We don't know where he is. We know, but we forgot. We now know again.

Day - 16 & 17

The faithful inner family email started out "we don't know where he his". I guess my cousin Shawn was talking too him on his 2-way, but the signal was crappy. A couple hours later we got an inner update from Ruthy stating she talked to him last night, but now, LOL, she cant remember where the hell he is. By the way, Ruthy is Capt. Ned's step-sister which is Esther's daughter, which in turn is Ned's step-mom. Okay, enough with how a family tree works, which for the record, ours has branches...were not from that one state...you know the one, the one that doesn't branch out. Moooving on, Ruthy talked to Ned for quite a while and although she couldn't remember where he was, she said he was laughing and joking the whole time.

11:45 am 6/6/2008 I was contacted by the source. Captain Ned is currently in Historic New Harmony, IN. He's just down below the old toll bridge that connects Illinois to Indiana. I can now go home tonight and tell my kids "hey, guess what...Grandpa is living below a bridge again", and I will do this with pride. He said he was getting ready to go get a couple gallons of water form the Indiana welcoming center. I looked up New Harmony on that web search engine that starts G and sounds like the valveless brass horn instrument called a bugle. There are pictures of the area that you can zoom right down on to see where he is, but I thought it best not to print key photo anything due to the "all right reserved" BS that accompanied it. Anyway...pretty cool...check it out.

Capt. Ned has been camping in New Harmony since yesterday early afternoon. The wind was atrocious and was creating a serious chop on the water that was soaking him pretty good. He said he was taking on a little water from the splash. He wanted to keep his gear down below dry so he decided to make a pit stop to put on his roll over skirt. When he realized he was a short walking distance from everything he could possibly need, he then decided it was time for a couple cold beers. Time to stretch his legs and check sh!t out.

The wind was not much better this morning when he woke up, so he decided to just chill for the day, check out some more sh...tuff and relax a little. Relax between relocating hit tent higher and higher on the bank that is. The river is still on the rise, I believe he said it was up another 12 feet, which puts it at near 24 now.

Capt. Ned was eating breakfast at a small diner that's a stones throw away from his camp site. The rising river was the topic of conversation between the locals, when one of them stated that he spotted a guy that was kayaking down the river. Capt. Ned fessed up and said that it was him. Well...'Ol Ned now has friends in Historic New Harmony. The weather of course was another topic of conversation. There's a mild cold front coming in tonight that should tame the winds and with only 42 miles to go before he hits the Ohio River, he'll be leaving his new found friends behind come sunrise. Sunrise...HA!...yeah right...Capt. Ned will keep on keeping on, I'm guessing around the back side of 9ish.

Wilson! Oh my God! I damn near forgot to tell you about the umbrella sail known dear to our hearts as Wilson. Don't panic...he fine, still lazy considering out of the 300+ miles traveled so far he's only assisted in about 25 of them. But again, he's fine. In fact he's fixed. Yep...Fixed. Not like a vasectomy, neuter, spayed or anything weird like that, but Ned believes he's been modified for the last time. He's now set up like a parachute with risers attaching to the handle.

The hope to be final modifications were put to the test for about 2 miles prior to living in New Harmony. Captain Ned said he was sacred half to death, hitting mind blowing speeds of up to 61/2 knots. He said he knows he be able to use him a lot more when he hits the gulf. I told him he has to make to the gulf first. We laughed and joked some more then wound up our conversation. We talked for a good 15 minutes or so and when we hung up I confidently thought to myself...no fears...my dad will be hitting the Gulf Of Mexico before you know it.