MRT ’23

The InnerTuba Mississippi River Tour ’23.

InnerTuba did it – 150 days of travel with a tuba, a tricycle and a trailer, between 19th April 15th September ’23. Me, Jon Hodkin, and my supporters raised $7,000 for US based, small scale, not for profit organisations the entire length of the Mississippi River. How ? By pedalling, performing and receiving donations along the 3,000 mile itinerary of this ambitious tour…

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It stands as the most epic journey of my life – so far ! I’m proud of my achievement. Some days the miles just rolled by, the folks I met were friendly and encouraging, a gentle tailwind blew me along and accomodation at day’s end was welcoming and comfortable. Other days I was beset with challenges of extreme heat, extreme humidity, extreme storms, extreme terrain, extreme difficulty sourcing water, and, very occasionally, extreme, tricky to negotiate diplomatically, social situations. Despite this, my 100 plus musical performances were always delivered on time, to appreciative audiences.

Experiencing highs and lows is built into the nature of slow, solo, human powered load lugging travel over many many miles…… It’s not for the faint hearted, believe me !

Celebrating at the Headwaters of the Mississippi River, Lake Itasca Park, Minnesota. supporters of InnerTuba Nick White and Dave Hendrcks of www.cypbikes.com joined me for a few final miles !

**Everything along the Big River is big ! One of the many petro-chemical plants between New Orleans, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana…**

Following a couple or 3 years of Covid setbacks, InnerTuba and its generous tour sponsors TerraCycle, Icetrikes and Connecticut Yankee Pedaller decided to shoot for touring again in the USA during the spring and summer 2023….. this time InnerTuba pedalled and performed along the entire length of the Mississippi River.

This was the successful plan……

InnerTuba pedalled and played along two Adventure Cycling Association routes:

– The Great Rivers South route runs from from New Orleans, Louisiana to Muscatine, Iowa. It included a detour from the Mississippi to ride 405 of the 444 miles of The Natchez Trace….

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I then joined sections of the The Northern Tier route. From Muscatine, Iowa to Bemidji and Lake Itasca, (the Mississippi River’s headwaters) in Minnesota.

I visited and performed in tiny rural settings and detoued into towns and cities which lie close to the Adventure Cycling Association routes. These included:

New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Clinton, , St Charles, O’Fallon, Keokuk, The Quad Cities, DeWitt, and the Twin Cities.

House-concerts added a new dimension to this InnerTuba tour. Find out more about them by viewing this lovely video, which was put together back in 2020 with lots of help from Gary Solomon of The Laidback Bike Report …..

*Fire departments up all along the 3,000 InnerTuba Mississippi River Tour ’23 were unbeiievably kind and helpful. Thank you all so much ! Here stand the fine men of Station 1, Kosciusko, Mississippi.*

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” Mark Twain.

Next up ? InnerTuba is aiming bigger and better for ’26…..
Please now consider donating money in support of this proposed journey – The InnerTuba Tour – from MidWest to NorthWest USA, ’26