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.

Changing My Address

Because Louise and I travel quite a bit, sometimes for extended periods, we have had problems with getting our mail forwarded.  We either had to get the Post Office to do it (which they don't like to do) or we had to beg someone to go get our mail, put it in an envelope, and send it to us.

Just before our last major outing to South Texas in December, our box rent became due at the Post Office and we decided to use that as a reason to make a change.  Our son, Dan, had owned a UPS Store in Sapulpa several years ago and we knew that they rented out private mailboxes.  We went down to the local UPS Store in Sand Springs, paid them a little money, and had a new address!

Part of our logic was that they would forward our mail to us on demand and, in fact, they did this very well.  While we were in South Texas, all I had to do was send them an email and they would gather up all our mail, put it in an envelope, and forward it to us, all for a very nominal charge.  Another part of our decision was that Louise would be in Prattville (Sand Springs) frequently to see the grand kids so it wouldn't be an inconvenience to pick up the mail when we were in town.  This part of the deal is also working quite well.

What I didn't consider was the work required to notify all the people who exchange mail with us that we have a new address!  I have spent a considerable amount of time in this effort since December and I believe that I'm about through with it.  And its not just the initial change; several of the companies we have dealings with (insurance companies, doctors, etc) haven't been able to get the address right on the first try so we have to do it over.

The other day, I sat down to get caught up on QSL cards and realized that I had about 500 cards with the wrong address on them.  For you non-hams, a QSL card is used to confirm a radio contact between two amateur radio operators.  Recently, there have become many ways to confirm a radio contact electronically but a lot of people still prefer the cards.

At any rate, I used a few of my old cards by printing stickers with our new address information, but this was a pain in the rear!  So, yesterday I decided to have some new cards printed.  The first task was to find a picture for the front of the card.  Because of copyright laws, I decided that I wanted a picture which I had taken so I wouldn't have to worry about someone challenging my right to use it.

When Louise and I were in Louisiana in March, I had taken a picture of an owl which turned out pretty fair so I decided to use it.  In case you are wondering where I'm going with this,  its all an excuse to show you my new QSL card!

Dog Followup

Looking at some of the old blogs, I noticed a story about Herb, the dog who stayed with us for a week or so. He was a neat dog and we would have loved to keep him but, unfortunately, we found his owners.

Because of him, we did decide to get a dog so now we have J.J. He is about two years old and came from the Small Paws Rescue group. He is a lot of fun and makes me wonder why we waited 14 years after our last dog died to get another. Oh, well.

J.J. loves to go for rides in the Jeep and goes with me every day to the post office. My son, Dan, and I joke about our lack of masculinity driving around with a little white poodle looking dog but, at age 65, I don't really care.

Moral Dilemmas

Dan and Dorinda were visiting over the Holidays and they found a dog in downtown Tulsa. They brought it to our house and ran an ad on Craigs List to try to find the owner.

In the meantime, everyone fell in love with Herb (we found out his name later). He is about two years old, neutered, housebroken, and very well mannered. I had already decided that Louise and I would keep the dog if the owner wasn't found.

Dan and Dorinda made a pass through the neighborhood where they had found Herb and, sure enough, there were posters up looking for him. It was an extremely difficult decision for everyone in our family to call the number on the poster and tell them that we had their dog. In the end, though, we were glad we did and I'm sure Herb's owner was glad.

The picture shows Herb licking Dan's boot with Lucy, our Granddog, looking on. It was one more event in a very memorable Christmas season.

Visitors from Atlanta

My son and daughter-in-law just arrived yesterday from Atlanta. She had eye surgery this morning and is doing well. They were fortunate to get out of Atlanta. Their apartment there was flooded and they lost a few things. They were in the process of moving out to a house and had most of their possessions already moved.

I haven't been able to work on the tower any. I'm hopeful that I can get started back on that next week. I went to court last night because of the ticket I had received but the judge took mercy on me and let me off with a tongue-lashing (very mild).

Blogs vs. Facebook

I have dabbled around a little bit in Facebook but never really got into it. I've decided that blogs like this one are a lot better, at least for me, than social websites for the reason that this mode of communication doesn't carry much social pressure with it.

In Facebook, I'm always being asked to join this or play that or be this person's friend, most of which I have absolutely no interest in, probably because of my narcissistic tendencies. Or maybe I'm just a really unsociable person.

My son, Dan, and his wife, Dorinda, closed on their house in Atlanta yesterday and I'm very happy for them. They've lived in a basement flat for the past year and this will give them more room and give Dan a garage to play in. The bad news is that this means they will be in Atlanta longer than Louise and I wanted them to be. I think, however, that they really do enjoy living there.

My plans for the day include building a rebar cage for the hole I dug yesterday. By the way, the hole wound up being 4 ft. by 4 ft. by 6 ft. deep. According to my "expert" calculations, that's about 3.5 cubic yards of concrete. I'll post a picture showing it later today.