Observation 1: Although Minnesota is hip to things like bike lanes and public art funding, recycling and the evils of plastic bags have not yet been discovered here. This is a simulation of a typical Minnesota landfill.
Challenge 1: We lost Amy. Somewhere between last summer’s fieldwork and this spring, Amy went missing. She was with us at the end of last summer’s voyage when we were using her to communicate to barges and locks. Jeremiah has reason to think she was stolen at some point.
There was drunken talk at the St Paul Yacht Club by the Club band that there was a secret plan to replace Amy. And because we always want to be helpful, we want to facilitate any sneaky efforts to alleviate your worry that we will be run down by a raft of barges on the Mississippi River.
UPDATE: Thanks to Frank who sent us Amy’s pal, Frank!
So here’s our Amazon wish list with Amy’s clone at the top. If Amy isn’t there, that means someone beat you to it.
Happily it won’t get sent to California, but to our awesome contact John in La Crosse.
Challenge 2: We don’t have many contacts below Brownsville, MN. Send us your contacts of people who work, live and play on the river. I’m always interested in people who aren’t your usual folks, people who are a surprise in some way.
Send us your Mississippi River contacts.
Observation 2: The Mississippi River is delightful for a swim on a hot summer day.