My Adventure: by Dale Simonson
Like a movie action scene from Mission Impossible or James Bond, the helicopter swooped around the bend of the river fast and low – low enough for the rotors to churn the water. An officer in body armor stood on the skid, tethered outside the open door with his automatic rifle pointed my way as the pilot flew two tight circles around my rowboat. I gave what I hoped to be a friendly wave, but it might have looked more like a hands-up surrender gesture. As fast as it came, the copter was gone, followed 10 minutes later by a high-powered speedboat with a gun mounted on the bow and four armed officers aboard. They approached, grilled me with questions about who I was, and finally relaxed, explaining they were on the hunt for an escaped convict from a nearby high-security prison that apparently looked just like me.
That scene occurred two weeks into my 60-day rowboat adventure 2,000 miles down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans. The idea for this adventure came to me spontaneously at sunrise on New Years Day 1996 as I drove across the I-494 bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. I looked down, saw an ice flow drifting slowly in the current. Had I not glimpsed the ice that morning, this adventure would never have been born. Over the next 10 hours of driving to my final semester of grad school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, my thoughts progressed from, “I wonder how long it would take for that ice flow to reach the Gulf of Mexico if it didn’t melt,” to a full-blown plan for rowing down the entire river after my graduation in a Huckleberry Finn type of expedition.
The feeling of pure adventure on day one was so scary, yet so exhilarating. At the Coon Rapids Dam just north of the Twin Cities I loaded the boat with my dry bags of food, books, and camping gear, along with 10 gallons of water and two sets of oars. And that was that – I launched. My sister joined me for day one as I locked through the first of 29 dams, got acquainted with my new home for the next two months, and soaked in the river setting. My nerves had just calmed when the sun began to set and my sister had to depart for home. The scariness set in again. Where was I going to stop for the night? That morning, as with every morning for the next 59 mornings, I had no idea where I would spend that night. As the river darkened, I scanned for a place to pull off and pitch my tent. The river, however, was at flood stage from spring snow melt and the water spread out into the forest. In the end, I tied my rowboat between two partially submerged trees, crawled into my sleeping bag on the wood-ribbed floor of the boat, and shivered my way through a few miserable hours of sleep as the temperature dropped to near freezing. It was not the romantic Huckleberry Finn experience I had imagined.
I had other rough moments during the journey. But I also had many incredible moments that were dazzling and memorable. In essence, any adventure like this will have much lower lows and much higher highs compared to everyday normal life. And that’s exactly why adventure are so rewarding and memorable.
Advice for Others:
Although this Mississippi River adventure idea came to me spontaneously, my preparation for it was very intentional and thorough. I searched for the perfect rowboat, and finding none, purchased blueprints for one via Wooden Boat Magazine. I tracked down a craftsman in nearby Defiance, Ohio and joined him on weekends to build my boat. I obtained 200 pages of detailed river charts from the Army Corps of Engineers. I read the book Mississippi Solo and other materials about the river. I wrote letter to 20 companies seeking sponsorship in the form of gear donations that ultimately fitted out nearly every need (binoculars, tent, sleeping bag and mattress, rain gear, hat, dry bags…). I wrote to journalists along the route as a channel to engage in advance with locals knowledgable of the river and its history. I trained hard, rowing an hour a day on an ergometer (erg) in the university gym. I also established plans with 8 separate friends to join me for anywhere from 1-3 days enroute at various points along the river.
Photos Below: Carpe Diem under construction at Independence Boatworks by John Bresnan and family.
As for the costs, I spent about $6,000 total for the 2-month adventure. The rowboat ($4,000) and trailer ($1,000) were the single biggest expenses. A day of research and letter writing netted me most of my gear from sponsors, beyond which I spent perhaps $200 for miscellaneous equipment. I spent less on food those two months than I would in my normal lifestyle, mostly just purchasing things like bread and peanut butter at stores along the way. I paid for a motel room 5 nights for a total of $400 to allow myself the luxury of a hot shower, soft bed, and laundry. Lastly, I purchased $200 of film (this was in the pre digital camera days) with the intention of taking hundreds of photo and producing a photo essay of the journey. My father was generous enough to drive my boat from Ohio to Minnesota at the start of the journey, and again from New Orleans back home to Minnesota at the end of the journey, so I have not included that cost (thanks Dad!!). Keep in mind , if time or money are an issue, one could do a journey like this for less of each. I could have halved my budget by purchasing a used rowboat. And a journey of a week or two down a segment of the river would achieve much the same experience.
The preparations paid off. The trip was filled with exciting, unique, and memorable stories every day. There were two particularly profound aspects of the journey worth mentioning. One was the remarkable grandeur of the Mississippi River, and the privilege of seeing every single river mile as it morphed from small to huge. The second was the people I met along the way. I traveled solo most of the journey, was approachable, and went out of my way to meet people. The interactions were wonderful. Total strangers fed me. They housed me. They educated me about the local section of the river. The entire experience was a fascinating, slow motion view into grassroots Americana, and an uplifting view of the dominant goodness of human nature.
