Day 43 - 780 miles

Hey everyone, greetings from Louisville, KY.! We are actually camped 6 miles above Louisville on an island. The last time I posted i mentioned we were supposed to get a lot of rain. We, unfortunately, didn't get much of it directly but surrounding tributaries should help us. We were hoping to get poured on which, in turn, would speed up the current. We are, however, at the widest point in the river (over a mile) so we wouldn't notice the change in current anyway. We saw the American Queen on Thursday. She is a 418 ft. long steamboat built in 1995, costing around $65 million. She has 222 state rooms allowing 436 guests and 160 crew members. We were told the paddle wheel in the back still propels the boat but most of her maneuverability and speed comes from two diesel powered propellers. The following day we ran into another fellow who was traveling the river. After talking with him he mentioned he was a writer and was working on a piece exploring the Mississippi River basin. He had started in Coudersport, PA. In a kayak. He said he decided to get a boat with a motor once he ran into the Army Corps of Engineers' territory (I strongly recommend as well), which is what we saw him in just above Madison, Ind. His name is Paul Schneider if anyone is interested in checking out his books. Just before arriving in Madison we went under a large bridge that was under construction. They were replacing the old bridge using a method called "truss-sliding." The process involves building the new, 2,426 ft. long bridge on temporary piers next to the old piers, then demolishing the old bridge and "sliding" the new bridge onto the old piers. The bridge would only be closed a mere 10 days! We stopped in Madison and got a bite to eat but decided to stay at a camp ground across the river in Milton, Kentucky. Some friends from Pittsburgh were passing through on their way to Louisville and stopped in and joined us, as well. Everyone was awesome up there and showed us a good time and lots of hospitality. Thanks to everyone, especially Joe for letting us stay there and even setting us up with the extra trailer with AC! Thanks to Brian and Freebird for the good times, stories, and laughs. We said our goodbyes and hit the river again in the morning paddling through rain the rest of the day. When we stopped I decided to build a dry rack on the bottom of my canoe by lashing limbs together. It has worked great, and I should have done it a while ago. We passed Marble Hill Nuclear power plant in the morning which is an abandoned nuclear plant that was never finished due to shortage of funds. $2.5 billion was invested. There were also reports of poor construction. Fear of nuclear radiation leaks was high, as well, due to the disaster at Three Mile Island around this time. It's a big river right now but we're pushing on eager to hit the swift moving Miss. Groceries and a mop chop tomorrow!