Trio kayaking down Mississippi to raise funds for ministries

Rob Treppendahl, front, Max Zoghbi and Bowman Hitchens resume their kayak trip down the Mississippi River on Friday, July 29, 2011, from the Cape Girardeau riverfront. The trio left Lake Itasca, Minn., on June 21 and expect to reach New Orleans on Aug. 20. "Whenever it gets dark, we just pull over and that's where we stay," Hitchens said. "We had a few days of 115 degrees index, and that was pretty brutal." They have dealt with high headwinds with a couple of serious thunderstorms on the trip. "With this current, we had about a 50 mile-per-hour headwind the other day and still were making seven miles an hour," Treppendahl said. The group is raising funds for two ministries: ICM in Oxford, Miss., and The Gardere Community Christian School in Baton Rouge, La. They have a website, www.awakeinthecurrent.com.