h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's M - ISS - ISS - IPP - I. Walk across it in 15 steps where it starts at Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota. Board one of the Delta Queen steamboats at the northernmost landing in St. Paul. Witness the results of two decades of environmental cleanup as a bald eagle swoops for its lunch in Lake Pepin. Take a chance on the Quad Cities (northwestern Illinois, southeastern Iowa) casino riverboats. Explore the American Story in Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain's home town. Experience the Arch of St. Louis, gateway to America's west. Make your rock 'n' roll pilgrimage to Graceland in Memphis. Drift by Arkansas. Learn about Vicksburg, the "Gibraltar of the Confederacy," site of a decisive battle in favor of the Union forces in America's Civil War. Contemplate the bicentennial of the Lousiana Purchase and all that jazz in New Orleans.

Just a few suggestions from someone who sees the Mississippi just about every day at work in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Thank you very much.

That's M, I-S-S, I-S-S, I-P-P, I: America's favorite state to spell! (Is that clearer?)

In school, or maybe it wasn't in school but passed down from an older generation, we learned it this way (which is much easier to say than to write out )
Capital M, I, Crook-letter, Crook-letter, I, Crook-letter, Crook-letter, I, Hump-back, Hump-back, I.

I drive over it every day on my way to work in St Louis.

And it might also be noted that next year the Mississippi will provide the 'screen' for visual presentations in the St Louis 2004 Celebration, celebrating the centennial of the St Louis World's Fair. If I've followed the reports correctly they will have jets pumping river water up in the air to form a screen that they will project movies and such on. I'm intrigued to see how it will work.