The Mississippi may be well worth reading about, but it is also worth visiting. In this Travel with Val report, Time Warner Cable News’ Valarie D’Elia rolls on the river on a steamboat.

Call it “Old Man River,” or “The Mighty Mississippi,” a great way to see it is from the vantage point of an old-fashioned riverboat where lowering the stacks is a spectacle.

"I’ve seen so much change, so much technological change and the one thing that's constant is the river. The river stays the same. The river is always the same," says American Queen Master Brent Willets.

The American Queen Steamboat has several itineraries on the Lower Mississippi between New Orleans and Memphis, in our case, helmed by a latter day Samuel Clemens.

"I grew up on the Mississippi just like Mark Twain. He was from Hannibal Missouri, I was from Clinton, Iowa. I’m just 100 years behind him, “ says Willets.

As a guest onboard a roundtrip itinerary from New Orleans, our trip covered  682 river miles on the Lower Mississippi - the first stretch of which is very commercial with “tow” boat traffic.

"In this case, with this boat right here it has liquid; it’s probably crude oil, or chemicals, but mostly crude oil, going to a refinery in Baton Rouge to be turned into gasoline or diesel fuel.  Once we go above Baton Rouge, it is going to change to wilderness, trees and sandbars -much like what Mark twain would have seen in his day," says Willets.

Why is the Lower Mississippi characteristically muddy. you ask?

"Mainly because of the Missouri River,” says rilverlorian Bobby Durham. “It’s carrying sediment, sand and dirt, all the way from the Rocky mountains."

Our March cruise was dramatically foggy and the water full of logs.

"We are in spring and the river is starting to rise and as it rises it is going to pick up various flotsam and debris from the sides of the river, and put it in our path," says third assistant engineer Mark Veum.

And there you have just a quick slice of 'Life on the Mississippi.'