All the Way to Mile Zero!

This is the end...this is the end...my only friends...the end...

On Saturday, August 18th at approximately 11am central time Jeff "The Platypus" Petrie and Edmund "The Electric Eel" Eilbacher reached mile zero of the Mississippi River!

From Vicksburg we headed down the river with our eyes set on Louisiana's capital city, Baton Rouge. The time spent between Vicksburg and Baton Rouge was pretty uneventful although high temperatures, humidity, and the increasing distances between sandbars to use as camping spots kept the days interesting.

We arrived in Baton Rouge on Thursday, August 9 about mid-day. After a little discussion we decided to park/lock the canoe to a railing on the levee just down river of the large red letters spelling out Baton Rouge to river goers. We kept our less valuable gear in our totes and hid them in a bush hoping the vagrants would not happen upon them. With our backpacks on and paddles in hand we headed into the city.


First stop, the library. With a little direction from some helpful strangers we made it there relatively quickly and started our search for places to stay. There were a few cheap hotels outside of the city but we learned from Vicksburg that the taxi fees add up and it is just as cheap to pay the inner city price.


So, we stayed at the Hilton right down-town. It turns out the management was so impressed by our trip that they reduced the room rate! If you are reading this, thank you Rebecca for helping us out with the room and getting us connected with Woody. We will definitely be in touch next time we come through Baton Rouge.


After a dip in the pool and a nap we headed out to see what the city had to offer for food and nightlife. It turns out there are not many places to eat in Baton Rouge after 2pm. Since there is so much activity in the city during the day most eateries are only open during the lunch hour. With very little knowledge of any open restaurants we had to settle for appetizers at the Roux House. We couldn't complain though as there was live music to entertain us.

We made friends with Julian, an employee of the Roux House that got done with work early for the night. She told us all the hot spots in town and what museums/historical spots to see during the day. We spent the rest of the night on 3rd street.


The next day the two of us split up and searched the city on our own. I took a walk along the river, saw the old state building and the new state building. Petrie ended up meeting back up with Julian and got the local tour of the city. Julian introduced Petrie to a few old high school friends who happened to be in town running the Art, Ready, Go Scavenger Hunt being put on by the LSU Museum of Art. They told Petrie we should attend, and later that night attend we did.

The scavenger hunt was a blast. They opened three of the city's museums after hours for this event: The LSU Museum of Art, the Louisiana Art & Science Museum, and the Louisiana State Museum. We were given a list of questions and the answers were hidden in each museum. We ended up getting back with our answers third however did not finish too well in points as we had a few questions wrong. They held the after-party at a place called Tsunami, a very hip sushi bar on top of the Museum of Art that has a patio overlooking Mississippi River.

Here we met Paige, Sarah, and Ashley the ladies who helped put the event together and who would later become our tour guide to all the charms Baton Rouge had to offer such as Louie's late night and Boutin's for a Cajun dinner and dancing. We had such a good time in Baton Rouge that we decided to stay another night and head out on Sunday instead of Saturday. It was a good thing we did because Sarah and Ashley got us in contact with the local news station, Channel 2, and they did a story about us. It aired that Sunday first as a short mention at 5pm and then as a full story at 10pm. We are working on getting the tape!

As we shoved off for New Orleans with the camera rolling we had no clue what was about to unfold in the days ahead. 230 miles was all that we had left of the trip and we expected it to take just under five days. However, the river had a different idea as to our arrival time at mile zero. We hadn't anticipated that the river would stop flowing altogether and that we would be back to making thirty mile days.

It ended up taking us four days to paddle the 130 mile to New Orleans due to the current slowing down considerably and a 20 m.p.h. headwind every day. The traffic on the river picked up considerably. Tankers were introduced to our environment. However their introduction was not a hostile one as despite their enormous size they put off a very small wake and they are easily spotted from far distances giving you time to maneuver out of their way. In some locations on the river there were tankers lined up for miles. It was an impressive sight with a grouping of 12 tankers anchored along the banks of the Mississippi. Barges also lined the banks with tows moving all over the river.

Industry was apparent as grain elevators and oil refinery's line the banks of this portion of the trip. As we passed one factory we noticed the water had gotten considerably warmer, in fact you could feel the heat radiating off the water. The water at the point must have been near 100 F. Whichever plant it was was getting rid of it's heat waste in the Mississippi.

When we finally arrived in New Orleans we met up with Edmund's relative, Jeanne Woods. She bought us a great meal, put us up for the night, delivered an electric motor with two marine batteries and a solar panel which was donated by Tyler Leben (an old rugby buddy of Petrie's), and brought us back to the river the next day. We both lightened our loads considerably, leaving a lot of equipment behind so that we could get the motor and batteries on board without sinking the canoe.

That next day, Thursday the 16th, Petrie got to working on piecing together the trolling motor and modifying the canoe so that we knew it would work. You might be asking yourself why we would need a motor...the last town accessible by highway on the Mississippi is Venice, LA. Venice is located on mile 10 of the Mississippi, we did not think we would be able to fight the current for ten miles back up to Venice, that's where we would use the motor to power us back up the river. After all, we never said we were going to paddle back up the river!

