A few highlights of my recent Mississippi River steamboat trip from Memphis to St. Louis:
-Quality time with distant and not-so-distant relatives
-Southern accents
-William Eggleston's Memphis
-Zebra finches
-President Chester
-High water in the river
-100% humidity
-Dressing for dinner
-Blackened redfish with chipotle tartar sauce
-Mint on my pillow
-A chocolate martini, a Corona with lime, Ravenswood zin, a "Producer", a screwdriver
-The engine room
-Edited-for-broadcast movies in the steamboat theater: Shrek 2, The Alamo, The Ladykillers, Hidalgo, Secret Window
-Reading time
-The paddlewheel
-BBQ pork
-Stephen Foster songs
-Rocking chairs
-Pink toes
-Butter with everything
-Confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi
-Dixieland jazz
-Catfish stuffed with crab, cornbread, spinach, and pinenuts
-Watching the river roll by
-Being the fourth-youngest person on board
-Unsuccessful bingo
-Scrupulously avoiding political conversation and being labelled "liberal" nonetheless
-Ice cream underneath the calliope
-The Riverlorian
-Captain Clark and Sacagawea
-Grandma's 90th birthday
-The Trolley Song
-Campfires and stars and sunsets and clouds
-Four sumptuous meals a day
-An Obama placard hanging in a window in Chester, Illinois
-A rash of text messages
-Waking up next to the arch in St. Louis
-Basset hound
-Plunking down $5 for the Sunday New York Times
-Plotting my next vacation on the interminable trip home