Livin' Life

One fine day in February of 2009 I received a call from a co-worker and good friend, Tom Haynie (bacshortly.com). He told me he had been thinking about retiring from the fire department and taking a trip down the Mississippi River. He asked if I would be interested in riding along. Now any normal person would probably start asking questions at this point but, not considering myself too normal at this point in my life, I just simply replied…..not yes but hell yes. That is how this adventure began in February of 2009.

After several months of planning and improvising a raft, riding the current of the mighty Mississippi River became a reality.  For a week in May and the full month of June 2009 we lived aboard our boat’ the ‘Freebird’ as we covered 1700 + miles of The Mississippi River from Minnesota to New Orleans.

Our travels link.

The scenery and activity that surrounds the Mississippi River was an incredibly interesting change to our  ‘normal’ setting in the Carolina’s – the 32 days onboard were spent standing rather than sitting – walking the deck, watching, and just ‘taking all the different features in’ as we drifted at idle-speed – truly a simple adventure.

The following pages describe our trek down the mighty Mississipi. Many of the descriptions come from the blog created by Tom during the actual trip. You can view that account by visiting bacshortly.com/Rafting the Mississippi. I have added my thouhgts and observations here. Enjoy!