This weekend I saw the second-longest river in North America — the Mississippi! I walked along it with the girl and her friend for about two miles. I saw a place where corn kernels and soybeans get loaded onto ships, and I saw tug boats pushing barges up and down the river. It was a windy day so there was a lot of chop on the water.

The city we were in is called Muscatine. I guess that place is known for watermelons, because there was this ginormous watermelon slice that said that right next to the river. I had my picture taken at the bottom of it, but you can barely see me because the melon is so big.

Here is me up close. The girl made me a new shirt for the expedition out of a frog fabric I picked out. For bling we looked for a frog but couldn’t find a good one, so I chose a turtle necklace to go with it. I felt nice and warm in long sleeves because it was only 50° outside.

I took advantage of all the viewing decks and tried to imagine what it would be like to swim a half mile across the river.

We found this old bridge that stopped being a bridge in 1973, which the girl said was before she was even born. It’s hard to see me in the picture again because the structure is so big.

Here you can see me a little bit better.

And here you can see me the best!

A little bit further down the riverfront we could see the Norbert F. Beckey Bridge that vehicles can cross to Rock Island County, Illinois. Here I am viewing it from downstream.

And here I am viewing it from upstream. You can tell it was windy because my fur was blowing around like crazy. The girl was worried about me being blown into the water a few times because the gusts were so strong.

There was this giant anchor on the riverfront too, and I had fun climbing on it.

One of the most remarkable things that happened on our adventure was we found this ginormous mussel shell. The girl’s friend saw it from one of the viewing decks and the girl had to climb over the railing and down a rocky embankment to retrieve it.

Its so big I can almost fit inside! Next to me is a normal size mussel shell, so you can see this big one is really extraordinary. It’s about 6.5 inches wide. I did some research and it said mussels in the Mississippi can get as large as 12 inches — that’s bonkers!

All of that adventuring made us hungry, so we went to Contrary Brewing Co., which is right on the riverfront. We got fries and fried pickle spears, and the pickle spears were so great I think I’m going to add them to my favorite foods list.

The girl read about a place called Wilton Candy Kitchen that has been selling sweets for 165 years, so on our way home we stopped there. I got a sundae made with cherry ice cream and found something really special to take home with me.

Sunglasses! The girl bought them for only 50 cents and I instantly felt like a rock star!

It was a really spectacular weekend and a great way to celebrate my third week outside of the box and living with the girl in Iowa.