The wait is almost over …

I want to thank everyone who has followed along, or anyone who has read this blog series, since the beginning. It’s been a long journey of planning and preparation. It hasn’t been exciting, adventurous, or even interesting most of the time. So thank you for hanging in there with me and following my progress.

My Source to Sea trip down the Mississippi River actually started several days ago. My daily blog posts about the trip should start tomorrow and continue on a daily basis until the trip is over.

This is when all of my planning and preparation will be put to the test. Do I actually know what I’m doing? Will my plan work out the way I think it will? Will I be able to stick it out and complete this trip?

If you have been following along for more than just a few weeks, I can only imagine that you feel somewhat invested in my journey. I certainly hope so any way. I hope that the answers to those questions will be of some importance to you and hold your interest as I make my way down the river.

I’ve had an extended amount of time to get ready for this trip, so in theory I should be well outfitted and prepared to complete the trip successfully. In some ways I think I’ve put a little pressure on myself to get this right even though I have never attempted anything like this before.

On the other hand, this is a trip that has been done hundreds of times. Probably even thousands of times going back through history. Many of the modern journeys have been well documented, creating a template for those of us who follow.

It’s been done, but there are still a lot of choices and no two journeys are ever exactly the same. Heraclitus said it best when he stated, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he is not the same man“. So even though this trip has been done before by many different people and many of those trips have been well documented, there is no one clear way to complete this trip successfully. The river is an ever changing puzzle that each paddler must solve over and over again until the journey is complete.

I’ve chosen to travel solo. There are inherent risks and rewards associated with that decision. Every success or failure belongs to me. I will suffer the consequences or enjoy the triumph of each choice I’ve made. That’s a real motivation to make good decisions. I feel like I have swallowed my ego and made several tough decisions already.

From the very beginning, I wanted to follow the Mississippi River from start to finish all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It didn’t take long for me to realize that an alternate route down the Atchafalaya River would be a better choice for me. It was a big decision and one that I agonized over for several weeks. The Atchafalaya is not the Mississippi, but I look forward to paddling the Atchafalaya and can’t imagine doing this trip any other way ( at least not this first time ). I know some people will take issue with this decision. I’m OK with that. I get it, but this is my trip and I have to do it my way.

I also swallowed my pride and made the decision to ditch my original Dagger Vesper kayak in favor of a Wilderness Systems Tsunami 145 kayak. It seems ridiculous to me now that I ever considered paddling a recreational kayak all that way.

I hope that I can continue to make sound decisions and use good judgment as this journey unfolds. I feel like the opportunities to make bad decisions will be almost limitless and never ending ( a slight exaggeration ). Ok, it might not be that bad, but there will be plenty of ways to mess things up. I look forward to the challenges, but not the inevitable failures. There will be triumphs and success to enjoy as well. I hope you will follow along as each one reveals itself along the way.

Will I make it all the way to the Gulf of Mexico? Will I survive a journey of more than 2,000 miles in a 14 and a half foot kayak traveling all alone? Who will I meet along the way? What calamities will befall me? These are the questions I hope to answer in the days and weeks ahead. Stay tuned. The fun is about to begin.

I welcome your thoughts, questions, suggestions, and comments … as always. As my trip gets underway I will most likely be very busy paddling, cooking, camping, re-supplying and such; so I ask you to please be patient and understand that my replies will probably not be immediate. In fact my replies may take weeks or even longer. I hope that won’t discourage anyone from leaving a comment. I will do my best to get to them as soon as I can.

Thanks for reading this blog and thanks for being patient with me.

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“Patience and Diligence, like faith, make all things possible.”

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