38 more miles

I got a text at 9:42 pm last night and all it said was 38 miles.  I interpret this as "we got a late start today because we were enjoying the 5 star resort".  When I spoke to Aaron on Friday night he said both he and Jake are sore; backs, arms and hands are all hurting.  If you look at the detailed map you can see the campsites are further apart, Aaron did not include a campsite because according to my calculations they are at river mile 1071.  This puts them 10 miles upstream from the town of Aitkin.

Many people have been asking me what the numbers are on the detailed maps.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed a system to keep track of the miles on the Mississippi River.  Miles are counted upstream from the Mississippi's confluence with the Ohio River, the southern tip of Illinois.  This makes the headwaters at Lake Itasca mile marker 1347 because it is that far from the Ohio River.  Aaron and Jake slept last night at mile marker 1071, you should be able to find that on the detailed map.  South of the Ohio River the numbering system starts over again counting upstream from mile "0" at the Gulf of Mexico.  Why there isn't one continuous numbering system is a mystery to me.