Tag Archives: Mississippi river

Down To The River In Boats

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The Journeyers carrying the Bull boat to the Arkansas river

One of the curses of river travel is portaging, or the art of unpacking the boat, then carrying the boat around unmanageable obstacles in the river, such as rapids, or log jams created by the last flood, to a place where you can put the boat back in the water again. Then going back to your last take-out point to retrieve your cargo and belongings and carry them to the new put-in place, repack the boat and set off again down stream towards your destination. If you’re lucky the next portage may be more than a half mile or so downstream. Sometimes it was less.

Unless you were on one of the big rivers, the mighty Mo, or the Mississippi, this was your fate, and your job. No long stretches of glamorous carefree floating, watching the tree line casually pass on by, or spending too much time watching the sandstone cliffs reaching for the sky while traveling through incredible red rock canyons, paddling just enough to maintain control of your vessel as you floated closer to your journeys end. That’s what you thought it would be like if you’d never traveled down one of the smaller rivers in the west. Prior travelers knew better.

This was not the fastest travel in the west. In fact given the amount of time you spent portaging, or laying out your gear on a rocky sand bar to dry after a collision with a submerged snag or some other hidden danger lying in wait to tear the bottom out of your boat, you probably could have put every thing on your back and humped it to where ever you were going quicker. If you had the strength that is. There’s a lot to reconsider if you think that it was a simple thing to simply go down to the river in boats and sail serenely to your destination. The West wasn’t always easy but it was always beautiful, exciting and adventuresome, the trials and tribulations of daily life not withstanding.

Nature’s Calligraphy

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naturesCalligraphy6373

As you drive along the Mississippi river near Lacrosse, Wisconsin you will pass along the blue stone cliffs that line the river bank. There is barely room for the highway between the cliffs and the river’s edge. You must stop and get out of your car to see the cliffs in their full glory.

The foliage that grows on the cliff face ranges from full-grown trees to shrubs and small plants, and were carefully chosen by nature to fit harmoniously into this picture. Being Wisconsin and being Fall every single color imaginable was trotted out for your amazement. For those among you who have to say “Those colors aren’t real. He must have Photoshopped that.” You’re right I did. I didn’t add any colors but I sure as hell enhanced that red. It was more than red enough but there was something about the way it contrasted with the blue of the stone that I loved, so I kept bringing out more red and more red, and more until there you have it. Red. Like tons of it. I was younger then. And besotted with the incredible range of colors that are so different from my home in the west. I take full responsibility for it. So to those of you purists out there who feel somewhat vindicated that you called me on the red and some of the other colors too, I can only say ” Yeah, I did it, Deal with it.” If you can’t and it just makes you crazy I say “OK you’ve made your point . Move along here. There’s nothing more to see. Thanks for stopping by.”

After looking at this picture for years, it was actually taken back in 2003, it dawned on me that it looked like calligraphy. The red plants forming the Kanji that says something undecipherable. A message from Mother Nature herself. Maybe it says something like “Beauty resides here, look and be in awe” or perhaps “Red is the color of love and life and good fortune. Be at one with it.”  or possibly “Return Hotel Bicycles to rack on Red street, or Tremble and Be Ashamed.” We’ll never know as this particular phrase has never been translated. I’m going with the first one, I think, the beauty resides here, one. That works the best for me.