It’s a hit!

We enjoyed a leisurely morning today, with Louisville becoming more visible on the horizon as we approached it.

We docked during lunch and took a quick walk to see the Gracehoper sculpture along the Riverwalk (Google Maps called it “Gracehopper”) before departing for our afternoon excursions.

Diane went to the Frazier Kentucky History Museum and came back to the ship with a tea towel with bourbon drink recipes; I went to the Louisville Slugger Museum and Tour and came home empty-handed (they gave me a mini-bat, but it’s not acceptable in carry-on luggage, so I settled for a photo).

The Slugger Museum wasn’t terribly interesting; they did have actual bats used by players like Babe Ruth, Roger Maris, and Mickey Mantle, but there wasn’t much to look at.

The factory tour, on the other hand, was fascinating. They started with a video showing the forest in Pennsylvania they use for all of the wood that goes into bats and how they process it to produce billets, which they ship to Louisville to turn into bats. They showed us billets and bats for current Major League players (one from each team) and let us hold them.

They use CNC lathes to make the bats for professional players, and less exacting tools to make the bats they sell at retail.

Each player has their own specifications for their bats: weight, length, wood, and some finishing details. It’s a big deal!

After the tour, we had half-an-hour before our bus was ready to take us back to the ship; I decided to walk back instead so I could see a little more of Louisville. I liked the way they preserved the façade of a couple of buildings that they removed to make a participatory sports park.

George Rogers Clark was very important to Louisville, and they commemorate him with a waterfront statue.

By the time I got back to the ship, I was drenched (it was in the 90s and I was only able to stay in the shade for the first few blocks of the walk); I welcomed the air-conditioning.

We had a pilot house tour this afternoon; the Captain was entertaining and informative. And then it was time for dinner.

The entertainment tonight is a jug band, Juggernaut; it should be interesting. The ship stays in Louisville tonight; tomorrow, we’ll get to tour Churchill Downs.

Into the Woods in Evansville, Indiana

Our morning view of the Ohio River wasn’t quite as pretty as it was yesterday; not only was the river a good bit rougher than it was yesterday but we’d also been visited by many mayflies who died on our veranda. I’m just glad that we chose to sleep with our sliding door closed last night so we didn’t have them in our bed!

Today’s stop was Evansville, Indiana; we docked at 8:30am and left at 12:30pm. There were three excursions to choose from: the Evansville Wartime Museum, the Audubon Museum & Nature Center, and Wesselman Woods, which we chose because it looked like the one with the most walking.

I think we were right – our guide took us on a two-mile walk (I can’t call it a “hike” because most of it was on boardwalks). We saw the largest tract of virgin, old-growth forest within any city limits in the United States; they also host some raptors which can’t be released into the wild because they wouldn’t survive. We saw a bald eagle, western screech owl, turkey, vulture, peregrine falcon, and a Harris hawk – all behind chicken wire, so it was hard to take a good photo.

Our guide said that they are hoping to keep their ash trees alive despite the Emerald Ash Borer; it’s pretty clear that there are some borers at work in the woods.

I would have liked to have seen a bit of Evansville itself, but we were docked a couple of miles from town.

The program for the rest of the day includes “The American Experience” (you, too, can save money by booking while you’re on board – we already have!), a lecture about Audubon, and a return visit from Not Fade Away doing their “Forever Everly” show. Plus lots of river, a few locks, probable thunderstorms, and a very good chance of mayflies.

Paducah – it rhymes with bazooka

We left the Mississippi for the Ohio sometime during the night and sailed through our first lock around 5am. We woke to a nice, smooth Ohio River outside our cabin.

We docked in Paducah about 8:30am and boarded the bus for our excursion to the National Quilt Museum. The Army Corps of Engineers erected a 12-mile floodwall along the shore after the Great Flood of 1937 covered nearly all of Paducah; in recent years, three blocks in the downtown section have been filled with [murals]https://www.paducahwalltowall.com). The bus took us past the murals; Fowler, the guide from the Welcome Center, had our driver stop at most of them so he could talk about them – the five-minute walk took about 30 minutes on the bus!

