America’s rivers need help. I should know — I swam in 108 of them this summer.

This summer, I decided that I’d go hard to win the river-swimming challenge — and explore rivers beyond my previous haunts. From my home near the Cumberland River in Kentucky, I drove across eight states, from southern Pennsylvania to northern Georgia, west to the Mississippi River on the Missouri border, and east to the Shenandoah River. I swam in state and city parks, national forests, wildlife management areas and private lands with public access sites.