RIVER CITY JOURNAL: HOW I WENT ON A CANOE TRIP AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT

I'll be honest. I expected the worst. What I got was the best, thanks to a couple of great young fellows.

If I had to write a report on how to survive 32.7 miles in a canoe on a fast-flowing river in the Ozarks, this is what it would say:

Have a grand time.

But that's way too short, isn't it?

So let me tell you about the trip, which I have now obviously survived.

First, let me give credit to two young men who went all out in planning, organizing and executing the trip down the Eleven Point River through the Irish Wilderness in southern, almost-Arkansas Missouri.

These young men, of course, are my sons, who are the smartest, best-looking fellows around. But that's another column.

As best as I can tell, this whole adventure started when younger son read about the Eleven Point River in a magazine and thought, Hey, that's in Missouri, so it must be close to Cape Girardeau. Keep in mind this particular son lives in San Antonio. He called his brother, who lives in Cambridge (please don't say Boston, because it's not) and who searched the Web for information about the Eleven Point River and canoe outfitters.

When you get to the Irish Wilderness, you're just about as far from civilization as you can get in these United States, unless you go to Wyoming or Alaska, and, quite frankly, that's an awful long drive to get to nowhere.

So I was amazed to find that the three licensed canoe rental places on the Eleven Point River have Web sites. Imagine, this is an area that didn't even have electricity until the 1950s. And you're still taking a chance on indoor plumbing in some parts around there.

The boys packed everything we would need for a two-day trip on the river, including anything they could think of to make me stop whining. It came to about 300 pounds of gear stashed into two enormous waterproof bags plus assorted smaller waterproof bags plus a large ice chest -- waterproof, of course. After all, when you are canoeing, you expect to tip over.

We left Cape Girardeau at 4:30 a.m. Our first quest was to find an appropriate place to eat breakfast pancakes, a must-do tradition since the boys took a five-day, 7,300-mile tour in March of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington (the Olympic Peninsula), along the Oregon coast to California and back to Texas, with stops for 15-mile hikes along the way and sleeping in the car except for a couple of nights with friends. Some traditions have a difficult birth. That's the way I see it.

Anyway, we found the perfect breakfast place in Doniphan. On the breakfast menu were hot cakes (large and small stacks) and Lavell pancakes. We asked what those were. We were told by the nicest waitress that the Lavell pancakes are really big, and you buy them one at a time. So the boys ordered three apiece, plus older son added hash browns and younger son added a bowl of oatmeal. I stuck to eggs and sausage.

The Lavell pancakes are about the size of old 33 1/3-rpm records. But they were good.

So off we went to Riverton, which is where Highway 160 crosses the Eleven Point River and where you can rent canoes. I was surprised the rental place was all computerized. I was also surprised at how regulated by the federal government such enterprises are. We even had to pay a federal tax of some kind to canoe on the river. Just imagine, we could get a computer printout of our trip and a bag of fried pork rinds all at the same time. This has got to be heaven.

The canoe outfitter hauled us and a trailer loaded with canoes 19 miles up the river to a place called Greer's Crossing, where Highway 19 crosses. He watched us pack the gear and younger son in one canoe and older son and me in the other one. Just as we took off, he said, Oh, by the way, there are a couple of places on the river you need to watch. And then he described a couple of tricky spots, including having to choose exactly which set of boulders to go through without becoming a nasty statistic.

The Eleven Point River is fast, and it is cold, thanks to all the springs that fill it up with water. There's even a stretch of trout fishing along the first 19 miles. We had a map, but we didn't see a single thing the map told us to watch for. We kept looking for an access point called Turner Mill about four miles from our starting point, but we hadn't reached it in a couple of hours, so we thought we were going really, really slow. When we finally found a marker to give us our bearings, we had gone nine and a half miles. We were zipping along.

Although we didn't see the things on the map, we saw plenty: Herons about every 100 yards. Kingfishers diving from overhanging sycamores. A deer. One snake. Lots of bats at dusk. A beautiful spring (eighth largest in the state). Hummingbirds attracted by the bright red gear bags. And the unspoiled beauty of high bluffs and towering forests.

We made the first 19 miles back to Riverton in six and a half hours, and we didn't even paddle all that hard. We went about a mile farther and found one of the infrequent gravel bars where we could camp.

I had worried about mosquitoes and other bugs, but there weren't any. We figured all those minnows we saw and the bats took care of flying insects.

After the boys set up camp, they cooked a dinner of pasta with an andouille sauce. After we ate, we all laid down on the gravel bar with our heads on canoe cushions. I never knew rocks could feel so good.

Except for the heat -- it was hot, folks -- the night was restful, although a couple of possums came poking around where the boys where sleeping. I guess the possums decided not to bother with an old grump like me.

We did the lower stretch of the river to the Arkansas line the next morning. This part of the river is still beautiful, but there is more farmland, slower current and lots and lots of cows. If I had it to do over, I'd skip the part below Riverton and do the upper part twice.

We were told that, in the spring runoff, you can canoe even farther up the river, starting near Thomasville. This would add about another 16 1/2 miles. But when we were told March was the best month for this, we wondered how anyone could survive the spring-fed river with the thermometer hovering around 45 degrees. No thank you.

We didn't tip either of the canoes the entire trip, although younger son went into the drink several times to avoid capsizing the gear.

All in all it was a wonderful trip which could only have been better if we had spent the night in an air-conditioned motel instead of tents. But the boys like camping, so I can endure it once every 25 years or so.

I behaved throughout the trip. I had a good incentive. The boys said they intended to throw me in the river every time I complained.

Once upon a time, that would have been an idle threat.

Not any more.

I heartily recommend the Eleven Point River to anyone who wants to enjoy a day or two of canoeing on what I think is a great river. If you see Junior at the canoe-rental place or Bud or Sam when they come to pick you up in the ancient van whose Check Engine light never goes off, please say hello for me.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.