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!
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