WiFi and internet are tenuous at best on the river. (Truly we have discovered this is the case across much of the country. Our electronic cover is more of a lace antimacassar, read full of holes, than a blanket.) For the most part we have spent this week oblivious to the important decisions being made in D.C. We needed the break from all the craziness out there. For now, we’ll count on others to do the right thing in our place. We’ll catch up later.

We woke to a foggy day, the boat tied to the dock until the river was visible enough to be navigated. The crew had scrambled to create diversions for the passengers, as no disembarkation was planned. Lydia chose the “sleep-in” option. I grabbed breakfast the porch of the café in my rain jacket, then settled into the Gentlemen’s card room to write. Disappointingly, my tablet was refusing to transfer pictures to my blog and I was having to default to pictures from Monument Valley for my posts.

 Lydia rescued me from my pique and we opted to attend a lecture by the river lore-ian on the first steamboats on American rivers and the giant earth quake experienced in the early 1800’s. Apparently it was far larger than the famous San Francisco quake, registering an estimated 8.2 in then Richter scale. Its epicenter was here at New Madrid (pronounced locally as Mad-drid, rather than Mah-drid like the city in Spain.)

The fog had cleared, and we made way again for a full day of cruising down the river, or up. I lost track of whether we were still on the Ohio, or back on the Mississippi.

The rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing, followed by our usual evening routine, which I know I will miss back in the real world. The night’s entertainment was a one man show who unfortunately chose to highlight Barry Manilow as his favorite entertainer. It was, thankfully, a short show.

Once again we ended the evening on the porch watching the river flow by, knowing that in a few days we would be back to other endeavors. The thought made the time all the more special to us.

Blessings

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