Hi everyone!

[Medusa]

That's great news, Laura!

[Randi]

Wow, great news! That's a lot of cats taken care of, hope they get the rest, also.

Laura, I have been a little confused about Missisippi River, because on the maps it looks like lots of smaller rivers running together. I had expected one huge river, like The Thames. I finally looked it up and this is what I found:

River, central U.S. It rises at Lake Itasca in Minnesota and flows south, meeting its major tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio rivers, about halfway along its journey to the Gulf of Mexico. It enters the Gulf southeast of New Orleans, after a course of 2,350 mi (3,780 km). It is the largest river in North America, and with its tributaries it drains an area of 1.2 million sq mi (3.1 million sq km). Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto was the first European to discover the river in 1541. French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette traveled down it in 1673 as far as the Arkansas River. French explorer La Salle reached the delta in 1682 and claimed the entire Mississippi region for France, as Louisiana. France kept control over the upper river, but the lower portion passed to Spain in 1769. It was designated the western boundary of the U.S. in 1783. France sold it to the U.S. in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. During the American Civil War, Union forces captured Vicksburg, Miss., in 1863, breaking the Confederate hold on the river. As the central river artery of the U.S., it is one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world.

Enjoy your trip! Hope the weather is fine.

[Laura's Babies]

Yes Randi, a lot of other rivers feed into the Mississippi River. Up where the Ohio and several others feed into it is usually as far up as we go with the now and then trip up as far as St. Louis for us and on rare occasions we go down to 54 miles from the Gulf. I have done the whole length of the Mississippi just not all in the same trip.

With all the rivers that feed into it that is why it is so prone to flooding when some areas get a lot of rainfall. Right now, most of it is above flood stage and then the melting snow from the north will add to it.