Ride the Buffalo

“Keep us upright and safe.” 

I first prayed those words on April 4, 2015, as we launched our kayaks, Work and Pray, on our way to the Gulf of Mexico. In honor of the ten-year anniversary of that trip, we are reading a chapter based on each corresponding day’s journal entry from Paddling Edna. As I write this, we just finished reading about Easter on the river. We have laughed and cried as we relive memories through the words on the page. Has it really been ten years? Then again, the trip is the reason we are who we are and why we live the way we live. Simply. Sometimes I cannot recall who I was or the life I led before spending three and a half months living on the river. I also reflect on the friends we wouldn’t have met if we had stayed on the banks watching the water go by.

Even though we haven’t taken another trip of that magnitude, we have paddled on the Mississippi two more times and on the Okefenokee Swamp. Each trip has its own personality.

Our second trip was 266 miles on the middle Mississippi in 2017 with John Ruskey (Quapaw Canoe Company/Rivergator). We joined Ruskey and several others for 13 days in voyager handmade canoes as part of Ruskey’s Celebratory Expedition in honor of his completing his million-word Rivergator website. Instead of doing all the work ourselves and eating dehydrated food, John and I shared the tasks with others and enjoyed “gourmet” meals cooked over a fire.

The next trip down Old Man River began in Minneapolis and ended 10 days later below Winona, Minnesota. This time John and I shared the paddling for approximately 120 miles in our canoe, Ripple. I prepared our standard dehydrated food but introduced freezer bag cooking to our prep. We saw a smaller, more recreational, less commercial Mississippi than on our previous two trips.

Our last river trip was in a swamp. We paddled and lived with alligators with our friends Gary and Linda DeKock. Instead of sleeping on the ground, we slept on platforms (complete with outhouse) in the middle of the swamp. Our friends added boxed wine to the personality of this trip.

Every time we consider ending our travels by kayak or canoe, the river calls out to us. The river beckoning us this time is the Buffalo River in Arkansas. The plan is to launch our canoe, together with Gary and Linda in theirs, at the end of April.

Before each trip, I thought I knew its personality based on Gestalt, but I was always wrong. This time is proving to be no exception. The photos of the Buffalo’s striated bluffs suggest a unique view compared to other rivers. In addition, food prep is different. We are going with a more traditional paddler approach. No dehydrated food this time—organic macaroni and cheese, purchased dehydrated veggies, and packaged chicken pouches. We are making these changes for a couple of reasons. First, it’s less prep on my part. Second, we want to share the experiences of other paddlers—see the trip from another view.

Stay tuned as we share details about the personality of our Buffalo River trip.

“Keep us upright and safe.”