish the blogging we set out to do.  So we accepted, and drove with Cindy and her husband Tom to their super cute bungalow.  They had recently moved to a new house, so Leanne and I had the old house all to ourselves.  Tom and Cindy showed us the leg massager, the hot tub, the laundry, and our beds, and left the place to us.  Leanne and I quickly jumped into the hot tub to soothe our aching muscles, took a blessed shower after several yucky sweaty days, watched some bad TV in bathrobes (well satisfied), and slept very well in our cozy beds.  

Leanne Davis is another solo female kayaker who started just a day after Jake and Julie.  The three of them paddled together for the first month of their journey before Leanne left the river for a wedding and Jake and Julie caught up to me.  Leanne went to high school in the Quad Cities area, and hooked us up with her highschool buddy Jared Mullendore who has been one of our favorite river angels so far.  His grandparents' old house is right on the river and is where he lives with A.J., another of Leanne's highschool buddies.  Ever since we arrived, Jared has been chill, welcoming, fun, and bright.  Rather than having to be a spectacle, it's been super comfortable here to just relax, gather our strength and reserves and rest up.  Jake was feeling sick when we got here, and now I'm sick too (just a head cold).  It's been amazing to have had a place to work on my blogs and rest.  THANK YOU Jared!!!

We arrived on Friday, late afternoon.  It had felt amazing to sleep in at Camp Hauberg.  It was a chilly morning, and I got to enjoy a warm breakfast brought to us by the camp owner, and then snuggle back down into my sleeping bag.  We paddled the 13 miles down stream to Bettendorf in a leisurely fashion, and when we arrived, we took showers, started some laundry, I settled in to do some work on my computer and Julie enjoyed watching TV.  We had planned on going to the baseball game or to the music festival, but it was rainy and we felt like resting instead.  We hung out with Jared when he returned from work, and it was really nice. 

Saturday, we had a large breakfast.  Leanne, who had been paddling like a mad woman for several weeks to try to catch back up to Jake and Julie, got a ride with Jeremy (yet another highschool) friend to come hang out with us for the day.  After so long of messaging each other on Facebook and hearing stories about her, it was great to meet her!  We all went for icecream to start the day off right. Then, at the festival, I brought my computer to work on my journal entries.  A lot of the day, I sat at the back of the festival at the tent they had set up for young (middle and highschool) bands.  I thought it was awesome they had that!  There were blues, metal, reggae, jazz, and ska bands.  Some were better than others, but it was rad to have youngsters playing (mostly very well!) for us!  Jake has determined that the best thing to do in all situations is to tell our story.  Because when people hear our story, they often want to help out in some way.  At the festival, he went to buy dinner, and he told his story to the ladies there who insisted on loading him up with ribs, pork, and all sorts of comfort food.  Enough for 4 people!  Later in the evening, I wandered back to the main stage with J & J and we found Meredith (our river angel back in Dubuque!) with her mom and sister.  We enjoyed listening to the darling Kacey Musgraves, and then stuck around for enough Yonder Mountain String Band to say we finally heard some bluegrass.  The mandolin player was on fire, but we were pretty sleepy.  

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are a blur.  I felt sick, and spent most of my time working on cleaning out the caches on my computer and updating my blogs.  We had several good meals in there, and watched a bunch of television.  In the meantime, Leanne had returned to her boat and caught up with us for real.  So now our river family is four!  The plan is to leave here (for real this time) at 4am and have a long paddle tomorrow.  I still feel cruddy so we'll see.  But I'm grateful to have had a place to chill while I felt sick.  

Photos speak for themselves.  The museum is marvelous.  Very interesting exhibits.  We spent several hours there. 

Words matter.  That's what Jonathan Brown, our tour guide and plant manager, reminded us.  The plant that we toured used to be called the Water Pollution Control Plant, but that implies a negative.  Instead, the plant is now focused not on reducing pollution but recovering water and other byproducts of sewage waste; hence its name: the Water and Resource Recovery Center (WRRC).  It's a mindset change:  sewage is not just waste to throw away, it has important and valuable resources worth recovering.  

Until 1956, Dubuque's sewage flowed directly into the Mississippi River, untreated.  In addition, industry like meat packing companies would discharge their waste (including grease and blood) directly into the river.  A sewage treatment plant was built in 1956, and its efforts were redoubled with advent of the Clean Water Act in 1972.  At that time, the WRRC's influent saw 2000mg/L of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and had an effluent of 300-400mg/L BOD.  At that time, Dubuque's population was close to 750,000.  The population is much smaller now, about 60,000.  Currently, influent measures 300-400mg/L BOD and effluent measures just 10 mg/L BOD.  Thus, the effluent from the city has greatly improved over the past 40-50 years.  