The murals cover a wide range of subjects, from famous Paducahians like Alben Barkley and Irwin S. Cobb to the time that the Ohio froze so solidly people could drive over it. I liked these three murals commemorating the uranium enrichment facility built near Paducah and its effect on the area.

We drove past the Quilt Museum and took a tour of the Lowertown area – it was a slum about 30 years ago, but then the city decided to recruit artists into the area by giving them houses to use as studios and residences. It worked; the area has been restored to its former glory.

After that, we drove to the Quilt Museum (Fowler serenaded us with the Paducah Song as we arrived), which was spectacular. It’s dedicated to contemporary quilts and features a number of visiting exhibitions as well as its own permanent collection.

Poppies by Velda Newman (21 feet wide, 8 feet high!)

They have photos of their permanent collection on their website, but seeing them in person was much better (and only a few of the quilts from the visiting exhibitions are on their website).

The Museum has the obligatory Lewis and Clark sculpture on their front lawn, On the Trail of Discovery by George Lundeen.

We walked back to the ship so we could take a closer look at the murals; here are two of my favorites.

The American Queen was also in town today; it can hold 400 passengers, versus our ship’s 150. I think I like our nice cozy ship better.

I was wondering how we’d take a selfie with one of the murals, but another Paducah greeter solved the problem for us!

After lunch, we visited the River Discovery Center and wandered around the downtown for a bit before retreating to the air-conditioned ship.

On the Mississippi

We walked around the Gateway Arch National Park this morning hoping to reproduce the photo in our hotel room, showing the Arch and its reflection. We didn’t find exactly the right spot and the water was too rough to give a clean reflection, but I liked the photo I took anyway.

We spent an hour or so in the Gateway Arch Museum before we had to go back to the hotel to join the group for the coach ride to the ship. When we checked in with Mark, the Excursions Coordinator, I joked that we’d’ve walked the ten minutes to the ship but we didn’t want to mess up his bookkeeping.

I shouldn’t have worried about his bookkeeping. We all got on the coach and set out on the short drive to the ship; it should have taken about six minutes – but there were fire engines blocking the way to the ship, so the driver had to park and wait. Twenty minutes later, she announced that she wouldn’t be able to drive to the ship. We had the choice of walking to the ship or waiting for golf carts; we chose to walk (so did most of the passengers who could walk the distance).

Lunch was waiting for us when we got to the ship; we had the mandatory egress drill and then set sail for our first destination – Paducah, Kentucky.

I got one last photo of the Arch from 10 miles downstream.

We had an interesting lecture on Steamships and Paddleboats; our speaker (David Dorsey) talked a lot about the importance of barge traffic on the Mississippi and Ohio over the years. We’ve seen a lot of barges so far, both moving and parked – each barge holds about 58 semi-trailers’ worth of goods, and a towboat typically pushes 15 barges at a time. That’s a lot of stuff!

Two Riverfronts and a Goodbye

Today was our last day in Galva. After breakfast, we went to The Old Bank Coffee & Tea for coffee; Desi is a barista there, so we got a tour of the inside (a former bank drive-thru window) while she made us Caffe Mochas, which we enjoyed in their picnic area.

Then it was time to leave Galva; it’s a very nice small town. Desi drove down to Peoria with us where we had an enjoyable lunch at Kellerher’s Irish Pub and Eatery followed by a short walk along the Peoria Riverfront, where we saw some interesting sculptures by Preston Johnson.

And then it was time to say goodbye for now.

Our cruise includes a one-night stay at the Drury Plaza at the Arch; it’s pleasant but not spectacular. After dinner, we walked around the Gateway Arch National Park and enjoyed the Arch from various angles.

We walked along the Riverfront and found our ship, the American Heritage. We’ll be boarding her around 11:30 tomorrow for our cruise to Pittsburgh.