American Queen Adventure Day Five

Today was a day on the river. We paddled down with the goal to reach Vicksburg  around 6pm. Success! Days on the water are my favorite - sleeping late, painting, lots of gym time, loads of reading and relaxing and meditating on the water. 

                                          (Sunrise painting of birds, buoys and sand bars)

I was pretty tired from the night before so I was sure I would be in bed by 10pm. Wrong. Some of the crew invited me to head into town for ‘a drink’ when we arrived at port. I turned them down, Mother called me a wimp so I rallied and headed out. 

                                  (Our sizzlin' waitress Dorothy posing with me and Mr. Keenan)

We found a surprisingly good lookin’ bar called The Biscuit Factory. It is an old brick building with a nice bar, fried everything and....wait....karaoke. And therein is my downfall.

Children, Uncle Cator got drunker than Cooter Brown. It really wasn’t my fault. 

The crew ordered about six rounds of Patron shots in a row. We ordered so much that the bartender had to drive to the liquor store - twice! It started out with 5-6 of us but the drunker we got, the more texts went out and by the end of the night there were around 45 crew members at the bar dancing, singing, smoking and eventually playing strip foozball. That’s right folks! I ended up wearing some dude’s cowboy boots around the bar while singing ‘Jolene

You know I had to sing a song or twelve. The one’s I remember singing are:

‘Proud Mary’- Twice - Did anyone realize this song is about Steam Boats? (Big wheels keep on turning/Rolling down the river)

‘Cabaret’ - You know, my standard party popper

‘Rehab’ - Don’t ever sing this drunk. It doesn’t work

‘Islands in the Stream’ - With another crew member. The highlight of the evening

There may have been more but I don’t remember. I do remember twirling a girl around the dance floor and when I picked her up and spun her around everyone screamed with excitement. We are famous! Actually, I had lifted her skirt above her butt and revealed everything to everyone. Dang it. 

Thank God for the fried Jalapeno’s, fried cheese dongs, french fries and fried pickles. There was a Civil War in my stomach for sure. 

We bobbled back to the boat around 3am. The next day was truly a black day on The American Queen for half the staff. Zombie boat!