Wednesday, Metamora, IN

Back in June or July when the four of us got together Doug found these cool places to go to when we were going to be in Cincinnati.

Our first stop this morning is Heritage Village north of the city. We arrived a little bit after they opened because we had a full day planned and lots of traveling to do. This place is made up of lots homes from the 1800’s in this park-like setting. A guide goes with you from house to house and explains the living conditions of the time. Ours started in the back with the oldest house from 1804. It was fun and interesting to see how through the years our quality of life has gotten better and better. Appliances, fabrics, and medicines made our lives easier and last longer.



Down the street we found an Arby’s to have lunch at (no it wasn’t on the same street as all of the old houses!)

We drove NW about 55.3 miles to Metamora, Indiana. There we found the Whitewater Canal State Historical Site that was the last remnants of a canal that was meant to take Whitewater Valley goods to the Ohio River for marketing. The project took 11 years to build the 76 mile canal starting in 1836. It never did reach the Ohio River and it did not operate for very long.



There was a cute little 19th century town here with museums, shopping, and eateries. Our main focus was taking a canal boat along the canal, drawn by two horses. It would go on the oldest wooden aqueduct in the US. The roundtrip only took about 25 minutes but it was fun.



Afterwards we stopped in a few of the stores that were open and found our favorite treat (ice cream) in the local candy store.

40 miles away in Aurora, IN we visited this great looking mansion on the Ohio River called HillForest. Karen and I had visited it before so we thought we would share it with Doug and Betty. It was built in 1855 for a wealthy man and the front is supposed to resemble the front of a steamboat. They painted it last year for $40,000 and it looks great.



We tried to cross the Ohio River on the defunct Aurora Ferry but since we couldn’t do it 4 years ago I don’t see why we thought we could do it this time. It hasn’t operated for many decades. Whoops.

Dinner – Subway

We headed up river to the Anderson Ferry and crossed the river about 8 miles downriver from Cincinnati. It is difficult to explain this unique car ferry but I’ll give it a try. The towboat is alongside the 12-car carrying platform. The nose of the towboat is permanently attached but the stern is allowed to swing freely. This allows the towboat to turn around without having to actually turn the car ferry around. Going one way across the river the towboat’s port side is against the ferry. Going the other way across the river the towboat’s starboard side is against the ferry.



We found a shortcut up the hill after getting off the ferry and found our motel quickly with excellent navigation by Doug.

Tuesday Cincinnati

(No time to include pictures on this blog. Sorry, I know they add to the story)

It is Tuesday, August 26, 2008 and it is sad that this might be our last time aboard the Delta Queen when she is an overnight cruise ship. Her fate is still undecided as it was in 1970 under these same circumstances – one powerful senator decides that the boat is unsafe because it is made of wood and might catch fire therefore blocks all attempts at exempting the boat from a law that was meant for wooden boats on the high seas.

As happened 38 years ago, a grassroots effort to keep the boat running as a cruise ship on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers was started. Last time it was successful and Congress has voted for an exemption quite a few times since then. This time the outcome is in doubt. If you are reading this and you want the Delta Queen to continue to run then you need to send a FAX to your local Representative in Congress and let them know that you support the Delta Queen. Details on how to do this can be found at www.save-the-delta-queen.org

I contacted Budget Car Rental after breakfast and they came and picked Doug and me up at the landing and we rented a Dodge Grand Caravan that I had previously reserved. Back to the landing we went to pick up the ladies and all of our luggage. We drove about 100 yards and parked and walked Cincinnati’s Serpentine Wall, Sawyer Park, the Purple People Bridge, and the relief map of the Ohio River.

Driving into downtown our first destination was the Carew Tower which offered us a spectacular sunny-day, 49 stories-up view for 50 miles in all directions. On top we met 2 other couples that had Delta Queen shirts on and they were just getting ready to head down to the boat for their 7 day cruise. We talked for about 20 minutes about our experiences, the staff that was still on board, and what they could expect in the week ahead. That was fun.

