Latest / The City of Frankfort Podcast / Ep 22: River Tales with Canoe KY's Nathan

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Ep 22: River Tales with Canoe KY's Nathan · The City of Frankfort Podcast

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From Capitol Halls to Bourbon Balls, this is the City of Frankfurt podcast for the Frankfurtians.
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We're swapping stories, spilling the tea, and celebrating the quirks that make
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Kentucky's capital the best hometown around.
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Welcome to the podcast. I'm Dr. Ellie Haskin-Wagner, and I'm the director of
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the Capital City Museum, and I'm joined here today by Nathan Deppenbrock,
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owner, operator, captain, all around, you know,
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guy at several local businesses, including Canoe Kentucky, Bourbon Boat,
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The Bourbon Boat, The Bourbon Boat. I want to make sure I get it right.
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So Nathan, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having us.
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So full disclosure for everybody listening or watching, we have already done
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this episode, but we had a little text snafu. These things happen.
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And so we're re-recording it. So if I, you know, say like, oh,
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did we already talk about this?
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You will have to forgive me because my brain is not what it used to be.
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Happens to all of us. Okay, good.
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So Nathan, first, let's start by just learning a little bit about you.
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Do you mind to share a little bit of your background, where you're from,
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where you went to school, what you studied, all that good stuff? Sure.
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So I'm a Kentucky kid, lived in the Commonwealth my entire life.
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So grew up in Northern Kentucky, Florence.
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Grew up in a fairly outdoors family.
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We were the family that drug a camper all over the place you know
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we didn't stay in hotels or or anything like
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that except for once a year thanksgiving we got to stay in a cabin
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somewhere that was a treat but we jog our camper everywhere if
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you know um so did a lot of outdoor stuff um mom and dad used to do a little
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bit of uh playing around in aluminum canoes even a couple of races here and
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there and so i've got a picture of myself and i think i was two or three years
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old sitting in a canoe in prince edward sound up in canada um not wearing a
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life jacket which is interesting um.
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So, I've been in canoes a lot.
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I used to paddle out on what was called the Big Bone Lick, which fed into the
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Ohio River a lot on weekends as a kid. Yeah.
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So I graduated from high school up there, went to Covington Catholic High School,
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so I'm a proud colonel, and then went down to Western Kentucky University for college.
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Always kind of had this dream in life of doing something in the outdoors,
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something in recreation.
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And so became a recreation major. My teacher down there, who I list as one of
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my three primary mentors in life, Steve Spencer, my first semester down there,
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I had him for three classes. And so we got to know each other really, really well.
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And one of the things he offered was canoeing. And so a couple of the trips
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we did were overnight trips in the Mammoth Cave. And I got to spend a lot of time in a canoe.
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And I just fell in love with canoeing and the art of the sport.
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And so did that for a while. I needed an internship as part of my major.
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So I interned at the zoo called Kentucky Down Under.
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So for those that don't know what it is, it's a wonderful Australian-themed
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animal park here in Kentucky.
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Worked my way up there pretty quick. Became the head animal keeper there.
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Got to work really close with the owner there who is another one of the primary
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mentors in my life judy austin just a wonderful lady taught me a lot about being
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a man and working hard uh and um,
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spent that time working there learning about how to take care
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of animals i mean i would go home and have baby
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kangaroos in my house almost every night
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yeah so one of my one of my jobs there was um
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one of my jobs there because i lived on property was taking care of the babies
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and with a kangaroo when a wallaby or a kangaroo or any of the maca pods once
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you're gonna once you're gonna want them to be acclimated humans you pull them
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from the pouch at a fairly young age really uh three months to five months depending
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on the species the breed um and so we would pull them and then you had to bottle
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raise them just like you would a baby.
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So one of my jobs was taking them home usually five nights a week.
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And just like a baby, you get up two or three times a night and feed them.
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And with animals that size, because they are used to living in a pouch,
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you have to actually get them out and make them go to the bathroom.
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And then you can hold a pillowcase in front of them and they'll jump right back
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in again and hang them from a doorknob.
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I didn't do that with my kids, but I did learn how to raise kids,
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sort of, while I was still a 19, 20-year-old. Yeah. Pretty neat.
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I really liked working with the kangaroos and stuff. It was really fun.
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I really enjoyed the avian side of things. I also do a lot of bird breeding programs.
