Our boat neighbor’s advice last night was on target. We had a nice night on the inside of the Paducah dock. The overnight tow traffic may have rocked us a little bit, but it was a smooth night. We did notice a bit of pedestrian traffic on the dock, but the people are either checking out boats or fishing.

I got up in the morning and took a walk around Paducah while Owen worked. The city dock is near a park, and a tall wall separated the river from the town. The wall is decorated with nicely done murals that describe the history of the town.

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I was a little disappointed to see so many shops closed, but I guess quiet Mondays are a theme in a lot of touristy areas. The National Quilt Museum was open, though, and that’s where I headed next.

I’m not a quilter, crafter, or artist, but I know what’s pretty or thought-provoking and can appreciate skill and craftsmanship. There was a special section of the museum dedicated to Covid and one filled with quilts on loan from the 9/11 museum. One in particular caught my eye. It was a quilt with screen printed front pages of newspapers from 9/12/2001. The 25 rectangles were surrounded by quotes by President Bush in response to the event. Of all the newspapers in our country, the artist chose the cover of my hometown paper, the Appleton Post Crescent, to be included.

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My favorite quilt was a great quilt with an exquisite design and itty bitty details. I read the placard next to the quilt expecting to read something profound. Instead, the quilter said she made a gray quilt so her cats’ gray fur wouldn’t show up on it. Sometimes it just is what it is.

After my visit to the museum, I had some shrimp etouffee and a Summertime Punch at Broussard’s across the street from the museum. I enjoyed both.

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Then it was back to the boat because we were getting ready to head to Green Turtle. We packed up and threw the bowlines for the 5ish hour trip. We continued upstream on the Ohio, then turned in toward the Cumberland River. We had a nice break from the sun with overcast skies. We hoped to beat Ida’s remnants to Green Turtle.

We made some good time going up the Cumberland. There’s not a lot of traffic to look out for. The river is much narrower than the Ohio. We were a little concerned about fuel, as we didn’t fill up in Paducah. Sidenote: we love our boat. LOVE. IT. But there are three tiny details about the design of our boat that make us scratch our heads. One is that the fuel guage is under our mattress in the aft cabin. In the middle. So to know how much fuel we have, someone has to leave the helm, go into the boat, down the stairs, hoist the mattress off the bed, use a flashlight, and peer down to check the guage.

Anyway, Owen was feeling pretty confident that we had enough fuel. I was less so. Even so, we wanted to get to Green Turtle before 6:00 and before Ida passed through on her way out of NOLA. So we scooted along on plane for a while, and expected to arrive a little after 5.

Our AIS showed a tow in the Barkley Lock well before we got there, so we thought our Lock Luck was kicking in. When we arrived at the lock, the tow was still in there. Well, mostly in but partly out. When Owen called the lockmaster to request a lock-through, the lockmaster said the tow was stuck! He didn’t know how long it would be, so we should settle in.

My first thought was to establish a “pee corner” [Reference from The Office]. Owen reminded me we have a head and don’t need to do that. Instead, we decided we needed to pull over and find some way to be able to turn off the engines so we wouldn’t run out of fuel. We didn’t know if our wait would be minutes, hours, or days! How long did it take the Ever Given to get out of the Suez Canal?

There were two Federal Mooring Cells nearby, so I put ALL our fenders on one side of the boat (SEVEN!), said a prayer, and waited for Owen to maneuver the boat to the giant silo-looking thing so I could grab the gymnastic ring sticking out of the side to slide a line through. It took a couple tries, but we did it. We were grateful to be able to turn off the engines for the days we might be sitting there. We talked about what we had in the fridge, how much water we had in our tank, and when the last time was we had a pump out. Owen pulled a chair on deck, sat down with his laptop, and started to get some work done. I texted with my fam and planned to settle in for the long haul.

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And then we saw the tow start moving out of the lock! Our days-long potential wait ended up being about an hour. (FYI, the lockmaster never indicated how long it would be. He couldn’t know! My imagination kicked in before common sense could work its way in.)

After the tow cleared, it was our turn in the lock. We pulled in and threw a line around the bollard and held on for our 57 foot lift up. There were fish jumping all over the place in the lock. As soon as we were hooked up, the rain started coming down. Heavy rain. It poured the whole time we were in the lock. We were completely drenched. Then the lock doors opened (surely our lift was sped up by all the rain that fell in that short time! ), the rain stopped, and we were on our way.

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The marina was just outside the lock, so we adjusted lines and fenders and went to our assigned slip. Unfortunately, it was after 6 so the fuel dock was closed. The restaurant was also closed, so it was leftover pizza and pasta salad for dinner.

So even though we had some tense moments, it was still a good day– at least better than the lockmaster’s and the tow driver’s! No one died or got pregnant. We were happy with our problem solving, we learned a new skill (tying up to a mooring thingy), and decided we will always plan for an overnight trip even when just taking a four hour trip up the Cumberland.