We found lunch in the Food Court in the base of the tower but had we known about the party going on in Fountain Square across the street we probably would have eaten there. There was a Farmers Market set up there and it was lunch time and everyone was eating and talking and listening to music. It was a very vibrant atmosphere. We decided to have an ice cream and sit and talk and take in the ambiance for awhile.

Union Station is this huge old train station that now houses the Children’s Museum, the History Museum, the Nature and Science Museum, an IMAX Theater and an Amtrak Station. It is shaped like a half dome and is cavernous. When in Cincy this is a must-see.

We decided to do just the History Museum after walking around and gawking at everything. They have a scale model of the city with trains and trolley cars moving around. It is spectacular. Day is 5 minutes long and then the city changes to night for 2 minutes.

They had a miniature amusement park in another exhibit. There was a scaled-down riverboat that you could walk through and it had a cut-away of how the boiler and steam power plant worked.

This is one of the best museums we’ve ever been to. The setting and the exhibits are just the best.

The DQ would be leaving Cincy tonight at 6pm so we headed on down to the landing to wave goodbye, take some pictures (oh really?) and “move on” to the next phase of our vacation. We were no longer “boat people”. We were “those steamboat chasers on shore”.

We checked into our Extended Stay in Florence, KY where we will be for a couple of nights.

Monday Madison

This is our last full day on the Delta Queen. The good news is that we love this town of Madison, Indiana and we have a full day’s worth of things to get done in the 4 hours that we’ll be here.



The Lanier Mansion opens at 9am and we are THERE! The four of us get our own special tour and get to see “things that we don’t normally show” because Doug asks so many questions and is interested in the construction. Its a nice mansion that is ½ block off the river. We leave about 10am and a tour group of 20 is heading this way. Yes, we’re outta here and on to the next museum.



Next door is the Railroad Museum and Madison History Museum. We see them both in an hour but learn about how to make soap from lye (made from ashes) and lard. We aren’t sure where this will come in handy but the knowledge has been filed away anyway. We also learn that the train tracks used to run right down the middle of the street and in front of the Lanier Mansion. No evidence of them now except that the train station that houses the train museum is right here.





The center of town is only about 3 blocks away. We locate another lovely fountain in this very clean city and take pictures. Most of the storefronts we see are occupied and open for business because the boat is in town. The town is busy though with more than just the “boat people”.



We popped into a little shop. The owners made wood things and yarn things. I found this great scrolled piece of wood in the shape of the state of OHIO with a roller coaster on it. Doug bought one shaped like Washington and a letter “D”.

We continued to stroll along the main street of town and went into a “general store”. After we purchased something Doug struck up a conversation with the owner and we learned all about the taxes he pays, why he moved here, and that he has to work harder now that he’s “retired”. He was a character but these are the kinds of people you find everywhere if you just learn to stop and talk to some of them. And most of them love to talk.

We were looking for this old fashioned Soda Shop (Mundt’s Candies). I asked someone sitting at an outdoor café and they pointed the way. Inside were fellow “boat people” David and Linda Dewey having an ice cream. As the piano player, Tony Schwarz, from the boat was leaving, the proprietors were just putting on his CD of calliope music. We started taking pictures of the old fashioned stuff inside here when the boat’s Gift Shop hostess, Pat, pops in for an ice cream shake. With this many people coming here we figured we might as well spoil lunch and order something cold to eat. Karen and I split an ice cream sundae as did Doug and Betty.



We hurriedly ate them because we were supposed to be on the boat in about 15 minutes. We got to the boat landing and seeing that we still had 5 minutes took some more pictures from shore.

When the boat leaves a port as important as Madison it is customary to toot the whistle, blow the horn, ring the bell, and play the calliope. The captain has control over whether steam goes to the calliope based on the situation the boat is in. If he needs steam to maneuver then he won’t allow the calliope to get steam. Well, this was one of those cases where Tony started to clear out the pipes of the calliope and the captain shut down the steam.

EVERYONE gets disappointed when this happens except the captain. He has to get the boat out into the channel and occasionally needs all the steam he can get to move the boat out there. The people on the boat and on the shore on the other hand are expecting a rousing rendition of “I Left My Home in Indiana” and don’t get it until the boat is well away from shore. Finally, the boat gets into safe waters but we are a ways away from all the people waving good-bye to us on the shore so the calliope playing isn’t as effective for them. WE, however, are having a great time listening to the music echo off the underside of the Madison Bridge as we pass under it.

