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Discover Mid-America — April 2005

A 120-mile boyhood adventure

Ever since I can remember, I’ve enjoyed maps, especially those with gray lines marking roads that often define the limits of civilization. Even more intriguing are the wiggly blue lines that represent creeks.

Our family farm in northeast Missouri was traversed by the Wyaconda River, a creek that once wandered in tight switchbacks, causing innumerable spring floods. In the 1930s, WPA crews dredged the creek, causing it to be known to locals as “the canal.” The tamed river still wandered in its channel, leaving sandbars and holes that offered waist-deep swimming.

It was an adventure land to a young boy, who dammed straggling parts of the stream with mud and rocks. Later, I would dig crawdads out of their holes and once hand-fished for channel cat and carp.

In the summer, dry weather turned the river to a trickling stream. A person could wade for miles, avoiding the holes and fallen trees.

It was during one of those dry summers in the early 1950s that I hatched a plan to follow the Wyaconda to its mouth some 45 miles downstream, where it drained into the Mississippi River.

There were three of us boys, all about 13 or 14. We had hiking boots, sleeping bags, knapsacks, and canteens. No one had a tent, but there were bridges to sleep under and, anyway, it was August, and rain hadn’t fallen for a month. We nagged our parents until we got their permission, then packed some sandwiches and began our hike on a Sunday morning.

The day was hot. It felt good to walk in the water. Some parts of the river were too deep for easy walking and we took to the bank, where unfenced pastureland offered speedier travel. At one point, we detoured from the river to a country store and fortified ourselves with Pepsi’s and candy bars, then hurried back to continue our adventure.

All went well until that evening when the sky darkened and it began to rain, breaking the drought that we thought would last forever. As the rain picked up, we took shelter under a bridge to spend the night. The second day was also rainy but we pushed on, leaving the mud and rising water of the Wyaconda to contend with cockle burrs and tall grass along its banks.

By dusk, we were near Canton, MO, where we hitched a ride with a trucker headed for the ferry, which crossed the Mississippi River to Meyer, IL. Just north of Meyer, we found a railroad shack, and spent the night there. The leaky roof let the rain soak us thoroughly.

In the morning, we wrung out our wet socks, dried them as best we could, and began walking. Leaving the tracks, we followed the Great River Road to Carthage, and then to Hamilton, where my aunt and step-grandmother lived. By then we were dry but filthy. We took baths, had some supper, and spent the night on cots in her sleeping porch.

The next morning my aunt fed us breakfast, and we headed for the Mississippi River bridge that crossed to Keokuk, IA. Again it rained and we took shelter in a warehouse near the railroad tracks. We followed the tracks back into Missouri on an abandoned line once used by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. We dined on cold beans beneath a railroad bridge in Wayland then trudged on. By now we were feeling the effects of walking on the railroad ties — blistered feet and aching legs and backs. But we kept going, and got as far as Ashton in Clark County, when we decided to call it a day.

There was no bridge or shack to protect us, but the rain had stopped. We found a level place not far from the tracks, spread our sleeping bags, and crawled in. It didn’t take long to fall asleep. The rain that came that night barely woke us.

We got back to my parents’ farm the next morning about 10 a.m. We had walked about 120 miles, and got soaked to the skin several times. Aside from blisters and leg muscles that felt like lead weights, we were OK. And we had gotten the urge for adventure out of our system — for a while.

Discover Mid-America founder and Senior Contributing Editor Ken Weyand files regular reports on notable Midwest destinations. He can be reached at kweyand@gbronline.com.

> Traveling with Ken Archive — past columns