A 3 hour tour..

Prior to booking this trip, the only thing I knew about the Mississippi River is how to find it on a map..at least, the western side, which forms a person. 

 I was always told it was an elfish man, but I want to call her a she, even with her mannish clothing, because I think the name Mrs. Hippy suits her.

In case you think I'm high on crack and you  never heard of this little geography trick, find Minnesota and you'll find her hat, Iowa is her face with a nose pointing east, Missouri, her shirt, Arkansas, her shorts, and Louisiana makes her nice boot. 

Just recently I learned that if you use your imagination, the figure is carrying a long pan, Tennessee, where either cotton candy or a souffle was just baked, and that's Kentucky.

I thought I'd learn a lot more about the river today, and even 'though the weather was ideal and the pontoon ride itself was very pleasant, I could only understand about ten percent of what our captain was saying.

I'll call him Bubba, for continuity, and his last name will be..hmm..how about Bubba Gump Shrimp since he was kind of short..on charisma??

Our tour was the Baton Rouge Harbor town experience, but it was mostly  technical talk about barges. 

Those of us who paid attention to and/or could understand Bubba Gump Shrimp, including about a dozen or so people from the competitive river boat, the "Splendor" who boarded fifteen minutes late and ruined our happy hour, were fascinated by these barges.

Barges basically push things in the water.

We took a three hour tour--a three hour tour--just to  reiterate that..barges push  other things in the water.

I was full on Karen and wanted to get back to our stateroom as soon as possible, but Bubba Gump Shrimp would take the first response he heard--and he admitted to being hard of hearing--which was always "let's stay!" when the option was "we've had enough...let's head back."

We added on at least twenty minutes to the end of the tour, because Bubba Gump Shrimp told us the 1000 foot barge in front of us was going to make a move.

It did not.

Not a discernible one anyway, but that didn't stop the fanatics from taking photos and asking questions.  

Barges move like snails do--would you want to delay Happy Hour to watch a snail move?

Oh, okay, I'll stop, because he did point our some things that weren't ..barges.

Oh!  

Except this one time, when he pointed out a barge called "Nord Santos" (from Panama,) and we both thought he said "George Santos" and we both agreed it wouldn't be beyond reason that this disgraced US congressmen would put seaman on his resume.

The things Bubba Gump Shrimp pointed out that were exciting:

Exxon is a huge employer here, and they make everything from adhesive tape to petroleum.

He also told us about corrupt Governor Huey Long, who, oddly, has the longest(or tallest) memorial buiilding in this state  capital, Baton Rouge.

We also sailed by LSU, (Jim owns a tee-shirt that he forgot to pack) and their enormous Tiger Stadium. 

Bubba Gump Shrimp called it a big party school and the stadium can get really rowdy.

In fact, the noise from the packed stadium actually caused three literal earthquakes.

Once, during a Garth Brooks concert, another, when LSU threw a Hail Mary and beat Kentucky.

I forget the third thing that made the stadium cause an earthquake, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was filled to capacity with Karens like me who didn't want to hear one more effin' word about effin' barges.

Reverse order today..I'll talk about the morning excursion in another blog.