End of summer

Forget the equinox. Forget Labor Day. Adam considers today the last day of summer, as the school year here in Cabell County, W.Va., starts tomorrow. He's moving on to middle school tomorrow, meaning he gets on the bus 45 minutes earlier (about 6:10 a.m.) and gets home an hour later (4 p.m.).

Our impromptu last-day-of-summer plans got busted by an afternoon shower, so we went to the harbor at Kenova, W.Va., to see if there were any boats around. Nope. So we went over to Catlettsburg, Ky., to see if something could be seen there. Nope.

So we tried the new riverfront park at Ashland, Ky. Not much there, so we left and crossed the bridge to head to Ironton, Ohio. But we saw the Mountain State coming down the river, so we turned around and watched it head past us, under the bridge and ahead on down the river. We went ahead on to Russell, Ky., to watch the Mountain State pass under the 89-year-old Ironton-Russell Bridge.

We had a good time, as it was our last towboat chase of summer vacation, and I got some decent pictures. It's one of those things that I have to set aside time to download, choose and edit.

As for Adam's older brother, he's about to enjoy his last first day of school. He looks at today as the last good, honorable, decent day of the year, at least until his cousin from down South comes in for a visit on either Labor Day weekend or Thanksgiving weekend.

Meanwhile, I have two more loads of laundry to do and a number-crunching project for my day job that needs to be finished by tomorow morning. I've got a long way to go and a short time to get there ...