Missouri Life September 2023

Was he playing to the river? For it? At it? In honor of it?

warned us to be careful, to stick to river right until the fog cleared. Barges would be invisible to us, and we’d be invisible to them. In about as long as it took him to say that—poof—the fog lifted and was gone. After a riverside lunch in New Haven, we returned to the water for one last stretch of paddling. High and to our left, two bald eagles flew circle after circle, as if on an airborne merry-go-round only they could see. For five minutes or more, they turned laps overhead then followed us as we looked for Boeuf Creek. A right turn there led us into still water. The wind stopped. The sun turned up its heat. Sweat collected on my back. We inched our way around protruding rocks and fallen trees. Fish jumped out of the creek, banged into the cooler in the canoe in front of me, and fell into the water. Without the cooler, they would have landed in the canoe. We ground to a halt when the creek turned shallow. We carried our canoes through feet-swallowing mud and across shin-busting rocks. Finally, we arrived at Colter’s Landing, named for John Colter, New Haven’s most famous resident. He was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and in 1807–08, he became the first European to explore what we know now as Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton Mountains. He was the original mountain man, and he stands as both a model for and the antithesis of what we hoped to get out of 50-50-50. He lived a vibrant, active, danger-filled life. He challenged himself, seized adven ture, and survived by his own strength and endurance. But he did so alone, which sounds like a nightmare. b b b As we paddled, then pedaled and walked through those four days, we talked, we laughed, we teased. The miles were hard to come by. The conversations were not. I talked to John, my co-organizer, about shared strug gles with our teen and pre-teen daughters. Josh told me his goal was to not give me anything to write about, as on last year’s 50-50-50 he rode 30 miles on a broken bike, walked 35 miles on a badly sprained ankle, and while he was undoubtedly the hero of the trip, he much preferred to play a minor role. Tim waxed poetic about the still of early mornings while hunting in Missouri’s forests. He craves the seren ity, the darkness, the silence. He loves it when unseen woodland creatures break that peace, signaling that the forest is waking up. Fred and I had a profound conversation about the fact he was in the middle of prostate cancer treatment. Late one afternoon, near the end of a nine-mile hike, we arrived at James W. Rennick Riverfront Park, a strip of green dotted with benches, covered picnic areas, and trees that separates downtown Washington from the Missouri River. The river rolled on, bubbles speeding by, the rest as lan guid as ever. Music reached my ears. A man stood with his back to me, facing the river, as he played the trumpet. He hadn’t been there when we walked through a few hours earlier. Now his song welcomed us back to town.

I smiled at the sheer weirdness of a man playing a trumpet along a river. Then again, I was canoeing 50 miles in it, biking 50 miles along it, and hiking 50 miles next to it, so who am I to call him weird? Too soon, the music ended, or at least I couldn’t hear it as a train roared by, as is common in Washington and in New Haven and in Hermann and in every other town up and down the river. I turned to look at Mr. Trumpet. I wondered if he stopped playing; the train’s deafening noise drowned out everything, even rational thought. Maybe he stopped as the train blared a horn of its own because nobody would have heard a note from him. Maybe he didn’t care about that; I mean, he was playing alone in a park, which certainly suggests he did not care about the lack of an audience. I like to think he kept play ing the whole time because he was playing out of love and not for approval. We resumed our hike, west across the park, the river to our right, the train gone, the trumpet’s notes fading behind us. A young couple on a picnic date sat facing each other instead of the river. I admired them for considering that the best use of their time. Four dogs and a dozen people watched the river roll by. I would have stopped to say hello, but we had miles to complete. b b b As we ate dinner that night, I did the 50-50-50 math. We were still far behind schedule. The only way to get to 50 miles of hiking was to crush ourselves. To achieve our goal, we would have to hike earlier than planned, later than planned, and faster than planned, and in the process eschew conversation. I decided to drop the 50 miles of hiking to 30. To chase a total at the expense of deeper relationships would be like playing a trumpet while a train roared by. We would not chase the fast bubbles. We would chase each other instead. The miles would be low; the joy would be high. I followed that decision with the best night of sleep I’ve ever had on an adventure.

Among the 50 50-50 crew were, from left, Tom Dell, Ryan Foster, Tim Stolarski, the author Matt Crossman, Josh Ritter, Bryan Thomas, and Garry Kiphart.

FRED WILLIAMS

43 / SEPTEMBER 2023