The Belle of Louisville

Last weekend seven of us drove to Louisville to spend a leisurely afternoon on The Belle of Louisville, one of the last paddle wheel boats on the Ohio River.

Lunch was a feast, eaten as we slowly made our way away from the dock and into the middle of the river heading upstream.

With a soft breeze blowing and sunny skies we sat on the deck listening to the DJ play songs from the 60s and earlier. And we sang, oh did we sing. At the top of our lungs with hand gestures spelling out YMCA, or YMAA, for those who could not get their arms going fast enough, shoulders moving to the music.

The boat was not even half full. A group of young women was hosting a party for a friend getting married soon. Another circle of ladies was celebrating a safe return from Iraq for one of their members. A church worship team danced and clapped to the music; a birthday group had a time lighting a candle in the breeze. A single person out for a day away lolled on the deck. In front of the DJ, on the middle deck dance floor two dozen or more young adults with Downs Syndrome danced, the entire trip, moving to the music and singing.

There is not much to see or point out on this trip. It’s not like a cruise around New York City where everywhere you turn you see some well-known landmark, or on the Amazon where you would watch out for anacondas and other wild things. Two sights pointed out to us were Jeff’s boatyard, a mile-long factory which was closed on Saturday, and the water level for the 1936 flood. Oh, and the first home for the founder of Papa John’s pizza…or was it Jimmy John’s. You get the idea of the excitement.

We lived on a lake once and the Portage Princess, the local tour boat floated past our house. Like this portion of the Ohio River the Portage Lakes had only so many landmarks to point out to cruisers and so you take what you can get. When homeowners would improve their properties along the shore the boat owner would announce that to the cruisers on their next voyage. And so, one day in June as I was sitting on the deck reading the paper I could clearly hear the Portage Princess passing by on the lake. I put my paper up in front of my face and yes, you’re correct, I really didn’t want to wave at the nice people gawking at our house which between last season and this had a new boathouse and dock. I could hear the cruise director announce the building of the boathouse and dock and, he actually did, the suggested cost for such an improvement.

Water doesn’t need shore sights to be enjoyed. The idea of getting away from shore, moving slowly with someone else at the wheel, feasting on food we neither prepared or cleaned up after (sorry about that sentence structure Amanda), music that took us back to a simpler time and friends surrounding us, now that was worth the price.

That’s what I’m thinking about today.