73. The Walter V. Weis Memorial Canoe Trip

On Monday night, my friend Ryan was talking about the canoe trip down to St. Louis. He asked my grandpa's name and upon finding my grandpa's name he out gave the canoe trip a name. The Walter V. Weis Memorial Canoe Trip. I have wanted to do this trip for awhile after hearing that my grandpa did it many years ago. I thought it sounded like a ton of fun. The trip will consist of dropping the boat into the Fox River in Yorkville just past the last dam in the downtown area and taking the Fox River to the Illinois River. After meeing the Illinois, we will take that all the way down to the Mississippi River. We will not be in the Mississippi too long, but we will take that for a few remaining miles down to St. Louis. We are planning on camping out on the islands on the rivers in the evenings. We will also need to stop a couple of times to get some fresh food.
Melissa and I talked after Monday night about the trip and she got my mind going. She was talking about there being a lot of people planning on doing the trip. I don't know if it is a lot, but more than two have expressed interest. I am going to have to start now with the planning. I know that my brother-in-law Mike is coming and that Tyler should be coming, but I don't have for yeses (sp?) from anyone else. Many people think it sounds like a lot of fun, but in reality, taking the time off work and actually getting down to doing the trip is another thing. I am struggling to think if it would be better for more to go, or for less people to go. We would all have to be paddling at the same speed and would all be counting on each other to be able to cover the same distance each day. On the positive of having more, we would have more people to count on if something went wrong. There are a lot of things to consider. This is a trip that I want to do and have wanted to do for awhile. I want it to go well and to be able to do it completely.
I think now is a time that I should start planning the time when I will go and to start getting the things that we will need for the trip.
There are a few things that I know will be needed:

• maps of all three rivers
• another canoe (possibly)
• waterproof bags to keep our stuff in
• maps with the towns that we will be passing through
• A list of people who will be coming
• figure out where grocery stores are close to the river
• probably a million other things I don't know I need yet

I think that getting the maps together soon will be a good goal. I will then be able to actually gauge how far we will need to go and will be able to know how much time the trip will actually take.