Paddle your own canoe: Man stops in Charenton on his way from Kansas to Fla.

Lance Elliot had never seen a swamp until last week. He had never seen an alligator peaking its’ head up from still, murky waters or seen Spanish Moss hanging delicately from a cypress tree. He’d never seen a grand, old anti-bellum plantation house perched on a hill overlooking the bayou. He had actually never been to Louisiana. Until last week.
Last week, Elliot made the trip to Louisiana and St. Mary Parish and saw all those things for the first time but what’s remarkable is not that he finally made the trip here. What’s remarkable is how he did it. Elliot didn’t get off a plane at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans and rent a car for the drive to St. Mary Parish. He paddled here from Kansas in a canoe.
Navigating the waters of the Missouri River for hundreds of miles until finally arriving in the Atchafalaya Basin and Bayou Teche, Elliot covered an average of 30 miles a day paddling his gear-laden and GPS-rigged canoe the entire way only stopping to rest, eat and call his mother of course. Elliot said the whole idea started with a desire to visit relatives in Florida.
“I have a niece and nephew in Pensacola, Florida and I’m just the crazy uncle who wanted to come and see them,” Elliot said. “I originally just started paddling just to see how far I could go and ended up paddling and paddling and paddling and ended up here. I started meeting people along the way and just ended up at the next boat ramp and then the next one and went from there and here I am.”
Elliot said the inspiration for his voyage down the Missouri River and into Louisiana before moving on to Florida began with a famous novel whose protagonist also famously spent some time floating on a river.
“I was at a garage sale and I picked up a copy of ‘Huck Finn’ and I just got dreamy about the Missouri River and that sealed the deal,” Elliot said. “I bought my boat from a cattle farmer in Kansas for a hundred and fifty bucks and when I’m done it’s going to the Chitimacha Community Center.”
Elliot said, besides some inclement weather along the way, the trip had gone off without a hitch. He did say that of all the places he had seen on his voyage, the Bayou Teche and Louisiana in general was some of the most scenic parts of the country he had ever seen.
As of last week, Elliot was rested up and ready for the final leg of his journey where one man’s niece and nephew are no doubt eager to greet their crazy uncle.