The Last River Trip

 If you've read several of these blogs, you know that I've made a few trips down  the Arkansas River to the Mississippi.  The last trip was in September, 2018 and you can read about it in an October, 2018 blog post.

At the time we made that trip, I wasn't sure I would ever do it again.  With each trip, the sleeping bag became increasingly hard and uncomfortable.  However, no one ever accused me of being intelligent so we planned another trip this year.

The group this year would consist of my brother, Milt, and his good friend, Bill, in Bill's boat and my son, Dan, my cousin's husband, Jim, and myself in my boat.  We were going to change things up a bit and leave from Muskogee this year.  We had always left from Tulsa but were going to make this an abbreviated trip.

The plan was to put in at Muskogee Three Forks Harbor, go downstream to Little Rock, then return to Muskogee.  We figured it would be about a four day trip.  We were to leave on Saturday, September 17.

The appointed day came and we met in Muskogee.  We had decided that we weren't going to be in such a hurry on this trip since we weren't going nearly so far as we had on previous trips.  The first day, we took our time and did some fishing.  In fact, Dan caught a couple of Sauger right where the Illinois River dumps into the Arkansas.

Our plan was to spend the first night at Applegate Cove Marina on Kerr Reservoir.  We had stayed there before and had an enjoyable time.  Our first big surprise came when we got to Applegate Cove and discovered that it was closed and out of business!

Finding fuel on the river is always a challenging problem and we had planned on fueling at Applegate.  Fortunately, there was a guy there who had a key to the pump and we were able to top off our tanks.  We got to talking with him and he offered to let us sleep on the dock at the marina.  I'm not sure whether he had the authority to allow this but we took advantage of it anyway.  Sleeping on the dock that night reinforced my desire to not make this trip any more.

The next morning we took off down river and found ourselves at the Corps of Engineers Park in Ozark, Arkansas in late afternoon.  We had stayed in this park on previous trips so it seemed like a good place to stay again.  I haven't mentioned it before the the temperature on this whole trip was just better than unbearable.

After another miserable night of sleeping (and sweating) on the ground, we woke up the next morning and had a meeting.  Everyone agreed that we had had enough so we decided to turn around and go back upstream.  This would cut off at least two days travel to get to Little Rock and back.

Of course, this meant that we would spend the third night out at Applegate and be sleeping on that hard, hard dock again.  The trip back upstream was uneventful and we arrived back at Muskogee on Wednesday, September 20.

You may have noticed the title of the blog, "The Last River Trip".  As far as I'm concerned, unless I acquire a houseboat with air conditioning and a bed, I think I'm done.  I'm aware of the old adage, "Never say never", but I'm pretty close to never.

Another River Trip

I have no idea why we do things like this but four other guys and I just returned from a five day trip down the Arkansas River.

This was my third time down the river, having gone once in September, 2003, and again in August, 2005.  The first two trips were made with a good friend, Foster Harness.  Unfortunately, Foster is not around to make any more river trips.  I think he must have been looking down on us.

There were five of us in two boats.  In my boat was my son, Dan,and a good friend, R.B.  In the other boat was my brother, Milt, and his friend, Bill.  Dan was not going to be able to meet up with us until the next day.  We left last Wednesday, September 26, from Bluff Landing which is east of Broken Arrow about 10 miles on 71st Street.  Both times before, we left from this landing so that we could say we went through every lock on the Arkansas River.

We got off to a somewhat late start so, after cruising all day, we decided to spend the night at Applegate Marina on Kerr Reservoir near Sallisaw.  The operator of the marina was a most gracious man who offered to let us camp for the evening in his pavilion.  We had running water, electricity, and a bathroom.  It just doesn't get much better than that!

On Thursday, we cruised all day and went through several locks.  We decided to quit early, about 2:30, and found a place at Aux Arc Park near Ozark, Arkansas.  Again, we had water and electricity, along with a bath house which was a good 200 yard hike down the road.  Dan showed up with my truck and the boat trailer, which we left parked there for Louise and Teresa to pick up the following day.

