Today’s speaker was Ken Robertshaw who was making his second appearance at Probus with his talk “ Ol Man on the Mississippi”
Ken opened his talk with the track Ol Man River sung by Paul Robeson from the musical Showboat 1936 and then continued with slides and videos of his trip down the mighty Mississippi river with his friend Grace in two Kayaks or as he called them two plastic bath tubs. They started there journey in Minnesota where the river starts and is not very wide or deep so they had to pull the kayaks along to start with. But as they continued their journey they had to navigate through reed beds, Beaver damns, man made Dams, locks and huge sea going tankers. The amount of supplies they stowed on and in the Kayaks was amazing, after a days Kayaking they would set up camp and sleep in tents sometimes next to the river. They met a lot of character’s along the way and found people very friendly.
The Mississippi is roughly 2,350 miles in length and passes through St Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, New Orleans to name but a few cities and finishes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many people may ask why they did it? Kens answer would be Why Not.
It was certainly an epic adventure and one to be proud of.
Ken finished his talk with a video of the charity he raises money for The Theodora Children’s .