The Great River Road

Monday March 12

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn….Sorry I mean Philip and Judith

Welcome to our new home for the next week. Yep that’s right, we will be cruising down the river, or rather up the mighty Mississippi River for the next week on the American Steam Boat Company’s American Duchess Paddle Steamer. (Philip was surfing the net trying to find a “something / somewhere different” place to visit for a week prior to meeting Joanne, Tristram and family in NYC. Once he found this river adventure there was no stopping him!)

We are on the first trip of the season and the river is very high. The river is predicted to reach a peak tomorrow of 17 feet. Because of the height of the river some of our stops have been changed and some shore excursions altered, but this doesn’t really worry us as we haven’t done any of them anyway. I’m sure that it will still be a great trip.

The Paddle steamer is beautiful. We were welcomed on board with a glass of champagne and some great jazz music. Then up to our suite on the third floor. Our room is lovely with a spacious balcony and seperate bedroom and living room. There are 2 restaurants on board and a lovely show lounge. Dinner was awesome with high quality food and fine service.

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The Mississippi River is a main “highway” through a significant part of the mid part of the USA. The amount of river traffic is huge, hundreds of 1500 tonne barges, tugs and reasonable size freighters ply this immense waterway. We love different types of adventures, I am not sure if it’s quite the adventure of Tom Sawer or Huckelberry Finn but we sure are enjoying the sights, history and hospitality as we share a part of Tom and Huck’s river.