To explain this a little better, let me stop here and tell you what our plan was.  The five guys were going to travel all the way to Greenville, MS.  My wife, Louise, and R.B.'s wife, Teresa, were going to leave home on Friday, pick up my truck and trailer wherever Dan left it, and then meet us in Little Rock on Friday evening.  On Saturday morning, the wives would travel to Greenville, MS, where we would meet and trailer the boats back to Oklahoma.

On Friday morning, the crew got up and headed downriver again.  The first stretch was Lake Dardanelle, a run of 51 miles.  At 30mph, that took a while.  Then, when we got to Dardanelle Lock, we ran into our first obstruction.  A barge tow had just started locking through and we had to wait about 2 1/2 hours to get through the lock.  This put us really behind schedule, since we were to meet the wives in Little Rock.

Finally, about 6:30 pm, we got to Rock Harbor Marina in Little Rock, and met up with the women, who had already gotten us checked in to their B&B.  We did go out to a restaurant to eat that night but the food wasn't a bit better than R.B. had been preparing on the river bank.

Saturday morning we said goodbye to the women and headed out again.  There was a lot of fog early so we didn't get a really early start.  We had a 13 mile run to the next lock where things really went sour.  We were behind a barge tow going downstream and, when he was finished, they locked through another barge tow heading upstream.  I don't remember how long we waited there (mostly because I consumed a large amount of whiskey) but it was a long time.

We wound up spending the night just below the Emmett Sanders Lock, No. 4, on a sand bar.  This was at Mile 66 and I had hoped to get to Mile 10, so we were behind schedule about 56 miles.  Sunday morning, everyone was ready to get home.  Although nothing was said, all the gear was packed and loaded in the boats by 7:30 am and we headed out again.  We had 66 miles left on the Arkansas River and about 40 miles on the Mississippi to get to Greenville.

At least on Sunday, we caught the locks better!  In fact, two of them were open when we got to them.  We finally got to Greenville about 2:00 pm and rendezvoused with Teresa and Louise.  Eight hours later, after a long drive, we got back home.

The burning question I ask myself is, would I do it again?  At 72, my old bones don't take sleeping on the ground as well as they used to.  I guess the answer is, we'll have to wait and see.  We saw a lot of amazing sights along the way and got to spend some precious time with friends and relatives.  All in all, it was an enjoyable trip.  Here is a picture that Dan took that pretty well sums it up.

Hurricane Katrina

Ten years ago, August 25, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the Florida panhandle.  It turned and went back into the Gulf of Mexico and returned three days later, on Sunday, August 28.  Katrina was one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history, with 1250 people killed and property damage of almost $110 billion.

In 2003, Foster Harness, my brother Gary, several other people and I had made a boat trip down the Arkansas River to the Mississippi.  You can read more about that trip in my blog of October 17, 2013.  It was one of those trips that, the day you get back, you swear that you will never do again but a week later you're thinking that the trip had been a lot of fun!

Sometime in the summer of 2005, Foster ran into me at the local cafe and suggested that we should make the river trip again.  By that time, I had forgotten every one of the negatives of the first trip and I told him that I was all in.  The date of Saturday, August 20, was selected as the departure date.

On our first trip, the plan was to leave Tulsa, travel to the mouth of the Arkansas River just north of Greenville, Mississippi, and return.  The plan on this trip was to get to the Mississippi, turn south and go all the way to New Orleans.  We decided to recruit some more boats to go with us so we began to spread the word about our trip.  I had an additional task of trying to find a partner for my boat on the voyage.  My son, Dan, needed little encouragement and he as soon involved.  Foster also recruited a crew and we were set.

In spite of all our searches for additional boats, we only found one other guy willing to make the journey.  He had never done anything like this but he had a boat mate and was anxious to go.

The trip down the Arkansas was largely uneventful except for a couple of events.  When we got to Pine Bluff, Arkansas on the third day the marina where we planned to fuel up was closed.  Fortunately, there was a gentleman living on a boat in the marina who offered his pickup truck to us to go for fuel.

