Back in my HS composition class we had to do an anthropological paper on a subculture we were unfamiliar with, and I ended up doing one on Christian Scientists. A friend of mine's mom was an on-again, off-again member of one of the local churches, so I was able to go to a meeting. It was interesting. Almost more like group therapy than what I thought of as organized religion, which was the rote and ritual of Catholicism.

I grew up on the Mississippi (in St. Paul), but aside from a few day trips on riverboats I've not spent much time on it. And yet my novels, particularly, always have rivers at the center of them. I'm jealous of your trip! I'm going to have to take one of my own sometime.