Oops. I missed an anniversary.

Lucky for me, not anything involving my wife. Instead, I was thinking that I needed to get ready to mark the year the Dravo Viking class of towboat turns 40. You know, when it hits middle age.

But I thought, am I talking 1975 or 1974. Then I did a little checking, and I missed it by a year. There were Vikings on the river in 1973. All of which means I need to find a library that has 40-plus-year-old issues of the Waterways Journal so I can track down when the first Viking was launched.

Soon enough the Omar and the Erna E. Honeycutt, which I still think of as the Omega, will reach 35. Maybe I'll remember that one.

Not a great day for river photography

I had this great idea last night. Why not go through my hard drive and highlight some of my best Ohio River photos from November 7 of years past?

When I looked, I didn't find many such photos. I guess part of it is that when the leaves fall, I tend to lose interest. Unless there is snow or something to hide the drab hillsides in this area from early November to the middle of April, taking pictures of boats or bridges loses a lot of appeal for me. Fog or rain helps, but a landscape without green leaves is kind of dull.

However, I did find four pictures that I could share. The first three are from 2010, when Campbell sent the Bill Stile and the D.A. Grimm down the river together. I thought one of them was deadheading, then I saw a small amount of prop wash behind the Grimm.

The Stile and Grimm were followed closely by the Caleb Lay.

Then in 2011, I went to a favored boat ramp to learn how to use the camera on an Android phone. This was one of the pictures I took.

And that was about it. Some days you get a picture. Some days you don't.