A few miles out of Madison we see this steam-powered paddlewheel boat heading away from its mooring out into the shipping channel. It is the Barbara H, the oldest sternwheeler towboat still in operation. The owners had seen the DQ in port in Madison and decided to meet us on the river with their boat. Everyone loved it. The DQ blew her customary greeting of 1 long and 2 short deep-bass whistles and the Barbara H returned the greeting with her little pip-squeak whistle that had us all smiling and waving goodbye as she turned back toward home.



The previously mentioned David Dewey, who lives in Oroville, CA, had a slide presentation this afternoon of the differences between the Delta Queen and Delta King (which is a sister ship to the DQ and a hotel on the Sacramento waterfront). It was a wonderful show, very informative, and with all of the DQ experts on board they quickly helped identify how the DK was changed from the DQ.

We locked through the Markland Lock in the late afternoon and once again saw Franz, Carmen, and their daughter along with 3 or 4 other steamboat chasers at the lock observatory.



Karen had pasta this evening. Three of us had pot roast. Karen only had one dessert. I, taking a cue from Karen from the other night, asked if I could have the bread pudding AND a cup of ice cream. Our neighbor, taking his cue from me, asked for the same a little while later. It caused quite a laugh between our two tables.

Around 10pm we pulled up to the fuel dock and began the 3-4 hour refueling of the boat. Sometime in the early morning we finally arrived at Cincinnati.

Sunday Louisville

Louisville is famous for the Louisville Slugger baseball bat. The place where they make the bats is in downtown. We walked about 10 blocks to get there and we were just in time for the next tour of the manufacturing process that was starting.



It was Sunday so the actual machinery wasn’t being used but we still got to go the usual tour route and were shown videos at each station to show the process of making a baseball bat. (Pictures were not allowed inside the tour)

They use maple and ash trees. They cut the tree trunks to the proper “bat-length”, 4 or 5 circles are drawn on the end of the wood and then a splitter splits the wood lengthwise. You now have 4 or 5 triangle shaped pieces of wood the length of a bat.

They stick the wood on a lathe and round it off into what is called a billet. It now looks like a bat-length cylinder about 2” round. There are thousands of different shapes to bats and each shape has its own computer code in this machine. They dial in the code and the bat is cut with an automatic lathe in about 45 seconds.

They sand the bat smooth. They brand it with the player’s name and Louisville Slugger. They stain the bat and then let it dry.

Cheaper bats are made a little different and faster. They will saw the tree instead of splitting the wood. The final bat shapes are cut using dies instead of the computer as the bat shaper machine traces the die while it cuts the bat into shape.

They also have a museum there. There were some videos, a chance to stand behind the plate and watch a 90 mph fastball hit the catcher’s mitt, and a broadcast booth with famous announcers talking for a minute (yes, Vin Scully was in there)

For $1 you could try to hit 10 baseballs at 50 mph. I was the only one to do this but I managed to hit all 10 balls.



We left the museum and wandered around town taking pictures of the city. Doug was in this town in 1957 for a Square Dancing exhibition and we walked by the Convention Center where he performed.

The waterfront area is really pretty and very large. There were families swimming in the river/fountain area, a group playing Frisbee Football, others in the playground, bike riders, skateboarders, and walkers.

We left town at 5pm and headed for our next city – Madison, Indiana.

Tonight was “dress-up” night. Ties and dresses.





Prime-rib and fish and more desserts.

Sunday Arriving

When we woke up on Sunday morning we were still under way heading for Louisville, KY. Church services were held at 7:30 in the morning and we were joined by about a dozen other worshippers.

We locked through our final lock, McAlpine, and finally landed at the beautiful facilities at Louisville a little after 9am.

I had been following information about our trip at a website www.steamboats.org Everyone would post information about the trip as we found out about it. When our cruise company called us to tell us that a lock was closed going to Nashville and that our boat would be leaving from Clarksville instead, I posted the information on the website so others would know to expect the same phone call.

