On the eve of our departure from Paducah, I was walking the city docks and found another irresistable sunset scene.
so there's Old Glory and a period lamppost with ol'Sol' going to bed. Paducah is a wonderful, with an awesomely beautiful waterfront looking north over the Ohio. Just to the East, the Tennessee flows into the Ohio. They've done a near complete restoration of the historic downtown area. It's worth a couple of days of walking and poking around.

I went to the mayor's office to tell him they really need a marina here (there are no public facilities for recreational boaters, no place to buy fuel.) I found out that just 2 days ago, the mayor received a 5.3 million dollar grant from the Feds to build a big new marina downtown! I hope they'll allow liveaboards...yhis could be a nice place to stay for a while. On the town side of the seawall, there are dozens of larger-than-life size murals depicting many aspects of local history and culture. They are extremely well rendered and awesome to view. There are also several nice museums here.
This mural depicts the flood of 1937, which destroyed much of the town. Water was 1/2 way up most of the buildings.

I like this mural because I'm fascinatesd with the job of the river tug pilot. This is an accurate depiction of the pilothouse and helm of a modern tug. As you can see, there's no wheel. All the steering is controlled by lever arms that move rudders bothe forward and aft of the props.

Dannell and I will be leaving in a couple of hours for some challenging parts of the trip. Lock 51, just 1 mile downstream is backed up with at least 30 tows waiting to lock through. It's about a 3 day wait for them. I'm hopin that the lockmaster will occasionally make a break for the few pleasure boats that are also waiting.

Then it's 50 miles down to the Mississippi where we have to slog upstream to Alto where the locks begin and the current slows. The good news is that yesterday's headlin in the Paducah paper was:" River Level Lowest Since 1988" That was refdering to the Mississippi, where the tug pilots are having problems with groundings in the shoal areas.

Will get back to you as soon as I can. Wish us well. We'll be safe. Regards. Captain Brion and Dannell