With a boat full of wheat bread, chocolate-flavored Ensure and adventure, four Cincinnati men set sail Sunday for a month-long trip to New Orleans via the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

        The men cast off from the Public Landing downtown Sunday morning on the homemade USS Guppie, amid champagne and fanfare from relatives and friends. The sailors wore gray T-shirts reading “USS Guppie Taming of the Mississippi.”

        “It's a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said Bob “Red” Herring, 52, of Kennedy Heights, just before the team cruised away.

        “For me it comes at the right time,” he said. “My wife and I are empty-nesters. Where in your life do you get four weeks to go down the river?”

        The men hope to reach New Orleans by July 26. If they can travel 70 miles a day, they will reach their destination in 20 days, Mr. Herring said. The journey is about 1,400 miles.

        Mr. Herring, the principal of Nativity School in Pleasant Ridge, said the idea for the trip jelled one rainy afternoon last summer while Brad Stevenson, 43, a contractor and carpenter, was an artist-in-residence at the school. The two wondered if all the rain we were having at the time ever makes it to the Gulf of Mexico.

        They decided to find out.

        In his Madeira backyard, Mr. Stevenson built the green, 25-horsepower pontoon boat — “The Garbage Barge” — out of salvage materials. It has gas and solar power and can hold up to 1,500 pounds.

        He and Mr. Herring recruited two more mates for the trip: Mick Michaelson, 43, owner of Sugar 'n Spice Restaurant in Paddock Hills. and Bob Grey, 37, of Clifton, a contractor who recently helped Mr. Stevenson launch a small plane he built last year out of two ladders and other odds and ends.

        For Mr. Michaelson the trip is bittersweet.

        In 1997, he was diagnosed with a rare brain tumor. He has spent the past five years in and out of hospitals. Six months ago — after four operations and radiation treatments — doctors gave him a “bad” prognosis, he said.

        Mr. Michaelson, who has an eight-year-old daughter, is planning to retire soon. His restaurant is for sale.

        “It gives you a different perspective on things, that's for sure” Mr. Michaelson said of his tumor. “The doctors have said so many times that this is it for me, I'm numb. It's taken me a while but I finally realize there's more to life than work.”

For trip updates, check
www.nativity-cincinnati.org/river/river_trip.htm.

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