The Big River Show (2008)

An 80-Day journey from Minneapolis to New Orleans on the Mississippi River. 50 episodes

In the winter of 2008, I was looking for a new project, and the idea came to me in the form of a magazine article. I read a story in Harpers about a self-proclaimed anarchist who attempted to float the Mississippi River back in 2006. For a variety of reasons, he didn't make it, and I figured that I could do better.

So I called up my friend Max, and proposed that we go to Minnesota, buy an old boat, and drive it to the Gulf of Mexico. Max, being the adventurous guy he is, agreed almost immediately. By late May, I was in Minneapolis, building a shelter on a 1974 pontoon boat, and setting off on another foolhardy video-blogging expedition.

We spent 80 days that summer living on the boat, cooking on the boat, and sleeping on the boat. It was dirty, tiresome, wet, boring, and often lonely. But it was also an amazing adventure. We found the Mississippi river system to be far more powerful, inspiring, and beautiful than we'd anticipated... and the opportunity to get to know America's heartland from this perspective was truly unique.

I became a boat-guy on that trip. I got used to a slower pace of life. For weeks on end, I cooked my own meals, made all my own decisions, and watched world spin underneath me. I realized why boating and drinking go so well together, and why boating and electronics don't. And in the end... the videos I posted on YouTube wound up getting the attention of National Geographic... who hired me the following year to do the trip all over again.