306/365

Now I taught the weeping willow how to cry,
And I showed the clouds how to cover up a clear blue sky;
And the tears that I cried for that woman are going to flood you Big River,
Then I'm going to sit right here until I die.
- Johnny Cash, "Big River" (1957)

We cross the border between Iowa and Wisconsin just so we could drive the road alongside the Mississippi River. The Big River runs 2350 miles top to bottom, from the Minnesota headwaters at Lake Itasca to its destination end at the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans. The Mississippi/Missouri river system ranks as the fourth longest river system in the world. But at this stretch along the way, it seems difficult to believe that these meandering waters creating only a series of ripples along the way could ever make it that far. The skies have turned gray and rather gloomy by the time we reach the lookout point on the side of the road, the sun not far from day's end. Those old lyrics and Cash's deep baritone voice run through my head, a familiar refrain that today found exactly its own place in time.