The large steel buoy that's tethered to a 1,500 pound weight didn't give when we hit it on the starboard stern, but the steel band on the last barrel did give. It bent the band pretty good but didn't do much else for structural damage. That had been about enough excitement for one day so we dropped anchor off of an island and went to sleep. Finally we reached our last day on the river. The storms were coming and we thought we could make good time but soon realized it was about to get bad. We made it another fifty miles and then pulled the boat out of the water about thirty miles above Louisiana. We pulled the boat back to Colorado and it took us 24 hours driving straight through at a speed of 50 miles per hour. We fought a couple bad rain storms on the way home, but alas we made it back to Black Forest , Colorado safely. All in all Nate and Dave had an incredible life experience floating down the Mighty Mississippi on the record flood of 2008. At this site we met a ton of great people that we will never forget, saw things that most will never see, and experienced things that only we can fully appreciate. The best way we can sum it up is, "Those six weeks were the best year of our lives".
