I Took a Walk IN the Mississippi River Today. What Did You Do?

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All this time I thought I’d have to go to Lake Itasca in Minnesota to walk IN the Mississippi River. No, I just had to go a little north of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. (All these “M” states! ) This quick jaunt was caused by my seeing an article online about Tower Rock Natural Area being exposed by the reduced water levels in the Mississippi River for the third consecutive year. An area that was only “accessible by boat” according to its web site could now be walked to. Well, heck, sign me up! The bag goes in the car and I go to Missouri! The Mississippi River has so many cycles. I’ve used the Randy Newman song “Louisiana 1927,” which is about the massive flooding in the Delta along the river, before. There’s Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee, which was created in 1812 when the Mississippi ran backwards as a result of the great earthquakes on the New Madrid Fault. In 1993 the flooding was horrible, and that came just four years after a drought that exposed long-buried shipwrecks in the river. This is just something you have to see to believe. The photos do not do it justice. Even if you compare the photo of Tower Rock on the website, when the river is “normal” (linked below) to the photos I took today, it’s hard to fathom. You see that high water mark from the flooding, which would have been about 20 feet over my head, and the exposed area that’s normally underwater, and all you can do is go “wow.” Of course, being able to walk in the Mississippi River this far down (Lake Itasca is the headwaters of the Mississippi River, where it’s about 20-30 feet wide and a whopping 18 inches deep) was part of the thrill. I made it out to Tower Rock without falling into the river (a lady who was navigating the rocks did fall, landing in water about one foot deep, if that deep), and spent an hour just walking around it, amazed at the sprouting foliage on the banks as well as the marvel of WALKING about a third of a mile from the river bank without getting anything more than the tops of my very waterproof hiking shoes wet. Yeah, that was my boring day. COLLAGE: (Upper left) Tower Rock from the very exposed bank of the river. (Upper right) Looking west toward the Missouri bank, where the flood’s high water mark is evident. (Lower left) A barge going down the Mississippi, showing how far out in the water we were (as well as how low the river is with the exposed ground on the Illinois side). (Lower right) Tower Rock, with the foliage on the Missouri bank in the background. AND, for reference, here’s the Tower Rock website with the “normal water level” photo: