Mississippi headwaters
I think gravity is back to normal. You never can tell with all this wildness around me.
A conversation we had: now some of us have been at both ends of this river. Consensus view is that the food is much better at the other end.
Huh, I read the title as “Now I’m a mighty river”. Was kinda confused until I realized that there’s an “at”…
That is a lovely photo. Wish I was there. (Not likely since I’m in Cardiff, Wales, but I can dream, can’t I?)
The food is always better at the other end.
Food may be much better at the other end, but the water is much clearer at this end.
On the other hand, it was at the other end where President Obama did such a piss-poor job after Katrina.
@petemoulton
You do realize it was Bush who was President during and after Katrina… Obama has many faults, but Bush was the one who was responsible for the Katrina debacle.
I am smack dab in the middle of the river. No good food and murky water.
Hurricane Katrina was 2005. Bush was president, in his first year of his second term. If you tell lies like that, why should we believe your word on anything PeteMoulton? Think about that….
Whew. Just moved into my cabin. Air conditioning. Private bath. WiFi. Wilderness is looking up.
I’m not sure, but I think @petemoulton was joking / referring to an article about how Fox News viewers thought that Obama rather than Bush was responsible for the fiasco after Hurricane Katrina. Of course xe could be a Fox News viewer.
Pete Moulton is riffing on this poll.
Is petemoulton a Louisiana Republican?
Strange, that.
It was a poll of republicans in LA, 28% blamed bush for the Katrina mess and 29% blamed Obama.
Needs more “NObama” or “Obummer” I think.
Nerd, I assume — until there is evidence to the contrary — petemoulton was joking about the recently reported poll finding:
Reminds me of a favorite song…
Indigo Girls, “Ghost”
(2nd verse)
The Mississippi’s mighty, but it starts in Minnesota
At a place where you can walk across with five steps down
And I guess that’s how you started like a pinprick to my heart
But at this point you rush right through me and I start to drown
Now all you Minnesotans stop peeing in that river! It’s making the Louisianans stupid.
Did I need a sarcasm tag?
I dunno PZ, you could have some fine wild rice soup with some walleye fried in a beer batter in Minnesota; so, the food here isn’t all bad. You’ve probably had too much tater tot hot dish lately.
Anyhow, I’d say the restaurants are better at the other end of the river, but at least Minnesotans are more liberal than the people living downsteam.
petemoulton, it would have helped. There’s been a lot of non-sarcastic stupid around these parts lately. Poe’s law and all…
PZ
I spent a large part of my working life living in tents, cooking over an open fire (or for luxury, a coleman stove), bathing in lakes and rivers, gently evicting wildlife from my tent, and other woodsy stuff.
Yay modern Wilderness™!
You should note that Lake Itasca is notably closer to the center of the earth than the mouth of the Mississippi where it flows into the sea. Thanks to the equatorial bulge, many of the earth’s great river’s flow uphill, away from the earth’s core.
@petemoulton:
Did I need a sarcasm tag?
No, you’ve just proven a) Poe’s Law, and b) that some Pharyngulites need to read the OTHER blogs at FTB.
Those rocks, by the way, look mighty “created”. Either goddidit or that’s the highest dam on the Mississippi.
Oh, and “Mississippi” is fun to type!
Deeeep river….My home is over Jordan….
Name that movie…..
Go see the remnant of old growth forest if you have time. Its not quite as massive as pacific rainforest, but it is impressive to see what it looked like presettlement. Itasca is #5 at this link.
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/forests_types/oldgrowth/visit.html
Absolutely. You sounded like a typical Rethuglican. Poe’s Law, so if you joke, make it known.
I first read the title for this post as “Now I am a mighty river.” It seemed fitting…still does. And when I googled that phrase, I got this article as the first hit. Wow!
The food may be better at the other end, but the climate isn’t nearly as good…and I don’t mean the weather. It’s fun down in NO, but there’s a darkness to the South. I would never go again except for my mother and brother.
PZ, I think that I would be a lot less worried about eating the food on your end of the river. The gulf is quickly becoming the cess pool of America.
I would love to read your take on the sinkhole that recently ate some trees in Louisiana. I read that the sinkhole originally formed after a Texas fracking company drilled into something called a salt dome in that Louisiana swamp. The piece that I read said that there is now a layer of Butane near the surface that could cause real damage if it ignites. Any thoughts?
Mighty River
great tune, great band.
Checked out the Google Earth picture of the site. I could see a beach on the north shore of the river, and the rock bridge/dam. Interesting.
Seriously? Nobody yet?
National Lampoon’s Vacation.
Here’s the classic song about the Mississippi specifially:
Big River
the CCC put the rocks there,in the old days the water flowed thru a swamp in about that location.
go up stream,yes up,to Elk Lake and take out a boat and you can see the iron rich springs that feed the river.back in the 70’s you could pull off the park drive and find one of the larger springs but the drive off was closed since then.
PS..the marker that was at that spot for decades is now in the science museum in st paul.
Isaac Asimov once pointed out that if you count by length, then the longest river in North America has no official name. It’s the Missouri River + lower Mississippi River.
Does the US have the longest river in the world? – Straight Dope Message Board