Go Navy and Complete Route Maps for the trip are posted

The photo is in honor of the Naval Academy's Homecoming game against Pitt. As mentioned, my dad graduated from the Naval Academy in 1952. Also, most know that the only Navy football game that really counts is against Army. Go Navy!

Complete route maps are up thanks to Len! Wow, what a great job! Click the links on the left. Scroll down just below the sponsors and you'll see them. Included are navigation maps of the Tennessee River portion and the complete Tenn-Tom Waterway and Tombigbee River to Mobile. Included in the Tenn-Tom maps is some great info on the locks and history of the waterway. This took an incredible amount of work so my hat and my thanks goes out to Len.

On other fronts, I'm still working on sponsorships for the equipment needs of the trip. Bending Branches came on board, along with The Nantahala Outdoor Center (NOC) and Clipper. I'm currently emailing several other organizations and businesses with requests as well. I've just started working to get a laptop. I need it for the trip to post daily updates on the blog, message boards, photos and anything else I can think of. My current 8 yr old, Dell Inspiron holds a charge for about 5 minutes and is ancient. It won't make it to Fontana Dam, much less the trip. I'm also needing to talk with Verizon about getting an internet card, or a solution of some sort to get internet access anywhere I may be. The laptop I'm looking at is the MSI Wind. A netbook that is cheap, light, small and looks like it will fit the price bill at about $400. The Dell Mini 9 would be the next pick. At a little over 2 lbs and small size, either would be a perfect fit...no pun intended. I think the Dell goes for about $350. If anyone knows a business, or wants to personally sponsor that part of the project, they would get major mention, blog and boat space for advertising.

Last note before I go. I'm talking with NOC to put together a send-off of some type. Maybe we'll have a group of donors paddle with me on a leg the first day leaving from NOC. After the trip, we'll do something as well. I'd like to see a dinner, presentation by me of the trip with slideshow/video presentation, along with a silent auction...or something! Either way, NOC will put it on their calendar and website once we get the dates and ideas figured out. Thank You NOC!