Mrs. Shelton Chimes In.
Hi everybody, this is Marybob-Teds better-half. I am not the story teller that Ted is-he always keeps in fun with his great stories-but they are about his days on the ranch as a cowboy, trapper, and all that goes with it...These boat stries are true----I can attest to that!!! His buddy was....well he just was.
From the female point of view--It actually was I who wanted to live on the water..... I lived on the Colorado River as a child and have never gotten it out of my system I guess. I was excited about getting the boat and having an "adventure" as Ted kept telling me it was going to be, but.... I also was quite apprehensive-----to say the least!!!
I was concerned with all that could go wrong-if we had to do this alone-but once we had friends to go along, that would help-a little (little did I know)- I had read as much as I could to be prepared for the trip-WRONG...
1. I just knew the barges would run us over-as it turned out-we couldn't have been treated nicer (except for when Ted’s bud tried to play chicken with one!!!
2. I was prepared to have problems with pirates-hey that is what I read!!!!-other than the people not being very friendly in Paducah, again no problem
3.Then also I had read somewhere-the eddys (whirlpools) could be a big problem-WELL I did not have a problem-now Teds bud did say that one of the times he ran over a BIG marker buoy-was because of the eddy around it....
I had a GREAT time-cannot imagine a better summer.
Well Ted and I would have preferred to have taken longer in getting down here. We never stopped, or even slowed down to have a look or a good time. The one night that all went well was when we stopped about 1700 and had time to get dinner grilled and relax before the skitos found us.
I would do this over again in a minute!!!!
It was nice at the marinas. People were nice to interact with--but it was just as nice being on the water.
I would have preferred to have planned at least one hot meal a day- but they were happy with cheerios and hot dogs!!! Did learn one important thing-our friends bought granola bars for lunch and snacks-not good on a boat with one small latrine!!!!!!!
If we had the money and time (well we do have the time-will have to wait till we win the lottery) I would turn around and go back to Evansville for the summers and down here for the winter!!!
Nice to talk to all of you- bye for now-Mb
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