A man docks his canoe at a marina. He waves, holding a nearly empty water container in the air. At Cooper’s Landing near Columbia, this is an everyday occurrence. But the smile on Kyle Parker’s face belies the scope of his trip: so far more than 3,100 miles over four months. To Parker’s knowledge, no one has ever attempted what he’s doing. A self-proclaimed “canoe enthusiast,” for the past 122 days, he’s been canoeing from the northwest-most reaches of the United States to the Florida Gulf Coast -- a trip he calls “Tip 2 Tip,” only taking breaks for sleep and bad weather.

He began in Washington State on May 1 and since then he has canoed through the Rockies, the Great Plains, and soon he’ll make his way to the swamps of the South. His day-to-day routine consists of instant coffee, oatmeal

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