Greeting the DQ as we landed were the website owners, Franz, Carmen, and their daughter and a half dozen other “steamboaters”. Quite a few other posters were ON the cruise and we all got off together and they introduced Karen and me to the others. We talked for a bit and then they headed off to the Howard Steamboat Museum (which we would be visiting later in the week via car.)



Our reason for not tagging along with them was because this was our day to play the calliope on the boat. I had been practicing the Mickey Mouse Club Alma Mater for a few months so that I could actually play something.


Doug has a keyboard at home and can actually play with both hands.



He wrote down notes for his wife, Betty, and she practiced as well to play the Haunted Mansion organ scene.

A calliope has a keyboard that is linked electrically to open valves when each of the piano keys is pressed. This valve allows steam to pass through to a brass whistle. Each key has its own whistle. The steam acts like the breath from your mouth if you played an instrument like a flute. Push one of the 32 piano keys and the steam blows the whistle.

This is always a special time for us onboard the DQ. The “noise” we create carries for miles and everyone claps at each other’s attempts. During the dinner that evening our names were announced and a funny certificate read that we were now official “Vox Calliopists” and could play anywhere in the world.

Saturday Dinner

At tonight’s dinner I had a crab appetizer – a soft shelled crabbed that looked like a crab sitting on my plate. I was told to just eat the whole thing. Ugh.



…and turtle soup which was really good.



The pork tenderloin was tender but the baked potato was really good.



This is Karen’s double helping of strawberry shortcake. This was after she had a single portion!



“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing”

Saturday Owensboro

We arrived at the 3rd largest city in Kentucky a little after midnight this morning. Our tie-up took about 40 minutes because an SUV’s tire was sitting on our tie-up ring. It was accessible, but I guess the crew would have preferred that the car be moved. There was obviously a party happening on shore because there was a lot of hootin’ and hollerin’ going on as we landed.

Our shore time would only be about 4 hours so we decided to walk into town on our own. We walked along the riverfront, which was very nice. Up near the bridge was a Bluegrass Museum that we would visit after it opened at 10 am.



We continued walking down the main street of town just taking pictures. It was still early so not much was open. The Delta Queen doesn’t dock here very often so they really aren’t tuned in to us being in town and opening their shops for the short time we are here.

There was a cool mural on the wall of a steamboat.



We found a drug store owned by a guy whose grandfather owned it before him. Doug is our “conversation starter”. Karen and I are little shyer, but having Doug along has really helped our education of the area. He talks with everyone. We were looking for some sunglasses since Karen’s broke. He pointed us toward a CVS about 9 blocks away. Off we went.

On the way back we stopped at the Bluegrass Museum. They played music outside under the block-long awning. Inside, we visited the gift shop because time was short. They had these cool stands that were made out of wooden pieces that looked like guitars and banjos.

I think I mentioned that Karen had me make labels to put on candy to give to the kids as we left town or while we were in a lock. We had yet to give any away. People aren’t allowed as close to the locks anymore because of the “security”. I was determined to give some of these away this time and while we were still tied up I took a cupful of them and gave them to anyone standing around ready to see us off.



By the time we got back to the boat it was lunch time and close to the time we were to depart. We left on time without the calliope playing this time. It is the best of times when the calliope plays and the people are waving as we leave.

Our cabin on the top deck of the boat



Karen reading a Waterways Journal while on the Delta Queen



Today was Kite Flying Day. This is a tradition that has been discontinued by the Company. However, there were 95 repeat riders on the DQ so some of them brought kites with them to fly. Doug, our engineer, built our kite. With my helped and getting on the correct side of the boat we managed to obtain lift-off. He called us Wilbur and Orville to anyone who asked. Karen asked if she could fly it after awhile. Within 10 minutes the kite was going the opposite direction down the Ohio River the end of the string having let go from the handle she held in her hand.



Karen just before the smile left her face as the kite floated down the river.

Friday Henderson

By now it was time to eat a “light” breakfast so we did.

Shortly thereafter Stan Garvey, author or The King and the Queen of the Delta, was giving a 90 minute talk about the history of the boat we were cruising on.

