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A Mississippi River Adventure
Chapter 1
The Boat
During the last part of July in 1983, the economy had started to fail for Doyle Nye and his family. Doyle Nye is six foot three and has dark brown hair and eyes. It has been said that he has an Abraham Lincoln profile.
Doyle had owned a small machine shop in Rockford, Illinois. It had been a growing little business. For three years we had struggled to survive, but success in the business was just not meant to be at that time in our lives.
Soon we were out of work, out of business, out of money and almost out of time. Doyle and I knew that we could only stay in our home for one more month, then the rent would be due again.
We were becoming desperate about the situation. One morning, Doyle and I were sitting at the kitchen table, looking at the newspaper and talking. Here we were with four kids at home. D.J. with light brown hair was 16 and tall for his age. Eleven year old Robert Nye had his light brown hair cut extra short for the summer.
Lillian Skinner was 15, and had long dark brown hair. Jimmy Skinner, Jr. was 13, and had dark brown eyes and hair. His hair was also cut extra short for the summer. Patricia Nye, who was also 15, had straight, light brown hair, and had moved back to live with her Mother.
“What are we going to do now?” I asked.
Then Doyle looked over at me and sort of smiled and said,
“Wouldn’t it be neat to go down the Mississippi River on a pontoon boat.”
There I sat a person who couldn’t even swim and I said,
“Sure why not, it sounds like fun.” I wasn’t too sure about the idea and never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would actually happen.
I had never even been on a pontoon boat, but just for fun we looked in the classified ads under boats for sale.
There were a lot of boats listed and we decided to go see a few of them. Our kids and a couple of their friends got into the back of the pickup truck and away we went towards Byron, Illinois.
The first boat we looked at was a pontoon boat. It was a pretty metallic blue and white. The boat was wide open all the way around except for a waist high railing. It was a nice boat, but it was not for us.
We traveled on towards Oregon, Illinois to look at a houseboat. It was a pretty shining aluminum houseboat named the Keweenaw. It was eight feet wide and twenty feet long. The boat was all enclosed and we went on board.
The door was unlocked, so we went inside. There was a stove, a sink, an icebox, and a table to the left as we entered the boat. Across the front of the boat was a double glass window, and under the window was the bed. It was a four by eight piece of plywood, with a storage area underneath.
The steering wheel was inside on the right wall over the bed. there was also an extra wheel on the top of the boat.
The kids were all over the boat in a minute, on the top with their feet hanging over the sides and holding onto the small aluminum railing.
“Let’s get this one,” they shouted, as they were swinging their legs off the side of the boat.
Yes, it was perfect. We all knew it and we decided right then and there that we had to have this boat. We all agreed as the houseboat gently rocked back and forth, as it floated on the Rock River.
Aventures of Annabelle
Chapter 1
The Beginning
In 1983 my husband, Doyle Nye, and I left Rockford, Illinois to travel down the Mississippi River. We went from Savanna, Illinois to Beaumont, Texas in a small aluminum houseboat with four children and a dog.
The adventure lasted for thirteen months. We lived in Texas for nearly three years, eventually selling our houseboat the “Keweenaw,” and returning to Rockford, Illinois in 1986.
In the summer of 1990, Doyle saw a houseboat advertised for $2000 in a local paper. He arrived home from work and casually mentioned the ad to me. We had been off the water for nearly six years. Out of curiosity we decided to take a look at the boat.
Doyle called the telephone number and got directions. We drove down a blacktop road and found the boat on a trailer near an empty corn field. A “For Sale” sign was in the front window.
The boat looked like it had been sitting for awhile, the weeds were grown up around the tires. The trailer was made from an old metal frame of a mobile home.
We walked around the boat and looked at the outside. It was twenty-eight feet in length, had a Johnson 85 horsepower motor on the back, and was painted white with blue and red trim.
After examining the boat, we went to the house to talk to the owners. They were gone. Doyle and I waited for awhile and then went home.
We didn’t really think too much more about the boat, and went on with our daily routines.
Nearly a week later, Doyle told his sister Martha and her husband, who is my Uncle Pete about the boat. We decided to take a ride in the car to see if the boat was still there or if it had already been sold.
When we arrived, the sign was still in the window. We climbed up onto the deck to get a good look inside. All the curtains were closed except for the front.
Doyle tried the door knob. It was unlocked. We went inside. The boat was a lot different and longer than our first houseboat. Inside this boat the walls were covered with dark brown paneling, and the floor was covered with linoleum.
The ship’s wheel and the driver’s chair were to the left as we entered the front door. Under the chair were several drawers for storage.
Three sitting areas were covered by gold colored cushions. After a little examination, we discovered the one in front and the one in back both made out into full size beds. The other would just sleep one person.
There was a narrow walkway from front to back. Two people could barely get past each other. A closet space was to the left in the middle of the boat. The bathroom was directly across on the right.
It was stuffy inside, but we sat down on the soft foam seats to talk. It was a nice boat, and I enjoyed the feel of it beneath my feet, even though we were on land.
The owner still wasn’t home, and we had only talked to him once on the phone. We waited for awhile, but when he didn’t return we left. I’m not really sure why we wanted that boat. We didn’t even have a truck to pull it across town.