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So I'd bring baby birds at home at night and have to take care of them.
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And that was really cool. And that's actually what led me into...
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Uh meeting who is now my wife allison um
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she had come down her her dad had a bird and
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uh it died and so they wanted to buy another one and so i was taking care of
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raising this baby bird and they said hey this is allison can you teach her how
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to take care of this bird she's taking home to her dad and she had worked at
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the zoo before me okay so she knew my boss was actually one of her really good
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friends and so we met a couple times just in passing that way but the timing wasn't right.
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And then, um, uh, one day she came through dropping off some canoes to a group
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in the area and was going to have dinner with those friends.
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And my buddy said, why don't you just go on a date tonight with this girl?
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You know, you've met her before. And so we went on a blind date.
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And, um, on that date, we were talking about life and same things we're talking about right now.
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And she said, do you like canoeing? And I was like, well, I'm an American canoe
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association canoe instructor.
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And she's like, in her mind, she says today, she's like, I think I heard you
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say, I love you right and so we hit it off really well started dating long distance
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for a few months and then um.
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They ended up one day, I ended up just needing a change in life and decided
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to put in my notice at work. And I left that job.
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And the same day, they had a manager put in notice that they were leaving.
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And I said, her and her dad, Allison's dad, had Canoe Kentucky and said,
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why don't you come work for us?
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That's amazing. I said, actually, originally I said no. Really?
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Yeah, we had a six-month relationship that was going really, really well.
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And I was like, man, I don't know, working together and dating and all this.
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And so she was working there as well at the time. No, she was at Canoe Kentucky at the time.
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Yeah. And I was like, I don't know, working together and trying to date and
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all that, that can be tough.
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And so we literally talked about it, prayed about it for a good two weeks and
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finally made up my mind and said, all right, this will work.
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And that's the rest of the story from there. Really? Yeah. So I would like to
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talk a little bit about Canoe Kentucky. I mean, it's a Frankfurt staple.
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I think everyone in town has heard the business name. Forty-five years this
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year. Forty-five years. That is amazing.
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Yeah. So what's the story of the business? Is it a family business?
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Where's the background? Yeah. So, you know, to go from 1981 to today,
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we're now a third generation family business in town, which is pretty proud of that.
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You know, I think that the stats today are something like 50% of businesses
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can transfer from one generation to the next.
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And then I think it's 7% actually make it to the third.
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Those are numbers from a couple of years ago. But we're in that transition process
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right now as our kids are coming in.
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So Canoe Kentucky started as the brainchild of my father-in-law, Ed Counsel.
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Ed was a local. He worked for the Department of Water here in Kentucky.
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Had a lot of different jobs in that kind of world. Came from Richmond,
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Virginia. Was an engineer over there.
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City planner for the city of Richmond for years. Grew up on the,
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or lived on the James River.
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That's where Allison was born. Got hired by the Department of Water here.
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One of the jobs he got into was really cool was he was hired to research raindrops
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when we hit the ground and how they end up in our karst topography,
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how they end up in the caves.
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Cool. So he worked down around Mammoth Cave. That was how Allison ended up with
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a job in that area working for Kentucky Down Under.
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He had a Boy Scout troop because he, Allison has a brother, Corey.
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So eighth grade year, the Boy Scouts and Allison, she was the honorary girl in the Boy Scouts.
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Had a big trip planned, end of the season, summer season trip to Mammoth Cave
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to go down to the Green River and do a couple night paddling trip.
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Had all these canoes lined up. This is going to be a really cool trip.
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And like week before the trip, the outfitter they're working with just bailed
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on them just like, I can't. Like something came up, don't know what it was.
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Um so ed called up a canoe manufacturer in
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missouri lebanon missouri called osage canoes and he said
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look i need i'm desperate i need six canoes life jackets
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paddles i need them here within a week and he's like i don't have
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all the money to pay you right now but i promise as a man i'll shake your hand
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i'll pay you back he did he went out picked up the canoes
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osage and did it for him we brought these six canoes back
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every one of them had a name um they did
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this awesome end of summer canoe trip down the
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green river allison said it was one of the trips that kind of changed her life and
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um came back boys went into high school and the
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next summer ed always said that girls became way cooler than canoes and
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so the canoes just kind of were sitting there and um summer day
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in 1981 a guy drove by and said i'll give you 15 bucks if
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you wouldn't borrow that canoe and a light bulb went off and
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so ed started a company called elkhorn excursions he did
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it part-time so he was working for the department of water in cave
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city during the week and working canoe kentucky on
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the weekends um till around 1990 and then
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he decided to go full bore and um he purchased
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at auction the old peaks mill grocery and gas station um a
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lot of people out in that area still talk about sitting around playing checkers
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out there and hot ham sandwiches or whatever that is and uh he bought it because
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it was it was bankrupt it was on the auction block and bought it and uh we turned
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that into a new business that he then renamed canoe kentucky i think and i was around 1992 93 and um.
