October 22, 2018. There Mississippi River. The Last Hurrah.

Tomorrow we leave our boat, The American. Ken and I loved being on the river and we appreciated all the fine service. We have had a happy time. And we almost made our whole summer without any untoward incidents. Once again, I needed Doreen or Diane or Suzanne or Kate to attend to Ken. But we almost made it unscathed. Our summer plan was ambitious and now we have only two steps before we are home in Mississippi. We will stay in New Orleans until Saturday when we will enjoy good New Orleans food. Saturday, a man who works for Professional Drivers will drive us home. He has rented an SUV for us so we should be comfortable, I hope. Now about Ken. In the middle of the night, Ken got up to go to the bathroom but lost his balance and fell back on the bed. Unfortunately he was crooked and his arm went down between the table and the bed, knocking over the lamp and his water jug and scraping a big chunk of skin off his arm. Once again, we had lots of blood and no supplies. So we improvised. We wrapped a face cloth around the wound and held it in place with two elastic bands, which did a good job. We were given 4 big bandaids at breakfast. But it kept bleeding so at dinner we asked for help. The first mate arrived with a large bag of goodies and he removed the bandaids we were using and the elastic and bandaged it properly. The bleeding stopped. All this was done at our dining table fortunately all by ourselves. This afternoon Ken removed the old bandage and with the supplies the mate left with us, we are back in business. Ken thinks it looks pretty good. I do not like being a nurse. As my Father once said to me, "Ruth, as a nurse you would be a better plumber". And he was right. Ken is disappointed that he has once again, with a big bandage. But we have laughed about the fact that we almost made the whole summer without trauma. Almost, but not quite. We did the trip which is a minor miracle. And soon we will be back home in Mississippi. Whew.