Back in 1927 two boats were built to carry passengers for day trips between Sacramento and San Francisco through the Sacramento Delta region. They were called the Delta King and the Delta Queen. During WWII they were used as troop transport vessels within the Oakland and SF bay areas.

In 1948 the DQ was brought and moved to the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers for overnight trips. The DK ended up beached in Kitimat, Canada for 7 years as a dormitory for Aluminum Company of Canada workers. Eventually it ended up back in the water in 1982 in SF only to partially sink while tied to the dock. It was refloated and after 5 years of cleaning became a hotel on the Sacramento waterfront in 1989.

Afterwards the 4 of us hiked up the steep incline to Water St. During the Flood of 1937 Henderson did not flood. It was the only city on the lower Ohio River that didn not flood because it is more than 60’ above flood stage.

They had one of those sidewalk-level fountains that shoot up water that kids love. Our “kid” loved it too.



Audubon Park was next to the landing and had a great vista of the river and our boat. The Community Center came next and housed the Chamber of Commerce and a free history museum. I met Molly whom I had struck up an email dialogue with while in Seattle. She provided us with valuable info on when the boat would be in her town.

We came back to the boat for our Boat Picnic. Lunch was served family style. BBQ chicken and ribs, beans, watermelon, corn on the cob, cornbread, and lemonade were served.



Afterwards we waited a bit for our “Walking Tour of Henderson” to begin. The tour was just “OK” for me. The lady had lived in town quite a few years so she knew all of the “stories” about everyone. The houses just weren’t spectacular like some of the ones in Natchez or Vicksburg. It’s a nice town – with too many shoe stores on Main St. – but there are a few too many empty windows as well - a sign of the times in small towns. The huge city park was awesome with lots of things to do for everyone and very nice dedications monuments to our country's veterans.

After the tour Doug, Karen, and I went a block or so and had an ice cream bar at a bakery – there weren’t any ice cream cones in town. After cooling down for a bit we walked back to the library which was a block away. This was a Carnegie-paid-for library that had a round conservatory top to it. Years later they added a new wing but we were there to see the old inside.

We walked back to the free museum to ask, “Why do you have these old toys in your display cases?” She said that three of them were actually manufactured in town but that the others were just part of the same collection of some guy.

Having once again cooled ourselves off in an air conditioned building we were able to walk the two blocks back to the boat. It was probably 90 degrees at this point but the humidity was bearable.

Just before the boat left we joined the banjo playing cruise director in singing riverboat songs in the Texas Lounge. Great fun.



30 minutes later the boat left the dock at 5:15pm with calliope blasting away its happy tunes.

Dinner for us is at 7:15pm. Normally our group of 4 would eat at 5pm at home. Fortunately for us this late eating has really worked out. It is so hot at 5:15pm when the first sitting starts that we would have been too hot in our nice clothes. At least at 7 the sun is partially down and the temperature has cooled off so we aren’t sweating as we walk to dinner.

Tonight I had salmon as did Doug. It was a little dry for me so I didn’t eat it all. Karen and Doug (yes, Doug) had Chicken Pot Pie which was great! The insides were in a bowl and the pastry part was placed on top. It was so flaky and light. Betty had Beef Tenderloin and it WAS tender. Hmm. Sounds like I’ll be revising my list of beef-eatables again.



Desserts have been awesome. They make some sort of bread pudding each night but with different sauces. Doug had it the first 3 nights and raved about it. I’ve had it the last 3 nights and I’m raving about it too.

Friday Engine Room

A couple of days ago we had the unique opportunity to visit the engine room of the DQ. Because of the limited space in there, engineers have to keep everything in the proper place. Hence, it appears to be very clean.

We don’t see the large boilers in the area we are in – they are forward of where we are. What we image happens is that heavy oil is burned producing a flame that heats up large pots of water to the boiling point. This produces steam. Think of a tea kettle on a stove.



The steam is routed via insulated pipes to the actual pistons that make the paddlewheel turn. There are 2 pistons and the steam pushes against the front of the piston and then is routed to the back of the piston to push it back the way it just came.