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Bought more rental canoes. My son, Corey, came and worked for them for a couple of years.
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And then we hit the dreaded flood of 1997 and everything changed.
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And then we had a drought right in there.
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And so we were doing a lot of stuff at that time. We were making canoes.
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We were building a canoe called the Bluegrass Canoe.
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We were selling a lot of canoes and kayaks and growing up. And so Allison graduated from college.
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She was going to go to vet school. She had an animal science degree and she
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was accepted into Auburn. She was going to go to vet school.
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And Ed said, I just need you to come back one more summer and work for me before
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you go to vet school and see how it goes. And she came back and she said,
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you know, it's great because canoes never come home sick. I don't have to treat
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them or worry about them like a new animal. She said, I think I love this.
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And so she started working for the business then and slowly started taking over
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management and ownership.
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And then I came in in 2002 and we slowly started taking over ownership and management,
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changing the way things were done a little. That's what businesses do when they transition.
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Of course, yeah. And then around 2009, 2010, we took over primary ownership of the business.
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We bought Ed and Bess out so they could have a proper retirement,
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which as an entrepreneur, he never retired. He did nonprofit work.
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He did a ton of work for the King Center here in Frankfurt, had a program called Kids Grow Kentucky.
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And he's really passionate about getting kids that didn't have the opportunity
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to get outside, get them outside. Yeah.
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So he did a lot of that through his volunteer work until he passed a few years ago.
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And Bess both passed in the same year. just really sweet
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and in its own reflective way you know they were going to celebrate their
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57th wedding anniversary that year and she died
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and then he died weeks before what would have been their anniversary date so
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it's really nice they never spent a single anniversary apart um and uh and so
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now our kids our oldest is a recent graduate from college going back to get
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his master's his entire goal in life is to bend around the business and take
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it over so we're starting to allow those wheels to kind of turn and things to happen and.
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Two other kids growing up in the business as well. My middle child doesn't have
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as much interest in ownership someday.
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So he's an EMT working over in Louisville right now. My youngest is still 14.
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So who knows what she becomes in life. She likes working with us at the moment.
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Hopefully I don't mess that up.
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But yeah. And so 45 years strong this year. Over the years, you know,
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we're the largest canoe and kayak outfitter in the state of Kentucky.
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We're one of the largest retail shops in the Eastern U.S. that sells canoes and kayaks. Whoa!
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Over the years, we've done all kinds of different things from environmental
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education to summer camps,
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Just all sorts of different things. So we try to do anything in Frankfurt that
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gets people out and connected to the outdoors, primarily the water.
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We like to say water just heals the soul. There's something about it.
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And so we've done that. And then that's morphed into other businesses that have
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reflected around the water as well. Yeah.
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So I'm curious, what is it about the Elkhorn that has brought all these folks
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to participate in water recreation on it?
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Yeah, it is probably the most popular stream in the state of Kentucky for paddling.
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Of course, a lot of that, you know, we don't want to take credit for,
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but a lot of that goes back to the fact we've been around for a while operating on it.
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We've helped secure really good access on the creek. You know,
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Kentucky has more miles of free-flowing riverbank than any other state in the
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U.S. except for Alaska. That's the stat we like to use.
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But the problem is a lot of our streams and rivers are very excess poor.
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And Kentucky is very excess poor and outfitter poor. So I think in Kentucky,
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full-time, not even year-round, but full-time, there's maybe only seven or eight
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outfitters in the state of Kentucky today.
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Do you mind to clarify what that means? Yeah, outfitter would be somebody that
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rents a canoe or a kayak or a raft or a tube or someone in the neck of the woods.
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Of course, the word outfitter out west could mean dude ranches and hunting and
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everything else. But here in Kentucky, we primarily refer to canoe and kayak outfitters.
