1969 Seagoing Houseboat

My husband never seems to surprise me--one day he announced that he would like to have a boat-but not just any boat...He wanted a houseboat. So, living close to the Tennessee River I thought we wouldn't have a real problem finding something.....Granted, neither of us had even owned a canoe, (we've been canoeing), let alone a real boat--but that's o.k., life is full of adventure. We set out to find a good boat. We did find one outside of Nashville, TN--it was great, looked like an old tugboat! And it was blue and white--I had dreams about a blue and white boat. We called up our old friend who was familiar with boats and asked him to take a look and possibly move this momma for us...He did, looked at the river charts and said, "Ya know, its gonna take 350 river miles to move it!" Hmmm, we said, its only an hour and a half out of Nashville in the car-he said, "Are you crazy?? You can't move that boat overland without special permits." So, we offered him a special adventure-move this boat out of Nashville and bring it home to us close to us near Perryville, TN. We loaded up our gear, food and booze for this 3 day cruise down the Cumberland River to the Tennessee River...On the way I learned to tie knots in rope-something I still use to this day, how to tie up at a lock to pass through a dam (we passed through 2) and how to read river charts. What a great adventure, I wouldn't trade it for the world! Even the time my husband was at the helm and I spilled all over the floor-I was in the head--because he had a screw up and couldn't figure out how to read the red and green barrels marking the channel and was turning the wheel left to right like a madman! We sold the boat in 2005, I kinda miss it. We had some great times on the river, even while docked at the marina and having fun just watching the water!!