11.02.2024 / 1454 hrs

First cup of Coffee. Three hours until watch.

Crossed into Ohio / Ky part of the river. We’re just south of Cincinnati, the City on Seven Hills.

The heat went out on the boat, but the good guys on the tug topped off our water tank.

I both over thought and under thought this trip in terms of packing. I’ve been off the road so long I’ve forgotten what I’m like and what I will need… particularly base layers, not because it’s cold, especially, but because of exposure. I have plenty of layers, and I’m not worried. But I need to remember this.

For all the unromantic and unglamorous aspects of my job, the romantic in my core can not be denied. I love this job, this work, more by the day. Out here on the dirty sacred river, floating north to South Point, somewhere below Cincinnati, I am reexperiencing my home… my larger home… in a profound way. It’s all beautiful and terrible and lonesome and glorious, this congregation of the river.