It took about two hours to get to the first lock and dam, the Newburgh Lock and Dam. I took the radio and called, "This is a sailboat calling the Newburgh Lock Master."

The message came back, "Well, he's off today, but maybe I can help you."

Sounded kinda sarcastic to me! I've called for the lockmaster at every lock and dam I have passed through on the Ohio, probably six or seven already, and nobody shot back with a smart remark before. How was I to know that there is only one lockmaster, and he was off for the holiday? What do they call the associate lockmasters? Lock-general-flunkies? But he let me through anyway.

Our lockage was not pretty. Ralph made his way to the front of the boat and held the docklines. Whereas I usually did my docking from the back of the boat because I was alone and could not leave the tiller, now I could point the front of the boat toward the floating bitts. The only problem was that I didn't stop completely enough and the front of the boat banged into the side of the lock causing the anchor to fall off it's holder into the water. You should have seen Ralph scrambling up there to grab the anchor and tie the boat up at the same time.

It was almost noon when we approached the city of Newburgh. Ralph spotted a convenient dock and suggested that we stop and find a place to get some lunch. I would never have stopped if I was alone. I am too driven to get further down the river. Type A personality, you know. But when Ralph suggested it, it sounded like a good idea. And it was getting pretty hot on the water, so spending a spell in somebody's free air conditioning didn't sound like a bad idea.

It turned out that the dock was right at the Edgewater Grill at #1 East Water Street! And the Edgewater is a fine restaurant. I enjoyed their best six dollar hamburger and Ralph had clam chowder and a salad. I think we both had 3 glasses of tea. The food was good, but the air conditioning really hit the spot.

After looking around the town just a bit, we boarded the boat again and pointed downstream.

Just before Evansville we saw a small plane pulling the biggest aerial sign I ever saw. We looked on the map and saw that it was circling Ellis Park, which Ralph says is a horse racing track.

As we approached Evansville, we noticed an incredible number of pleasure boaters out for a Labor Day weekend ride. Then we noticed a big sandbar right across from the city of Evansville. It was a circular bar about three feet out of the water. There must have been fifty boats pulled up to that sandbar. There were tents and awnings everywhere. They were having quite a party on that sandbar this Labor Day Weekend.

The Evansville Courier and Press made this report of the day before we arrived:

"August 29th - It's been a busy day on the river today, with many boats in the water in the afternoon. Even someone was taking the time out to read the paper overlooking the river as the weather has cooled slightly. If you look north of Evansville, you will see the Goodyear Blimp in town making its final voyage. It will retire after its flight on Friday."

(We missed the blimp since we were there on Saturday.)

The Evansville Willard Library, a Gothic building built in the 1930s, is widely rumored to be haunted. In 2001, the library staff invited psychologists and paranormal experts to spend the night to prove the haunting. Unfortunately nobody actually saw the ghosts, but the paranormal guys reported definite unusual activity on the computer readouts. Now their website has ghost cams in every room of the library all night long so you can watch for ghosts over the Internet. Check it out at http://www.libraryghost.com/

Just past Evansville a big boat passed us throwing a huge wave which caused the anchor to fall off the holders into the water AGAIN!! Ralph then tied it on the deck of the boat and commented, "I'm not too impressed with your anchor holders."

From Sarah:

At Henderson, Carol and I stopped at a shop right across from the dock. The owner explained that you could not launch or leave a boat on the Henderson docks unless you had a sticker which you could get at City Hall Monday through Friday. Of course, this was Saturday. We were asking if there were any other docks. The lady said she thought there was a dock at a park nearby, but she wasn't sure. So she suggested that she could take us there. She suggested that I leave the truck and trailer at a parking lot at a doctor's office across from the shop. The doctor's office was closed on Saturday. I made a wrong turn into an alleyway and had to back that trailer up to turn it around. Then the shopkeeper took us in her car to the other park. There was a boat ramp there, but, again, you could only park there if you had a sticker. We thought there might be a ramp at the state park nearby, but she said that the state park was not on the river. So we went back to the shop and we decided we needed to buy something for her taking us all around town. It was a real neat gift shop, and we enjoyed shopping there.

Then we went to several other places in the downtown area. There was one store that was a gift shop, and it was connected to a hardware store. We looked around the gift shop then went into the hardware part. They had a big rack of gifts that had been broken. We searched through that rack for an hour and bought a lot of broken stuff that we thought we could fix easily. I bought a snowman with an arm broken off, but it can be glued back on easily. I got it for 25 cents, so we found some bargains there even though they had to be glued together.

Then we stayed downtown all afternoon until about time for the guys to come in the boat. We walked back over to the park by the river and sat on a bench under a shade tree and looked at the books that Carol bought at a yard sale. In driving from Owensboro to Henderson we saw a couple of garage sales, but I couldn't pull in with the boat trailer. So I drove past them to a bar, usually, parked the truck and trailer and rode back to the garage sale with Carol. At one of the garage sales, she found a whole stack of books that were price guides for antiques. So we took that stack of books and sat on the park bench reading them until the guys arrived on the river.

Since it wasn't a good place to leave the boat, and we couldn't get the required sticker on the weekend, Mickey took the boat and spent the night on the river. Ralph came with Carol and me to spend the night in Henderson. We finally found a Super 8. That night Ralph told me to pick the restaurant. I picked Grandy's which I knew nothing about and which turned out to be not very good. And there were flies everywhere. So I won't be able to live down my choice of restaurants.

From Mickey

Well, we pulled into Henderson about 5:30 Eastern time, and there just wasn't a good place to leave the boat. So I decided that I was going to have to spend the night on the river because I was not comfortable leaving my boat there. So I had to go. I am going to travel a few miles down river and find a place to meet Ralph in the morning.

I am anchored out behind Diamond Island near Mt. Vernon, Indiana. I have been on the cell phone for an hour talking to Sarah and Dot and Andy. I even tried to call Will but he was out of the room.

It's been a very pleasant evening. We have had a good day. It got a little bit warm in the afternoon, but we stopped at the Edgewater Café and had a nice meal and enjoyed the air conditioning and three glasses of tea.

Everything is very pleasant. The temperature is really nice tonight, and there are no mosquitoes or bugs of any kind. That's amazing. So lots of fish have been flouncing in the water. I hear an occasional bull frog.

The neighborhood just went to pot. A pontoon boat just stopped one-half mile from me and threw out their anchor. They are going to spend the night there. I can't believe it.

But this is a great spot because it is well protected behind two islands. I am in about 10 feet of water. It's going to be a pleasant night.

In the morning I will have an hour and a half run to Mt. Vernon to pick up Ralph at 8:30.

I discovered that I was so nervous about coming that I forgot to pack any underwear. What was I thinking? And I didn't pack but three t-shirts.

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