Paducah Prepared!

At Cairo, IL we turned to port (left) on the Ohio River.

We have seen a lot of locks that have two chambers, but this is the first time we have seen both in use.

These flood gates have huge hydraulic rams.

Hello Paducah!

Our first glimpse of Paducah is this formidable floating dock!  Each stage of this dock system is designed to rise with the water level of the river.  This dock is made to survive flood waters 60 feet high…wow!  Also, do you notice the brown wall on the hill?  That is a flood wall constructed to protect the city.

And this is a view from inside the wall. You can see a river cruise boat, and the water, about 45 feet below.

As if the construction of this wall, which took place from 1939-1949, wasn’t impressive enough…the inside of the wall acts as the ‘canvas’ for 53 murals depicting the history of the town.

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Each mural panel has a plaque highlighting the historical significance of the piece.  The murals offer a variety of historical viewpoints, including land usage, battle/war remembrances, cultural and economic snapshots, and numerous tributes…one panel even documents the past floods that prompted the construction of the wall.

Paducah experienced 3 great floods in its history.  The years were 1884, 1913, and (the worst) in 1937, when the water level crested 60.8 feet above normal.  The latest severe flood occurred in 2011, but the wall protected the town!

Sorry for the graphic nature of this picture…

This is an historical picture from the weather.gov site, which demonstrates the extreme height the water reached during the 1937 flood…

and for my grandchildren, I’m pretty sure all of those men were able to safely rescue that horse, and he lived happily ever after in a beautiful field of flowers🫣

click here to see all 53 murals

Our next stop…

Did you know Paducah is home to the National Quilt Museum?  Did you know there was a National Quilt Museum?

This might sound like a strange place to visit (and I will admit that Keith gave me a bit of an eye roll when I suggested we visit), but the artistic creations within the walls of this building did not disappoint…and Keith agrees!

Some of the quilts looked three dimensional.

Colors were so vibrant 

And the textural appearance made it hard to believe this was actually made from fabric and sewing thread.

The way this artist constructed the reflection portion of the piece was absolutely mind blowing 🤯

WOW!  We never expected to find so much history, art, and culture in Paducah!  In addition to the new information and historical facts introduced, the colors and textures from such a variety of artistic medium transported our brains from the browns of the Mississippi to a refreshingly bright and sunny place!

From Paducah it is only a one day trip to Kentucky and/or Barkley Lakes.  These two lakes are approximately 40 miles long and run parallel to each other in a north/south direction.  There is a 170,000 acre National Forest, called Land Between the Lakes, that (you guessed it) is located between the two lakes.

Land Between the Lakes has…

…amazingly beautiful anchorages.

…rare blue rock/glass along some of the shoreline.  This ‘rock’ was the slag byproduct of iron ore smelting furnaces from the mid 1800s.

…large bryozoans (this blob is a colony made up of thousands of microscopic animals, called zooids).

…trees with knees.

…extremely talented crayfish who build high rise masterpieces.

…reminders of how hard life was for the people who lived here in the late 1800s.  These three headstones touched my heart when we were here two years ago, and I was just as moved when I saw them again.

As we leave Kentucky Lake we are reminded that in the fairly recent past this area looked much different!