Breaking News

Our Friday plans, and probably our destination, have suddenly changed.  In a weird circle-of-life type coincidence, Mrs. Cooper's farm was sold at an estate auction just last week.   So almost exactly 10 years to the day after the famous Pavilion trip, the property has changed hands and is no longer owned by the Coopers for the first time in almost a century.   End of an era.

Wish we had known about the auction sooner.  The RRCC would liked to have owned some of the riverside tracts, or at least brought home some souvenirs.  Like Newt's pocket knives, lanterns and shotguns.  Or some Confederate money, or British Caribbean silver coins, or an 1895 Jack Daniel's bottle or a 1933 $1 bill from the First National Bank of Shelbyville, and a fingerprinting kit.   Here's the auction flyer:

According to my notes, in 1998 Newt Cooper told me he had lived on the river for 76 years (so 1922) and had never been farther upstream or downstream than the next bend.

So we will reassess our trip.  Our goal is to choose a new river section (or a new river) with the goal of still spending Friday at a put-in and by the smoker.   Time to hit the maps.