THEN, that same steam is routed across the engine room to the 2nd, larger piston. The steam pushes against one side of the piston and then the other to produce a forward and backward motion of this piston also. The piston is connected to a rod that then turns the paddlewheel.



After the steam leaves the second piston it is routed back to a tank where it turns back into water to be heated again.



Fascinating? I know!

Thursday Paducah

This is so much fun!

Doug brought a GPS with him to navigate while we are in the car. We're using it on the boat! The boat was supposed to turn left last night into a canal and then head down the Tennessee River to the Ohio River. I was watching the GPS about 11pm and we went right past the canal. I kept yelling, "Turn the boat! Turn the boat!".

A few miles further and we made it to the Barkley Lock instead of the Kentucky Lock. After the lock through we were on our way back to our room a little after midnight and I found a 1st Mate and asked him why we didn't go thru the canal and the Kentucky Lock. He said there was a medical emergency on a towboat inside the Kentucky Lock and there was going to be a 2 hour delay so they decided to go the long way around - Barkley Lock, Cumberland River to Smithland, KY., turn left on the Ohio River and go downriver 21 miles to Paducah.

We woke up in Paducah - a nice little city on the Ohio River with a wonderfully large flood wall with beautiful pictures on the wall on the city side.



We walked up into town after breakfast and had a nice chat with the lady that worked at one of the museums. She had story after story after story. She was a hoot. Eventually we made it into the museum to look at the history of the 1937 flood and other things.



Our excursion for the day was a walk all the way across the street next to the flood wall - all of 100 yards. We'd been to this museum before, the last time we were here, but the tour lady insisted the talk by the curator was worth the extra $10. She WAS very informative and had some great information about Paducah and its history and riverboats and the flood.

The flood of 1937. The floodwater was above the 1st story of the buildings closest to the water. It was 11' high on 2nd Street. It reached back and flooded the city for 34 blocks from the Ohio River. The river was 7 miles across. The city was flooded for a month and it was February!



We found a place selling ice cream close to the boat and sat and looked out over the river like we hadn't a care in the world this afternoon. The sun was out (about 85 degrees) and the wind was blowing about 10 mph to keep things cool. We were in the shade on nice park benches and it was so relaxing. What a great vacation.



Our group boarded the boat about 4:30 and we left Paducah at 5pm with the calliope playing and echoing off the flood wall. We waved goodbye to the people on shore and they waved at us.

Currently (pun intended) I'm sitting in a rocking chair with my sandals off and feet up on the railing writting on my laptop. The boat just sound her steam whistle for some reason. Hmm. THAT was weird. Maybe she was passing another boat or something on the port side. Yep. I went back to the stern and checked and we just passed side by side with a towboat pushing 12 barges of coal. The channel is pretty narrow here so that must have been protocol.

Dinner is in an hour AND so is a lock through on the Smithland Lock. We want to do both. Karen had me make up some labels with www.save-the-delta-queen.org on them and she bought some candy and she put the labels on the candy and she plans to throw them at the lock people (people who like to watch boats in the lock). Dinner can wait for 15 minutes.

Dinner is always a new adventure each evening. Karen and I don't eat out often so this cruise is like eating out every night. There's an appetizer (choice of 2), soup (2), salad (2), entree (4), and dessert (2) to choose from each night's menu.

Some nights we have or try one from each group. Other nights maybe just a salad or an entree. We ALWAYS eat dessert.

Tonight Karen had the best entree of the cruise for her - flounder. Doug had a half portion and I agreed to eat the 1/4 that Karen had left over.



Betty and I had the New York Steak - it was cooked correctly for both of us but was still tough to cut and eat. I am of the opinion that T-Bone, Prime Rib, Rib Eye, and Tri-Tip are the cuts of meat that are tender and taste good. (Note to self - stick with those cuts for the rest of your life.)

I haven't mentioned entertainment much. Each evening we have a "theme". Tonight the cruise director will play banjo music accompanied by the f-piece band. This guy, Bob Stevens, was the assistant cruise director on the DQ in 2000 when we were previously on the boat. He still plays well and is very entertaining. There is also a man and a lady in their 50's who perform. Both have excellent voices and sing well.

