The Mississippi River Don't Look So Wide

The Mississippi River watershed is the third largest in the world, covering approximately 1,837,000 square miles, or 40% of the United States.

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The Mississippi River itself measures 2,350 miles, but with the added length of its largest tributary, the Missouri River, the Mississippi-Missouri is the world's fourth longest river at 3,741 miles behind the Yangtze (3,915 miles), the Amazon (4,007 miles) and the Nile (4,145 miles).

Along the course of the Mississippi River, its speed and width vary greatly resulting in four distinct characteristics according to the landscape: gorges and valleys, braided river, meandering river and floodplains.

At an average speed of 1.2 mph, a raindrop that falls in the river's headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, would take 90 days to complete the journey to the Gulf Of Mexico.

Though Conway Twitty sings that "The Mississippi River, Lord, is one mile," it reaches its widest at nearly 1 mile wide near Alton, Illinois. It still makes for a formidable crossing as it reaches a depth of 200 feet as it passes New Orleans, which is more in the vicinity of where a Mississippi man would need to cross to get to Louisiana.

We'll give him the benefit of the doubt that the love in his Mississippi heart will be enough to get him through shipping lanes, the 436,000 tons of sediment carried daily by the river, floating debris and quick moving currents to reach the loving arms of his Louisiana woman.