The evening of the third day was a disaster.  We had been sleeping on sand bars and hadn't had any problems.  On that evening, however, the mosquitos moved in and viciously attacked us.  That was probably the most miserable night I ever spent.

On Tuesday, August 23, we loaded up our gear, went through the last lock on the Arkansas, and headed south on the Mississippi.  Because there are no locks on the Mississippi, we anticipated making very good time.  Our plan called for my wife, Louise, and my daughter-in-law, Dorinda to meet us in New Orleans with the boat trailer on Thursday, the 25th.  We arrived at the marina in Greenville about noon and had a great lunch at their cafe.

By this time, I was beginning to have problems with the starter solenoid on my outboard motor.  In spite of this, we took off headed for our next fuel stop in Vicksburg.  We arrived there about 2:30 in the afternoon and quickly learned that there was no gasoline to be purchased on the river.  We were faced with the prospect of having to hire someone to haul gasoline to our boats.  My starter problem was getting worse and I was concerned that it might fail completely.

It was late in the afternoon, we were hot and sweaty, and there was a casino/hotel right up the hill from the ramp which was beckoning to us.  Dan and I looked at each other and decided to "pull the plug" on the trip right there.  After telling Foster Harness of our decision, we headed for the hotel.

We had been on the river for 3 1/2 days and looked like it.  In addition, we didn't smell wonderful.  In spite of this, we managed to check into the hotel.  I'm not sure I would have rented us a room!  We called our wives, told them of our change of plans, and headed to our rooms for a shower.  I think Dan took two in thirty minutes!

Later in the evening, after we had had our first decent meal in four days, we went to the casino where I found a blackjack table and parked there.  Within a couple of hours I had told the pit boss of our adventure and he liked the story enough that he "comped" us breakfast for the next morning, Wednesday, August 24.

Louise had taken the trip as an opportunity for a family weekend in New Orleans.  She and Dorinda were bringing the boat trailer, our Daughter, Rachel, and her then-husband, Mike, were flying in and, of course, Dan was with me.  Louise and Dorinda arrived in Vicksburg early on Thursday, we loaded the boat and were off to New Orleans.

When we got to New Orleans, we found a "you store it" place to put the boat, picked up Rachel and Mike at the airport, and headed for the bed and breakfast just outside the French Quarter where we had made reservations.

On Friday, we all got up, had our breakfast, and headed for the Quarter.  About this time we began to hear about the hurricane, Katrina, which was in the Gulf.  We weren't concerned, though, because it was headed for the Florida Panhandle, not anywhere close to us.  Late on Friday, we wound up at Pat O'Brien's and proceeded to drink a few "hurricanes".  They were aptly named, I suppose.

We finally got back to the B&B and crashed.  The next morning, Saturday, the women got up early and headed back to the Quarter to do some shopping.  The guys, including me, were suffering from acute alcohol poisoning (hangovers) and stayed in bed.  About 9 a.m., we began to stir and turned on the television.  That was when we learned that Katrina had made a left turn and was headed for the Louisiana coast.

This was one of those events where, the longer it goes on, the more panic stricken you become.  By about 11 a.m., we decided that we needed to get out of there.  It was about that time that we learned a valuable lesson - cell phones become useless in a crisis situation.  We were trying to contact the women to tell them we had to leave but could not get through to them.  Finally, we got a text message through and they said they would get back to the B&B.

Rachel and Mike had return tickets to Tulsa to leave on Sunday morning.  Against our urging, they decided to stay in the city and try to catch their flight.  As it turned out, theirs was the last flight out of New Orleans and they beat us home!

We left New Orleans about 2:30 after picking up our boat and headed for Lafayette.  Our plan was to take I-10 to Lafayette, then I-49 north to Alexandria.  The trip from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, normally about an hour, took us FIVE hours.  It was the worst traffic jam I had ever seen.  We finally arrived in Alexandria about 11:30 p.m.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore in Louisiana about 3:00 p.m Sunday afternoon.  I can't tell you how happy we were to be away from there!