LII Green Turtle Bay Marina holding

Tuesday October 7, 2014

As I write this it is actually tomorrow the 8th. I slept in a little and missed the damn eclipse. Allan and Anne of course were up and watched as we passed between the sun and the moon. They managed to get Fracas (and the rest of us) through the gap safely. A gap of 150,169,835 km, smaller gaps are left to me the Captain (20 feet at lock 52).

We rented a fine GM product from Enterprise Rental. We stretched the pickup promise a tad here…at least a 30 minute drive one way to get us. We have a Buick Verano. Mary Lynn insists that it pulls to the right. She has never driven the beast and has only sat in the back seat. I can only assume she is using witch craft or some woman thing to determine automobile diagnostics.

The rental spot was in Paducah and that is where we wanted to go so it was perfect. We were lost in Paducah. Homer Simpson (the voice on my Ipad) had failed to connect to the internet and uploaded his Paducah file and everywhere we wanted to go was unfamiliar to him. Like the dreaded city Hamilton, Paducah is riddled with one way streets. I normally do not have problems with one way streets. Sometimes however they do not go the correct way and issues occur. So far the Verano is unscathed.

I was amazed by the murals on the river wall. Very well painted and each has a descriptive plaque.

We had lunch at a downtown establishment. Regular restaurant fare but it was very good. I slipped a little and had french fries, beer battered french fries… TABERNAC they were good. The lady who picked us up from Enterprise reported that they had a trauma center and some great vascular surgeons. I will go for a walk tomorrow and eat sensibly.

I wanted to go to the world famous Paducah Quilt Museum…Ya Right!!! We did go to the River Museum which cost 8 bucks for Mary Lynn and 7 for the rest of us. It was Ok, I did enjoy the boat piloting simulator. It did induce some vertigo…I think because it was tricking my brain into thinking I was heeling.

We have a beer and liquor shortage. Counties around here are dry. You can ask for a beer at a restaurant but they only smile and bring you iced tea. I will carry my flask from here on out until we are back in the wet world.

We did spy a ‘packaged liquor store’ and I wheeled into the parking lot across the street. We walked over to discover a sign on the door ‘Drive Through Only’. I like the concept but my spider sense started to tingle and I went back to the car. I did go as fast as my Croc flip flops would carry me. Allan and Anne decided to walk through the drive through and attempt to acquire replenishment for our ship’s stores.

They discovered that the window guy was a very affable fellow. He reported that the neighborhood was far too dangerous to let customers into the actual store. He further reported that it was unlikely that they would safely make it back to our car with their lives and the booze. Certainly not with both.

I could sense that something had changed when they both started looking around and tightening their shoe laces. The purchase complete they started bounding across the street to the waiting Verano. Just then a rather vintage lets call it a vintage Snottah came up the street. This particular Snottah was festooned with doors from other Snottahs of other vintages. The crew of said Snottah was obviously ne’er-do-wells likely from no fixed address or somewhere near there. I popped open the trunk and their doors and reved up the Verano. They made it…more importantly the booze made it.

An interesting fact about Kentucky is that both Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis were born in Kentucky. In fact they were born only 9 months apart. I don’t think they nine months is significant.

I will try to backfill the blog today…

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