So how is this all achieved?  Sewage is treated in a series of 4 pools and chambers which successively heat and then cool and stabilize the inflent rendering the material cleaner.  Anaerobic digesters release methane which is cleaned and used to power micro turbines which heat 75% of the plant.  This methane recovery saves $250,000 per year in electricity and reduces the plant's carbon footprint.  The anaerobic digesters also yield high quality biosolid for farmland.  Biosolid is very similar to compost, but comes from human waste rather than vegetable matter.  Adding biosolid to the land improves the tilth of the soil, increases organic matter and allows for slow nitrogen release. Liquid effluent is water with only 10 mg/L BOD and is released into the Mississippi River.  

The WRRC's goals are 
#1: Improve public health
#2: improve health of the environment
#3: give back by regaining good from the process (water, energy, biosolids).  WRRC is still working on decreasing the amount of N and P released into the environment, but the expensive infrastructure (they've invested $70 million and need several more million dollars to reach all their goals) only recovers and cleans so much.  WRRC is hoping to eventually be able to recover phosphorous from waste water too, so that doesn't go into the river.  Currently, phosphorous used in fertilizer is mined, so it has economic worth.  As phosphorus is the limiting factor for algal blooms, removing it from wastewater effluent would help in decreasing the size of the Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone.  Though it must not be forgotten that phosphorous comes much more from agriculture than wastewater.  Indeed, money invested upstream (decreasing N and P used in the first place) will likely be wiser and more effective in the long run. 

When asked about plastics, Jonathan Brown said that macroplastics are filtered out, but that there are no microplastic filters at WRRC.  Small pieces of plastic likely get rolled into the biosolids, or else exit in effluent.  He also expressed his dismay for "flushable" wipes.  "Yes, they're technically flushable--they will go down your toilet, but they don't break down easily and they clog our filters all the time."  (Hint:  Don't use "flushable" wipes!!!) 

One of the several organizations I'm partnering with on this journey is Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation, or ASC.  This organization mobilizes the outdoor community to gather and share scientific data, driving conservation around the world. They have several projects running at any one time, and I was lucky to find them the year that ASC is collecting microplastic data in freshwater waterways around the world, as it aligns perfectly with the mission of my journey.  

In two years of research, ASC has found microplastics around the world, in some of the most remote oceans. These plastic particles attract toxins like DDT and BPA, and then enter the food chain when ingested by aquatic life. With this information, ASC recently expanded the project to freshwater, because data in that field is lacking. A 2015 report compiled by the GESAMP called microplastic pollution “an emerging issue of international concern.” Microplastics are particles of plastic less than 5mm in size, which have been shown to be highly prevalent in marine environments (Cole et al., 2011). Microplastic particles can act as a mechanism for the transfer of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into marine organisms (Zarfl and Matthies, 2010) and in turn are harmful to the marine food web and may increase public exposure to toxins (Wright et al., 2013; Chua et al., 2014). It is believed that microplastics are doing similar harm in freshwater environments, but there is a need for further scientific exploration.

ASC has four teams of Mississippi River paddlers contributing to the ASC Microplastics Project this summer! Emily Stifler Wolfe of ASC says, "What a cool opportunity to gather a really valuable dataset that can be used to leverage a reduction in plastic pollution."  Emily also offered, "You are the ideal adventurer for ASC: You're competent in the outdoors, you're on an extended expedition on which you'll be able to gather otherwise unobtainable data, and you're creative, so you can help us spread the word about our work."  I am super happy to be contributing to this effort, and look forward to volunteering my time to write the paper that will accompany all this freshwater microplastics data collection.  

Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to mobilize the outdoor community to gather and share targeted scientific data, catalyzing conservation efforts worldwide. A trained wildlife technician and notable explorer, named “Adventurer of the Year” in 2008 by National Geographic, Gregg Treinish established ASC in 2011 to offer outdoor adventurers a way to help protect the natural world they loved. Since its foundation, ASC has sent thousands of athletes to collect data for hundreds of scientists working on seven continents and in all five oceans. These partnerships have led to the discovery of more than a dozen new species, provided key information to guide climate change decisions, and helped protect threatened wildlife habitat. In total, ASC has saved the conservation community millions of dollars by mobilizing volunteers, while also providing a unique learning and engagement experience for project participants. Our work has been featured in more than 100 media outlets. In the year 2015, ASC has already saved the conservation community 3005 days of work through the efforts of its extensive volunteer network.

