July 11, 2008 If This Is Friday, It Must Be Indiana

I woke up early for some reason, and had my usual breakfast. Then I went to do the Pilot House tour. It was really interesting. We met the 2nd captain, who seems like a nice guy. He will now be on the boat until early September! That’s a LONG time! The Pilot House is on an elevator, and can move up and down as needed to go under some of the lower bridges. Pretty cool!

We took a taxi into town, since Mom was with us. We went to the library, which was a cute, small town sort of place, and used the computers there. Amazing how disconnected I’ve felt this week without my laptop! Then we walked back through town to the boat. We stopped and got a vanilla milkshake for Danny, who had slept late (no one dared wake him, lest he be in a mood again!) and missed breakfast. It’s a sad little town, sort of shabby but quaint. Once again, lunch was not going to work for me. So I got a salad, and requested a plain chicken breast, which I cut up and put on the salad. It was yummy!

I went into the store and got more water, and a Tshirt, that I can wear at the gym. Then I headed up to the Front Porch and got some vanilla soft serve! Mmmmm, what a treat! In the Grand Saloon, Jim gave a talk on the history of the riverboats in this company. It was very interesting. The Delta Queen may have to retire, because the exemption from the law against wooden vessels is about to run out, and the stupid congressman who heads the Transportation Committee refuses to let the renewal come to a vote. Why? Because the company is non-union, and he’s in the pockets of the big unions, so he’s blocking it. The law should never have applied to riverboats anyway, since they are never more than ¼ mile from shore, and even in the case of a fire, could get everyone off safely. It really applies to ships that sail miles out in the ocean, but when it was written, they forgot to put that in there, so they’ve just gotten the extension each time it came up. But not this year. So they have a petition to Save The Delta Queen, which we all signed, and we took copies to bring home and get people to sign them and help. It would be such a shame to see that piece of history come to an end, especially for no good reason, just politics.

Next was the Disembarkation Talk, or “How to Get off The Boat”. There are 2 ways, the dry way or the wet way. I’ll go with the dry way, thanks! We have to be dressed, fed, and ready to go by 7:30 am. YUCK!!! I went up to the room after that and packed a little more, since our bags have to be out before we go to bed tonite. We played BINGO again, and Laura was the big winner with $114!!! So we’ve now won $304 as a family!

I went up to the gym for 30 minutes, and watched the kids and Gordan in the pool, then took my shower and wrote notes to go with the extra tips for special service from Joe, and Shannon, our server. I still had A LOT of calories left for dinner, so I splurged a little, and even had ice cream for dessert. (twice in one day!!) Ron and Jewel didn’t come to dinner. We figured they’d probably had enough of Danny the night before, so they found a better table to sit at. Daddy ordered fried oysters, and Laura tried them and loved them! Who knew?!?

We sat on the Front Porch for one last time. It’s so pretty along the river. This is definitely the way to travel! We watched the last episode of “The Flame Trees of Thika”, and then went to finish packing and put our bags outside the door. I could see from the luggage how few rooms were occupied. Out of 14 on our side of the deck, only 6 were in use. I was sitting outside the door, just watching the river until it was time for bed. Hard to believe it’s our last night aboard already. I wonder if I’ll ever get a chance to do it again, or if this is the end of riverboats.