(Note: Helena Advertising and Promotions Commission sponsored this blogger trip. Opinions are my own.)
Never swim in the Mississippi River. EVER.
After a trip to the grocery store, Momma often drove us over the levee to make sure he was still there. We always took out-of town visitors to see our river at the Osceola River Port. And crossing into Memphis, we held our breath on the bridge spanning the water, a game we played in route to the Zoo or Goldsmith’s or the Mid-South Fair. It was a l-o-n-g way over.
The Mississippi River flowed through our veins, yet we never swam in it. EVER.
I was part of a small group of Arkansas Women Bloggers invited by the Helena Advertising and Promotions Commission to spend a few days in their delta town overlooking the Mississippi River. Although Helena is directly downstream from our farm near Osceola, this was my first visit.
Buck Island was remote.
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| Arriving at Buck Island |
Uninhabited, the only signs of life were animal tracks stamped in the sand.
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| beautiful white sand |
In only moments, our guides built an impressive fire from sticks and driftwood gathered from the nearby woods. As the sun sank into the riverbank, we ate dinner by bonfire glow, debated the perfect way to roast a marshmallow, and drank the finest boxed wine from hefty coffee mugs.
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| Kyran Pittman demonstrating marshmallow perfection |
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| Mississippi River barge |
Great vicarious “trip” on the Mississip. (Rhymes just happen sometimes.) Thanks for sharing.
Yes they do:)
Marvelous, Talya. I wondered where you found the white sand. Thanks for sharing this story of the river and the clip with Paul Robeson, the best rendition of that song ever.
Thank you Dot! It was a fantastic trip and this song gives me chills.
This was definitely the highlight of the trip for me. Hope to get back there with my boys!
Me too! I know my family would love it.
Sounds like a fun adventure. Thanks for sharing.
It was! Thank you.
Talya, these are BEAUTIFUL pictures! Where these captured with a DSLR? I have never spent time in this part of the country before. We must check it out!
Thank you Taylor! It is a beautiful part of the country. I took all these pictures with my iPhone:)
What an amazing adventure. I loved seeing your pictures and am so glad you shared here. ♥
Thank you Kathy!
Loved this part of the trip so much – am still trying to find the right words. You did beautifully here! I’m ready to go again. 🙂
Thank you Sara Beth. I wanna go back too:)
I love the mix of memories and your recent excursion. You already know that I was close to calling your mother about you being in a canoe on the Mississippi River!
Thank you Dorothy. I believe growing up in the delta so close to the river made the trip even more special to me.
What a beautiful narrative. Flowed like the mighty Mississip.
Thank you! It truly is a magical place.
Wow your words truly took me on an adventure. Lovely pics too.
yikes…a classmate drowned?
if it had been warmer, we would all have been swimming!
Yes but I really just don’t think he knew how to swim:( thanks so much for reading and commenting! You are awesome!
I loved this post. Brought me back to canoeing with my girl scout troup in middle school (the colorado river…not quite as large but still the biggest river I’d ever seen.) They warned us against swimming too, though let us “swim”, with our life jackets, in a small inlet between a sandbar and the river where the water was less than 2 feet high. I grew up living on a boat and felt like a toddler with that big ole life jacket in such shallow water, but it was better than nothing. I’d been itching to get in that water all day.
But me and my friend found a way to at least get our feet wet during the rest of the trip…we took turns sitting on the bow with our feet dangling in the water. I’m surprized they let us do that but possibly we were too far away for our troup leaders to see what we were doing. We paddled til sunset, when the sunshine scattered over the river and turned it golden, and everything seemed to hush save the splash of the paddles. Such good memories!
I wanted to let you know that the new Wherever Wednesday is up, and that I featured your post in the “highlights from last month”! http://texifornia.blogspot.com/2013/12/this-is-wherever-wednesday.html Love your writing!
Thank you so much for sharing your memories and for featuring my post! Going to check it out now:))
Awesome post! Glad you were able to do this! I watched a whole redwood Cyprus tree standing straight up slowly sink and then flipping it’s roots up into the air going down that river so I will pass on swimming in it. Beautiful pics though!
Hey girl – I’m just now settling back into the bloggy groove. I remember meeting you at the conference last year. This is an awesome post – beautiful pictures and I love the way you tell your story. I never really thought of the power of the Mississippi river or that there could be an a place in the middle with so much charm.
Hey there! Great to hear from you. Hopefully I’ll see you at AWBU this year!
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