We had two days back to back with strong headwinds, one day clocking steady 17 mile an hour, one day clocking 23. Both days, gusting to 30 miles an hour, which is gale-force (40-50 mph can breed small tornados).  There were moments where I was paddling my heart out and wasn’t moving forward an inch.  All day long, I felt like a paddling warrior, gritting my teeth and pushing to make any headway.  We only made 11 miles one day and 12 the next, paddling eight hours or more each day.  I tried to stay along the shore as much as possible, to stay in the small sliver of river where the waves cancel themselves out as they crash into the shore and relax the nearby water. I sometimes had to pull over to hold on to a rock for a few minutes as a strong gust might have blown me backward.  I saw a groundhog there, and I saw a deer munching on wild celery; both welcome breaks in my otherwise hyperfocused days. 

Wind-swells in one direction, swells from the wakes of motorboats cross-hatching them.  My little kayak doggedly navigating these plaid patterns of bouncing water. My full spray skirt helped keep splashing water from swamping my boat all day long. At one point I had to cross the channel.  I put on my brave face, held my breath, and dug in, one difficult, strong stroke after another.  Crossing the mile-and-a half channel took over an hour, and there were several gusts of wind and strong waves that nearly toppled me.  Close calls.  Reasons to keep going strong and stay focused, in the zone. 

After the first day, I was pleased to make camp in Clayton, Iowa where I saw J & J waving to me from the deck of a riverside bar and grill.  Once I figured out where to dock my kayak, I joined them, changed into some dry clothes, and collapsed at their table, bewildered by the day’s intensity.  The couple at the table next to us said they had watched me crossing the channel, had passed a few times to make sure I didn’t tip.  I hadn’t noticed, I was so focused.  They were very interested in our journeys and impressed with our tenacity that day.  They paid for our dinner and drinks before they left.  It nearly brought me to tears to have someone do that for us.  So sweet.  We camped behind the bar near a USGS river gauge box.  Locals drove by our tents for a few hours, staring at us.  I decided that I’d get an earlier start the next morning in an effort to enjoy a couple hours of low wind before it picked up.  

Indeed, I woke up at 4:40am, broke camp quickly with my headlamp, joined some fishermen on the dock as I packed up my kayak, and I was on the water by 6am.  The morning was still and the sunrise was lovely, but it didn’t last very long before the wind was crazy again.  Still, because I had such an early start, I was able to paddle 8 hours and make camp by 2pm, just past lock number 10 where a bunch of Amish fishermen sat on the downstream side, staring at me as I passed Guttenberg.  I found a good camping spot just past a grassy knoll and an eagle nest.  I put my soaked clothes out to dry, set up my solar collector to recharge my battery, set up my tent, texted Jake and Julie to let them know where I had found a good campsite, and I crashed for a nap in my tent.  When I woke up, a little over an hour later, J & J had arrived.  Jake was building a fire in his boxers, cooking one of his famous meals.  I took his suggestion and coated a potato I had in river mud, and stuck it in the coals for an hour while Julie and I watched a movie (!) on her phone.  She made popcorn for us over the fire, and when the potato was ready, I dug it out—the mud had baked into a clay oven, and broke cleanly off the potato which was perfectly cooked and moist.  I used some coconut oil and pink Himalayan salt and enjoyed the deliciousness. I spent the rest of the evening gathering drift wood and adding it to our fire.  Jake and Julie are marvelous companions.  We lovingly refer to one another as “river family,” and are all very chill, very encouraging, enjoy laughing, self-deprecating jokes, and good food (though they do make fun of me for eating cold, salty oatmeal every morning).  

The Mississippi River is basically broken into 3 sections:  The Headwaters, The Upper Mississippi River, and the Lower Mississippi River.  The Headwaters are wild and go from Lake Itasca to Minneapolis.  There are a bunch of dams, but no locks, so all the dams in the Headwaters must be portaged.  The Lower Mississippi River goes from Cairo, Illinois, where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico and has no locks or dams.  The Upper Mississippi River goes from Minneapolis to Cairo, Illinois, and there are 28 dams, all with locks.  The US Army Corps of Engineers keeps the river navigable to barge traffic from Minneapolis to the Gulf by dredging a 9 foot deep channel, and maintaining the locks and dams of the Upper river.   The dams control water flow and levels of water in the pools between dams.  Locks are compartments at the edge of the dams that allow boats and barges to pass through.  You pull into the lock, a door closes behind you, the water adjusts to the level of the water  on the other side of the lock (drops in my case), and off you go. 

In this video, you can see what the process is like, and meet Don, a lockmaster.  He shares his perspective on plastics in the river.