How do you camp for a week-long canoe trip on the Mississippi? We couldn't find any info on this, so we figured we'd just wing it, which mostly worked. But in case there's someone out there who might want some guidance, here's a little list of some of the items that were a little less than obvious, at least to me. Joan.


THE THINGS WE WERE REALLY GLAD WE PACKED:

(not necessarily in order)

1. Wide-brimmed straw hats, as the sun was murder. This was Leo's idea. Katy got hers in NYC's Chinatown for 99 cents. The rest of the crew picked them up in Walmart for $1.88. And three huge bottles of No-Ad Suntan Lotion (a few bucks for a 16-ounce bottle) kept us mostly burn free for the whole trip.

BEACH CHAIRS AND STRAW HATS IN ACTION

2. Folding metal beach chairs ($10 at Walmart). They seem totally decadent, and they are. But without them we would have spent a lot of time sitting right in the mud. And it was really nice to have a little back support. They fit easily in the canoes, and they were in high demand every night.

3. 20 to 25-quart coolers. ($15 on sale at Walmart) It turns out, you can check these things as luggage on airplanes. Mark threw some stuff in his, and then used duct tape to tape the lid shut. Everything arrived safe.

4. A cardboard panoramic camera (happened to be Kodak), which took by far the most memorable pictures. We were also glad we brought one recyclable underwater camera for each boat (these cost about $20) and one camera with a flash for night pictures.

4. Garlic & Churchill Cigars & Mosquito coils. Separately of course. The garlic gave us a kick when chased by beer. Mark thought the garlic would keep away mosquitos but it didn't. The cigar smoke was more effective at combatting mosquitos, as were the mosquito coils and some kind of anti-mosquito suntan lotion we used (Skinsosoft).

5. BOB: A very light long sleeve white (former) dress shirt, which was cool, dried quickly, and kept the sun off. My combination shorts/long pants (the ones where the legs zip off).

6. Bungies, which we used to strap the boats together into a flotilla.

7. Lunch boxes. Each one was like a waterproof purse.

8. Large Zip-lock bags, which kept a lot of stuff dry.

9. Lipton's instant noodles (officially called Lipton Noodles & Sauce). These are 5-inch by 7-inch cardboard packets that cost around $1.25 in grocery stores. Generally one package feeds two. It helps to have milk, but they taste alright without. We hate that freeze-dried $5-a-pop stuff that's so popular among backpackers. Katy made us all aprons celebrating our chosen food. They read "I'd rather be having Lipton Noodles & Sauce."

10. Toys. We brought lots of these including our rubber duckies, squirt guns, Eric's French Horn, Leo's flute, Mark's miniature spirograph toy, a train whistle, Bob's cheesy $10 tape player with two-inch speakers that played only Muddy Waters (normally we'd never bring a tape player camping but we loved Muddy Waters and since there was no one else around we weren't exactly bothering anyone).

11. Rain gear. Bob brought lots of extra rain ponchos plus we picked up some huge blue tarps at Walmart for $7 or $8 each. The tarps were a little unwieldy, but they came in handy when we are camping on really billowy mud (often). And once, when it really poured hard on the canoes we spread one tarp over each canoe and everything stayed more or less dry.

BOB's PONCHOs SAVE THE DAY

12. A Coleman two-burner stove (we once fired it up even when we were floating) and good plastic coffee mugs.

13. Headlamp. These are the strap-to-your head lamps that cost $20 to $40 in places like REI. Since we didn't have lanterns--or tables to set lanterns--it was really nice having a headlamp to see what we were doing.

WHAT WE WISH WE HAD PACKED:

1. A real map. The trouble with Mississippi maps, at least the all ones we could find, is that they come in two extremes. Either you can get a really good detailed map from the US Army Corps of Engineers or you can settle for a garden variety road map that features the river as a bluish blob--as it ran in 1950 or so. The trouble with the real map is it's huge--it comes in two parts, and each one is two feet wide by one-foot long, which means it would be pretty hard to keep dry in a canoe, at least if you wanted to look at it often. Also it's fairly expensive ($20 for each part). Finally it's hard to get. You have to order it from a special map store or the Army Corps and we just didn't have it together to do this. We decided to wing it and pick up a map once we got to New Orleans. We were sure they'd be easy to find but they weren't. We really regretted it. The river changes course a little just about every night, and definitely after every storm, and absolutely after every month. Whole towns switch sides of the river. We were stuck with a road map, which showed the river going down wrong channels.

At least one friend has wondered out loud how we could possibly get lost going down the Mississippi. After all, all you have to do is go downstream, she says. Well that's true, unless you take a wrong turn, and that is easy to do (see Chapter VII). Mark Twain said it takes an experienced river pilot to tell the difference between the river and a flooded cornfield. Having detoured into a few flooded fields ourselves, we now know that's true.

2. BOB: a sheet instead of a sleeping bag.

3. JOAN: Q-tips. At least two of our crew our Q-tip addicts, and we didn't have any. We had to go cold turkey for a whole week.

4. More lawn chairs. More bungies.

5. More Mosquito Gear! like pants made from mosquito netting, more mosquito coils, some mosquito fogger, etc. I really wish I had those pants the night we all slept in the boats (see Chapter IX). Bob bought me some after we got back. NOTE: if we had to do it again, we probably wouldn't get mosquito hats; we have heard these are so unbearably hot that people who wear them end up taking them off because they would rather be bitten than baked to death.

6. Something to hold beer cans in the boat. We bought some cheapo plastic soda bottle holders for this, but they didn't work well. BOB: I must have lost parts of a dozen beers when they got tipped over in the bottom of the boat.

7. Jiffy Pop popcorn for Katy and more ice.

WHAT WE WISH WE HADN'T PACKED:

1. Anything to read, as there was never any time. Mark brought a great Garrison Keillor book but it fell in the river. I brought a copy of Mississippi Solo and never cracked it once. I did read it when we got back (although I liked it a lot, I'm glad I waited, because the guy who wrote it mentions lots of times that he spends in bars and hotels and restaurants, and we hardly saw any. If I had read it we might have packed less food or something).

2. BOB: my sleeping bag - on this particular trip.

3. BOB (king of camping gear): my lantern, as it takes too long to get out and light and we never really needed it, and we all had flashlights.

4. BOB: My beer hugger, as using it for a pillow (see Chapter IX), really represented the low ebb of the trip.

TAKE ME BACK TO ERICANDJOAN's MISSISSIPPI ADVENTURE