Wednesday, Dover, TN

Wednesday Dover, TN

Out boat left Clarksville, TN last night at 7:30pm while we were at dinner (catfish and beef for me; chicken for Karen). Our destination was Dover, TN about 38 miles downriver towards the Ohio.

This stretch of the river has very few towns along its banks. It was the darkest of nights even with the FULL MOON out. At times we could barely see either shore even though the river is only 100 yards across.

We stayed up until we got to Dover at 11:30 that evening. We averaged about 9.3 mph during the trip - no locks to slow us down. The docking took about 45 minutes. We nosed into a park and tied the bow off to a tree and a concrete stump. The stern was tied to a tree in the forrest. Cool stuff. The bow is about 10 feet from the shore. They use a 25 foot ramp to get people from the bow of the boat to the shore.

In the morning after breakfast we took a tour of the PILOT HOUSE. Ooh, aah. Karen wanted to do this on the last DQ trip but we were always going into town on excursions and the only time the pilot house is open is when it is docked.

So, this time we made sure we got on the list and we got to spend about 20 minutes listening to a lady talk about all the controls and rules and the experience-ness of the pilots and captain.

The pilots work 6 hours on and 6 hours off. Everyone else seems to be working all the time. The maitre de is there for all three meals AND there to say hi when we were getting on the boat after we visited the teeny, tiny flea market out in front of the boat.

The engine room is also off-limits except for a few short hours on certain days. We toured it and took lots of pictures of the huge arms that drive the paddlewheel.

At lunch we met a Brit who came here just to ride the DQ before it is taken out of service at the end of October. He's ridden many many steamboats in Europe and his friends said he had to go ride this one. He talked about all the trains (steam and diesel) that he has ridden all over the USA and Europe. We never knew there were so many steamboats abroad. Now we may have to do some research so we can ride some when we go to Europe in a few years.

Our off-boat excursion (is that being redundant?) was to Fort Donelson. In the Civil War the South held the town of Dover because it was in Tennessee and they were partial to the Confederacy. General Grant, who wasn't a general at the time, captured Fort Henry on the Tennessee River in early 1862 and then a week later captured Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River as well. This effectively cut the defensive line of the South in half and gave the Union Army a way to get at the South from the West. And the rest was history.

Our boat left Dover this afternoon at 5pm and headed downriver toward Paducah on the Ohio River. We should get there some time in the early morning on Thursday.

This area is so rural that there is no Verizon connection for me to upload this. Maybe later as we get closer to civilization.

Ahh, another meal is close at hand. Time to get dressed in some "Sunday" clothes and eat with some class.

Tuesday - General Jackson

Time to pack up, load the van and move on to the Delta Queen.

The four of us filled the back end of the Grand Caravan we rented with our luggage and headed back to Opryland where we would board the General Jackson riverboat at 11:15am for a 2 1/2 hour lunch cruise to downtown Nashville and back.

The boat is just about the same size as the Delta Queen. We found a comfortable spot on board on the second deck to get shaded from the 92 degree weather. It is powered by diesel generators that power 600-HP electric motors that drive a big chain that drives the paddlewheel.




Lunch was a buffet of salad, macaroni and cheese, chicken, shredded BBQ beef,and corn bread. About 10 minutes after leaving the dock we were able to get in line for our food.




There were a bunch of other people on board who opted to pay more money and got a lunch "served" to them and then had a Chinese Acrobat Show in this large theatre on the boat. We just wanted to see the river.



Our boat rided ended at 2:30pm and we needed to be at the Nashville airport for our 3:30 scheduled bus ride to Clarksville. We got there about 2:50pm and Karen went in and found the Majestic Cruise Lines representative. He had a porter come out and get all of our bags and he took them into the airport until the bus arrived. I dropped the rental car off and found everyone sitting around still waiting.

We FINALLY left the airport about 4:10pm. The bus driver ("I've been driving for 16 years and I know how to get there") got lost or was talking and missed his turn or whatever on the way. Anyway he turned it around and finally got us to the dock in Clarksville at 5:30pm.