After Petrie did his checks on the motor, all systems were go. We took the motor apart and placed it in the canoe with a "Do not open 'till mile zero" sign on it. Not really, but we both agreed not to use it until we hit mile zero. You get the point.

With only 98 more miles to go we were both pretty anxious to see the end. As we started to paddle off we realized we were making horrible time. It seemed that the river did not want us to finish as in some parts, when we took a break, the current was flowing back up river. We came to the conclusion that we were making between 1.5 - 3 miles per hour paddling our hardest. It was frustrating. Especially when the winds kicked in.

If we continued at this pace we would not have completed the trip until sometime in the middle of the next week. So we made a decision, we will arrive at mile zero on Saturday, August 18th, no matter how long we have to paddle. Even if it means paddling through the night.

Paddle through the night we did. I must admit, paddling at night is an experience! It is beautiful on the river under the stars and the moon. Everything in your view seems to pass by as if you were moving at light speed: the silhouettes of the trees lining the banks, the barges, and the tankers all whiz by at an incredible speed which is incredibly deceiving as time seems to stop. What seems like two hours of paddling turns out to have only been a half an hour.

We maneuvered all around barges hard at work into the night and tankers gliding across the river. We passed numerous, huge oil refineries that lit up the sky with a golden glow that you could see from miles away as we paddled into the night. Finally, at about 2am we had reached mile 58 and I, Edmund, could not keep my eyes open anymore. We ended up tying up to the mile 58 buoy platform and taking a four hour nap underneath the stars. Petrie slept in the canoe as Edmund climbed the platform and slept.

As the sun rose so did we. We had a quick breakfast and started into another long day of paddling. This portion of the trip was a lot less congested. We did not see any barges. The only traffic were the tankers heading for the Gulf of Mexico or up to New Orleans/Baton Rouge.

We paddled all day and again into the night, this time reaching Venice, LA (mile 10) at approximately 11 pm. All the while as we paddled we started to realize this would be our last full day on the river. Our dinner of ramen noodles and canned chicken would be our last for a while. We would be rejoining society within the next 24 hours and we would no longer be taking baths or washing our clothes in the river. Our openness towards belching and farting would probably no longer be accepted.

When we arrived in Venice, we looked for a place to sleep. We found an industrial harbor and ended up tying up underneath a wooden structure that looked like an abandoned part of a dock. Petrie fell asleep right away, but Edmund kept bumping his head on a beam of the dock. He decided he would get a better nights sleep on the grass so he climbed up the dock and swung onto a patch of grass where he laid his head down for the night.

I should have stayed in the boat! At approximately 4:30 am I woke up to an army of fire ants biting me all over my body. The next day I had about 30 welts on my back alone. My hands, feet, and buttocks were also covered in welts. One good thing came out of this event, as the ants acted as a natural alarm clock and got us up and moving before sunrise.

We had breakfast, dropped off any unnecessary equipment such as our tents and backpacks, loaded the canoe with the motor, batteries, solar panel, a little food, water, and some sunscreen and headed for mile zero.

It turns out that Venice is a very busy fishing village. As we headed out at about 6am a ton of private/commercial fishing boats were heading out to the their favorite fishing holes.

At around 11 am we arrived at mile zero! 89 Days from the start of the river in Lake Itasca, MN we had paddled 2,320 miles to mile zero! We climbed up onto the buoy platform, gave each other a hug, called our loved ones and let them know we had done it. We spent about an hour up on that buoy taking pictures and recalling all the events that had lead up to that one moment and just soaked it all in: two individuals, proud as we could be standing at the end of our accomplishment looking back up river.

Then we realized we could be celebrating in New Orleans and it was time to get back to Venice to meet the individuals that would be purchasing our canoe and giving us a lift back up to New Orleans. We put the motor back together, wired up a battery and opened it to full throttle. No more paddling! We sat there as content as could be. Again, sharing stories and memories of the best and the worst moments of our trip.

When one battery ran out we replaced it with the other. However, right around mile 7, with 3 more miles to go, the second battery started running out of juice and we might have had to resort to paddling once again. Luckily, a boat of fishermen came up alongside of us and offered us a lift into Venice. We took the lift! Thank you Jerry, Sammy, and Tommy for your help and the meal! We really appreciated it. We will definitely take you up on your offer of fishing for Reds the next time we are in the area.

From Venice we were given a ride back up to New Orleans and dropped off at Edmund's relatives house: The Wood's residence with Jeanne, Dave, Chris and Will. We were treated to an amazing meal at K-Paul's in the French Quarter. Edmund tried the Cajun Martini which is topped with a jalapeno instead of olives. Ashley and Sarah from Baton Rouge came down to celebrate and Will stayed up to show us the hot-spots of the French Quarter.

On Sunday, we split our separate ways to experience the city. We are still very good friends even despite being so close to each other for such a long period of time. In fact, our friendship has definitely grown.

Thank you all for your support. We look forward to passing the money we have raised off to UNICEF in the very near future. It meant a lot to us to see friends, family, and even strangers rally together for such a good cause and to help us achieve our goal of making it down the river.

Please visit the site in the near future for an after-thought from both of us. Also, we will be putting up the rest of the pictures in the upcoming week to give everyone the complete picture of our accomplishment.

Onto the next big challenge,

Edmund "The Electric Eel" Eilbacher & Jeff "The Platypus" Petrie