Why the Ohio?

We’ve been asked several times why we turned onto the Ohio River rather than take the Mississippi all the way to New Orleans. The short answer is that the Lower Mississippi is less friendly to recreational boating. There are fewer places with facilities for pleasure craft, so fuel, water, food and safe places to spend the night are more challenging to find, and the commercial traffic is more intense (although the low water level is putting a dent in that). Our route will take us from the Ohio to the Cumberland, Tennessee, Tombigbee and Mobile Rivers, a more scenic route with plenty of stops to resupply and sightsee.

A couple of pics for our river journal: these two big tows passed each other in front of our anchored boat this morning; and this large building near Joppa, IL appears to be collapsing into the river.

We traveled an easy 24 miles today to Paducah, KY, and are docked at their Transient Boat Dock, opened in 2017 to bring boaters to the city. It’s quite a marvel; the tall pilings allow the floating docks to move up and down with fluctuating water levels. Dragonfly is the little boat on the end; the other one has a Looper couple from North Dakota aboard and another Looper boat from Missouri showed up this evening, along with a boat from Stillwater, MN. After four days without touching land, we plan to spend two or three nights here before continuing on.