It is one thing to be in the wild with such a creature where both parties can find a way to escape, but quite another to be confined in a concrete and steel bathtub with the water draining out.Īt the mouth of the canal connecting the Mississippi with the Arkansas River, I departed my friends and went solo for the remainder of the 600 miles. In one case, my friends and I were sealed in one of the locks in the lower part of the Arkansas River with what we thought was a large log, only to find out it was a ten-foot alligator. This part of the journey slices through Arkansas where the terrain changes measurably from flat and heavily wooded areas in the west, to high bluffs and unexpected rises in elevation in mid-state, to farm fields and wide expansive reservoirs with alligators and other unfamiliar wildlife. Hannes Zacharias arriving in Venice, Louisiana, on September 1 to family and friends.īeing on the crowded and overloaded bass boat posed different challenges dodging the wakes of barges, now more prevalent than before, avoiding lightning-laden thunderstorms, and managing fuel through the 300 miles of flat water with virtually no marinas.
This was a true blessing and a similar experience to one I had in 1976, when I served as a volunteer deckhand on the towboat “Bill Kadd,” roping barges through the entire length of the navigation system. At the end, I connected with two friends from Kansas and Colorado who assisted me getting to Fort Smith, where I joined other friends with an 18-foot bass boat and a 70 horsepower motor that towed me across much of Arkansas and through many of the 18 locks and dams on the McCLellan/Kerr Navigation System. When last we visited, I was departing Webber Falls, Oklahoma, heading for the Kerr Reservoir, a long and strenuous paddle across one of the largest reservoirs I’ve encountered. It was a challenging, energizing and rewarding adventure. I completed my 2,000-mile kayak journey to rediscover the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers a repeat (in part) of the trip I did 42 years ago. D ear Colorado Central reader, I made it.
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