MR340: Kayaks, then Crown’s

Crown Candy Kitchen was as much a part of my childhood at The Brady Bunch and playing CYC softball. My grandmother lived a block away, in the same Old North St. Louis flat on Montgomery St. in which my mother, her daughter-in-law, grew up.

So a day-visit to Grandma’s always included a malt at Crown’s. It’s iconic in St. Louis now, made famous by cable food shows and travel blogs as an authentic malt shop that looks the same as it did in the 1950s. It is a step back to a simpler place and time, with sandwiches, homemade candy and frozen confections that make your mouth water. Crown Candy is famous for its soda fountain and homemade ice cream, but it is its BLT’s that have given it its latest claim to fame.

So it was no surprise my younger brother Jeff put out an email one recent Friday morning for anyone and everyone in the family to meet him for lunch, and a few of us did.

Fourteen pieces of bacon allegedly make up Crown Candy’s BLT – give or take a few morsels. And Jeff was about to put it away – along with a 24-ounce chocolate malt served up in its aluminum-mixing container.

Jeff was passing through town en route from Kansas City to his Virginia home. He had arrived the night before – via kayak.

Eleven hours earlier just after midnight Aug. 3, Jeff had paddled into the St. Charles riverfront at the finish of the MR340, a grueling three-day race on the Missouri River.

In its seventh year, the MR340 is the world’s longest nonstop river race and was recently dubbed one of National Geographic’s Top 40 adventures. It starts on the Missouri River just west of  Kansas City (right, taken from Jeff’s kayak). Participants – this year 294 entries of solo, tandem and team kayaks – had to finish within 88 hours; Jeff finished in 65 hours, 27 minutes. He was 18^th in the men’s solo division and one of 186 to finish.

He earned that BLT.

This year’s race was his second go-round touring Missouri via Kruger Seawind kayak. As we sat in the booth at Crown Candy, all I could ask was why?

“For the challenge,” he said, eating bacon. “To stave off becoming a fat, balding, middle-aged defense contractor.”

Jeff isn’t your average little brother. He’s a Navy SEAL veteran who undoubtedly has had more adventure than National Geographic will ever put in its pages.  But he’s a regular guy, and, if you asked his only sister, I would say balding, middle-aged defense contractor about covers it. Fat? I’d never say that. He’s my little brother, but he can still punch me.

But Jeff makes things look effortless and always has. Despite needing a shave, he looked none the worse for wear after spending three 100-plus-degree days in a kayak on about two-and-a-half hours of sleep total, catching a nap here and there at a couple of the nine checkpoints.

“This was 100-times harder than last time,” he said, having also done the race in 2009. “There was just no current, and the heat. I had memories of Hell Week.”

Hell Week? That was 20 years ago and thankfully, we had no idea what he was doing. This time, thanks to modern technology, family and friends were able to track him every 10 minutes on the river, including his 10-year-old daughter Mia, who was tracking her dad from Chesapeake, Va., and showing her mom Karen and little sister Katerina how to do it.

We used the technology; he didn’t. The Missouri, he says, is pretty remote. Other than Jefferson City, it meanders through the state past small towns and parks, and for the most part is a pristine, remote wilderness. He passed the time with books on tape and enjoyed the solitude. When he got hot, he says he filled his hat with ice from the cooler he kept behind him and placed it on his head until it melted — and then he’d do it all over again.

He says, he thinks this year’s MR340 will go down in history as the hardest one ever, but he has no regrets.

“The best thing about it was three days of no computers, cell phones, texts or emails,” he says, “and I met some great people.”

The support team

Jeff (center right) didn’t do it alone. Some entries in the race had elaborate support teams following kayaks with plenty of provisions and detailed precision. Jeff had our older brother Rick (second from right), a lawyer who took a week off to follow his younger brother around the state of Missouri.

“The first day I had him bring me healthy stuff — protein bars and gel and bananas,” Jeff said. “By the second day all I wanted was junk food.”

Rick showed up with ham sandwiches, Fritos and Snickers bars the second day and Jeff was grateful. At Checkpoint 8, the last checkpoint near Weldon Spring, Mo., Rick was late because he was searching for a White Castle. Thankfully, the MR340 organizers had food available and Rick showed up in time to restock provisions for that last push.

“Hey, what about the hardships I endured?” Rick says. “A lot of those small towns didn’t stock Bud Select. I had to drink Bud Light.”

Rick was at Crown’s too, also eating one of those famous BLT’s. He did a great job of informing the family of Jeff’s progress through emails and texts. He is kicking around the idea of doing it next year, as is my husband, Tom, but there would have to be a significant amount of training as neither of them were Navy SEALs in a previous life.

I asked Jeff, who at the time was less than 12 hours removed from pulling out the kayak on the St. Charles riverfront, if he would do it again.

He hesitated, but didn’t dismiss the idea.

“Ask me in a few weeks.”