Wow, it’s been a month since we started our adventure! We spent today in Paducah, KY, named by explorer William Clark after the Padoucas, the native tribe that occupied the land when he arrived in 1827 as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Mississippi-Missouri Region. The town thrived and became an important steamboat port, due to its location at the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers, and its close proximity to the Mississippi and Cumberland Rivers. Fun fact: Paducah is halfway between Monkey’s Eyebrow and Possum Trot, KY. The city has a concrete flood wall along the waterfront, which is decorated with 50 murals depicting Paducah’s heritage and history.
Today, Paducah is famous for being the home of the National Quilt Museum, and one of only six UNESCO Creative Cities in the country. The museum is arranged like an art gallery, and the quilts are beautiful, intricate and fascinating, even if quilting isn’t your thing.
On display through Veteran’s Day are the All Star Quilts of Valor, an exhibit of patriotic works by professional quilters to honor our military service members. As veterans, Kathleen and I got free admission to the museum.
We had lunch at the Paducah Beer Werks, a cool craft brewery and restaurant in an old Greyhound bus station. Paducah is a very walkable town, but there are no grocery stores close by, so we got out the folding bikes and trekked to to one of two Walmarts in the area for provisions. The other three boats at the transient dock left today and nobody new arrived. We cooked dinner aboard Dragonfly and enjoyed the solitude of our “private” marina. Rain is forecast tonight and tomorrow, and we plan to stay here one more night.
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