Two 21-year-old Sartell graduates are 19 days into what could be a two-and-a-half month, 2,320-mile journey, down the entire length of the Mississippi River.
They left May 9 and arrived in St. Cloud 400 miles later. It was a good chance for a break.
David Rossow and Dustin Schramel made a pit stop at Rossow’s grandparents’ house north of Sartell on Memorial Day weekend.
They’ve been planning the trip since high school. Originally targeting 2017, they realized they didn’t want to wait.
Along the way, Schramel will take water samples, testing everything from salinity to turbidity, oxygen and pH levels.
He has the know-how. He’s a wildlife biology student at St. Cloud State University, graduating in December. To prepare, Schramel wrote a study and made predictions about what he’d find on the river. He plans to use the data next semester.
