10-25-2008
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Bayou Bengal Fan
What if the hokey-pokey is all it really is about?
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Member Since: Aug 2004
Location: Louisiana
Posts: 25,268
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The Delta Queen
It would be so tragic if this boat docked permanently! If you've never cruised the river on a steamboat, you're missing a wonderful time. I've been on the Riverboat Natchez in New Orleans several times and each time was better than the last. I hope Congress will grant the exemption so we don't lose this piece of history.
Quote:
(CNN) -- The great paddlewheel turned the Ohio River water to a froth as the Delta Queen steamboat, a floating National Historic Landmark, departed Cincinnati, Ohio, on its final scheduled voyage this week.
The boat is a throwback to the 1800s and the era of Mark Twain, when thousands of steam-driven paddlewheelers plied the Mississippi River system.
The Delta Queen is the last of those operating as overnight passenger boats on U.S. waterways, giving riders a 19th-century experience on cruises complete with the carnival-like sounds of the steam-whistle calliope.
But it will dock permanently if Congress doesn't grant a safety exemption...
... The Delta Queen will go out of service if Congress does not grant the ship another exemption from a 1960s federal law, the Safety at Seas Act, which bans boats made largely out of wood because of fire hazards.
The current exemption, which expires at the end of October, has been given to the ship nine times over 40 years...
... By docking and unloading nearly 200 passengers up to a dozen times a year, the Delta Queen helps to pump money into small cities along the heartland's rivers that are not normally tourist destinations.
Helena, Arkansas, which Mark Twain wrote in Life on the Mississippi "occupies one of the prettiest situations on the river," could suffer if the boat ceases operation.
"There are places in Helena that are essentially at virtually the levels of a third world country," Powell said. "They were impoverished before and now with the economic suffering, to choke off one of the good things they have is ridiculous.
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Historic steamboat may be on last cruise - CNN.com
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"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways - Chardonnay in one hand - chocolate in the other - body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and screaming "WOO HOO, What a Ride!"
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