Age is just a number, so too are the miles and miles along the Mississippi River for David Maupin and Kim Robert Clark, local financial planner and retired professor in public health at Cal State University respectively. These two Redlands friends have known each other for decades, they both used to go backpack hiking. The outdoors feel like a well worn shirt to them, comfortable and necessary.
This is a part of a short piece that made it into the local paper, Redlands Community News yesterday. This version is longer and has more details about their endeavors. Their first leg of the trip that they traversed a year ago was also published in RCN.Last year in September, the month of Maupin’s birthday, the two old friends trekked by canoe 413 miles in 26 days from Lake Bemidji to Minneapolis. This year also in September, the couple traversed 440 miles in 23 days, averaging 20 miles of paddling per day, roughly five extra miles per day compared to last year. This year, Maupin entered his 80’s at the start of the trip which did not deter him to sleep on the ground, camp by and bathe in the river. Clark being five years younger had some doubts, but they had all faded by the time they returned.
(Here Kim Clark pulls the rope for one of the dams, they are getting ready to pass)
This stretch of the river was characterized by agricultural business along the river, long stretches had been straightened for barges to transport grains, corn and syrup along the river. Sometimes a tow boat would push 15 barges with cargo in front of them. There were 26 dams the canoers had to pass through with man-made lakes connecting the dams.
The best advice they got during this month’s trip was “The barges cannot see you, and if you are in the channel you have to watch out,” said Clark.
Since their first leg of the trip last year, they made some improvements to their canoe. They got more comfortable seats and a skirt to protect their gear and to keep dry from waves from the barges and the turbulent waters roughing the canoe every time they went through a lock. “At times the waves were so violent and high my bow paddle missed the water entirely, only striking the air as a big tower loomed dangerously close ahead,” described Maupin.
“People are shocked that we ate backpacking food and we loved it,” said Clark. Every day they took two lunch breaks at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to eat a Cliff bar. Both men have a past history of backpack hiking and eating freeze dried food for a few weeks felt nostalgic and exciting. Every two hours they took a break, and every twenty minutes or after each mile they switched the side they were paddling. There were dense forests at the beginning and farm fields at the end.
They saw bald eagles, cormorants, Canada geese and pelicans. “Everywhere pelicans,” said Maupin. “Not expecting pelicans, big white pelicans,” said Clark.
They enjoyed watching the army corps engineers depositing sand to protect the river banks from erosion. And along the route the river was dotted with buoys.“This year the whole thing had red and green buoys,” said Clark, “Every quarter mile you see a red and a green buoy, and you knew where the deep channel was.”
Again, this year the couple was assisted by generous mid-western hospitality called river angels.
“I had an air mattress that went flat and a woman met us and loaned me her air mattress for the rest of the trip,” said Clark. The family that had assisted them at the very beginning of the river came down at met them in Minneapolis. “It’s a four-hour drive and they combined it with a Costco run and they brought us six cupcakes,” said Maupin, they remembered his birthday. Another river angel gave them a walking tour of the city of Hannibal in Missouri, Mark Twain’s hometown.
The people they met loves the river. “They are just genuinely generous and out-going and want to help any way they can,” said Maupin. “They are sort of silent group because they don’t publish their names.”
(Bathing in the river was a risky affair!)
During the first week, Maupin got an eye and ear infection from jumping head first in the river. “My eyes were frozen shut each morning for about a week, I had a bad ear ache,” said Maupin. He went to urgent care but the infection persisted in the following days. “We had posted on the River Angels’ Facebook page; did anyone know where there was an urgent care?” said Clark. The river angel at the next town got her neighbor to help them out. “This young man was just superb and he drove us to the hotel, and [Maupin] to urgent care,” said Clark. “And to the pharmacy,” said Maupin. “He was Cuban American with a wife and three kids under the age of five.” The guys took the young family out for dinner that night.
Along the river they meet people who have heard about Redlands.
In 2021 son of past president of University of Redlands, Scott Armacost and his daughter Samantha also went on the source to sea route and finished in three months back in 2021. Every day at dusk, Scott Armacost played “Taps” on his trumpet to commemorate those whose deaths were related to COVID-19. Four years later people still remembered. “Scott told more than one of the river angels we stayed at that, now after this time on the river, I know my people,” said Maupin.
During their time on the river they didn’t meet other long-distance canoers or kayakers like them, it’s late in the season and they are few and far between. They did meet one young man at the end of their canoe trip in St. Louis, who had begun at the source. After 30 days, “He was just tired of it and decided to quit,” said Clark. “He was beating himself up for it and we gave him a pep-talk about what a wonderful accomplishment it was.”
There were two very different reactions they heard when talking to people living near the Mississippi River and people back home in Redlands. The mid-west reaction was “You are so lucky, your wife would let you get away with it,” said Maupin. “I wish I could do that, I always wanted to do that,” added Clark of the comments they heard. The West coast reactions were different, “You slept outside every night on the sandbar? What did you eat?” said Clark, and Maupin added, “And why would you do that?”
For Maupin and Clark will do it again. As long as Maupin makes sure to bring a tent that is not leaking in rainy weather (a trip to Walmart fixed that problem this time).
A contact they had from planning this trip, Mike from Big Muddy Adventures agreed to store their canoe until next year when they will finish the third and final leg of the river to the Gulf of Mexico.
You might think this piece of writing sticks a bit out from the prior community themed-pieces. Except I think hearing stories about how you meet people ‘in the wild’ and the type of heart warming communities that are willing to help ‘strangers’ are the kind of stories we need to hear and know more about. Here is the version of the story from the paper.
