Kodacolor archives: Hannah and the August ferry

I know I talk a lot about my son Adam, soon to be 11 years old, and his love of the Ohio River, but I have two other kids, too. It's just that they got most of their DNA from their mother's side, and that did not include a fancy toward the river.

In 2002, when she was 10 years old and just out of 4th grade, I took my daughter, Hannah, down to Augusta, Ky., one July day so we could ride the ferry. On the way down, we stopped at Maysville so we could see the two bridges here up close. We took the video camera, and we shot footage of the old suspension bridge from various angles. As we crossed the new bridge, Hannah turned the camera on herself and made an impromptu commercial for the convenience store we were about to visit.

Anyway, here are some photos of the trip to Augusta.

Here's Hannah on the ferry.

The ferry's departure from Augusta was delayed a few minutes because the W.H. Dickhoner came through with 15 loads of coal.

On the Ohio side, we spent a little time skipping rocks.

Here's Hannah on the Kentucky side. No, that's not our car in the background.

On the way home, we stopped at the Greenup Locks and Dam and watched the Senator Stennis lock through downbound. This was before the Corps of Engineers put up security fences and such to keep the public away from the locks.

This is my favorite photo from the trip, and one of my all-time favorite photos of the Ohio River. Yeah, it's because my daughter, a daddy's girl from the womb, is in it. But I like her expression and the way she's looking at the river from the railing of the ferry as we cross.

We chose Augusta because there were two ferries within a day's drive and back of Huntington. The other was at Sistersville, W.Va. Two days after the Augusta trip, I took Hannah's brother Joey, then 8, to Sistersville. The following year, we switched and extended the trips. Joey and I went to Cincinnati with a stop at Augusta, and Hannah and I went to Wheeling with a stop at Sistersville.

Those photos are in another box in a closet. I think . . .