Just 24 hours and just over $1000 to go on the kickstarter! We’re almost there. So close, we can taste it. Tell a friend or three. Here it is again.
The kickstarter for this year’s expedition will pay for transportation, audiovisual equipment, exhibition supplies, food, and outfitting the Shantyboat.
As always, I am tremendously grateful for your support. Your vote of confidence has further inspired me to make the project shine.
And now a report on the gory details of preparation for the expedition, departing in less than two weeks.
As I reported earlier, we have been outfitting the shantyboat with remote steering and throttle. That means all the wainscoting in the boat has been taking up as were working behind the walls. We will be excited to put everything back together soon.
Next weekend we will be drydocking the boat in order to repaint and reseal the hull. That is a totally terrifying prospect of launching the boat in the Santa Cruz Harbor, pulling it out with a crane, and sending it up on cribs on dry land. I think it sounds like madness, but we proceed regardless.
It didn’t seem practical to rent a truck for three months for the summer exhibition, so I am buying a newish truck to tow the Shantyboat. No more breakdowns in the Sierra Nevadas or in Salt Lake City. No more urgent please from various parking lots across America.
I’ve also been contacting people to interview who live in the upper Mississippi River Valley. If you know folks who live or work on the river, I’d love to talk with them. if you have contacts with native people, African-Americans, or people in the Hmong community, I’d be super stoked.
We have a full roster of ship’s mates who will be flying, driving, and biking to the Mississippi River to join the shanty boat for some part of our journey.
And those are only some of the hundreds of details that I’m busy as a bee working out before we leave.
Yours,
Wes