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Okay, cool. Thank you, sir. Oh, that's no worries. So, yeah,
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I think there's seven or eight.
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Of course, the state parks and a few of our county parks, they do rentals as
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well. But we don't necessarily lump them into the outfitter category.
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Versus you can go to, say, Missouri, and there are counties in Missouri that
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have 20-plus outfitters in them all by themselves.
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I think Missouri has 150 to 200 outfitters.
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Right so we're very outfitter poor we're very access poor
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so what we've done on the elkhorn is we've secured a lot of really nice
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accesses uh we personally own all of ours
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but then anywhere that we own one there's typically a public access
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right near it um the elkhorn just offers the best of everything so it's phenomenal
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beginner friendly stream you put in at one spot you finish at another the water
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does the majority of work for you it's pretty paddleable year round the summer
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months it can get a little bit dry, but you can paddle it year round.
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It offers some of the best whitewater in the central part of Kentucky.
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So after we get a really good rain, anybody from Ohio to Indiana that wants
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class two, class three whitewater, we have that.
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It's one of the best smallmouth fishing streams in the eastern U.S.
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Kentucky always lists it as one of the best in Kentucky.
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Being in the state capital, you know, fish and wildlife monitors it very heavily.
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So It's one of the few streams in Kentucky that smallmouth bass have a slot
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limit, which means the important size fish, the 12 to 15 inch smallmouth,
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you're not allowed to keep them so that the breeder size stays intact.
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So they monitor that real heavily. So the smallmouth fishing is great.
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It's just a historic creek. Walt Whitman featured Elkhorn Creek in a couple of his different poems.
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Smallmouth bass fishing as a sport actually was very first considered a sport
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on the Elkhorn Creek. So there's just a lot of ways people can get out and enjoy it. And, um,
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I've paddled all around the country. I haven't got to do much international
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paddling yet, but it's always a place to come home to.
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It's just a wonderful resource. It's beautiful water.
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It's just, yeah, anybody that's never paddled it, and we hear it all the time
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from locals that'll come out and say, we've never been out here before, even to this day.
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So I always encourage people, man, we always forget about what's in our own backyard.
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We want to travel to the other places because they're cool. There's so many
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things to do right here in Frankfurt, and the Elkhorn's just,
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man, what a resource. Whether if you want to paddle it, I'm not a huge proponent
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or advocate of inner tubes, but if a tube is the way that gets you there, fine.
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But if you want to paddle it, if you want to just wade it, if you want to fish
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it, it is such a great resource.
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You know, this is kind of a digression a little bit. I recently saw,
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and I think this was like in Adams, Tennessee area, stock tank paddling.
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Is that a new thing that's coming up as well? Yeah, that's those crazy people
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from Nebraska created. That's called tanking. What?
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I have no idea. Okay, that's fine.
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But literally, they will take their, their outfitters in certain states.
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I know Nebraska and Oklahoma have them. They literally take stock tanks and
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install benches around them.
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And people sit in and they're just big giant glorified tubes they
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probably wouldn't work real well in central kentucky just because
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the nature of our water yeah the limestone rock the shelfy
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rock the low waters but yeah tanking is a
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whole thing that's i it blew my mind because like when i saw
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a photo i guess it was like on the bank like it was partially on the bank still
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and i was like oh you just sit in stock tanks on the bank and then there's usually
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there's usually libations involved i will got it okay that does that does it
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actually reflects around the whole tubing world That's kind of one of the reasons
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we are not huge advocates of inner tubes is the culture of inner tubing kind
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of reflects around that as well.
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There's always one tube with another tube behind it with a cooler full of beer.
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And that's not the activity we promote as a business. We're a very family friendly activity.
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We've been very big at that over the years and trying to create a family friendly atmosphere.
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So there are people that tube the Greek. I'm not going to say anything wrong
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with it. It's just something we offer. Yeah.
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And I think also, like, the reality, you know, wherever you stand on it is,
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once libations are introduced, it decreases safety. Sure.
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And that is something that, you know, is a priority for business,
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right? We've done it very seriously.
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We've been around 45 years, and I'm proud to say really the worst accident we've
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ever had is, like, maybe a sprained wrist, sprained ankle, something like that.
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That's amazing. We take safety and customer service as our primary priorities.
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You ask any of our staff, what are the two primary priorities of our Canoe Kentucky
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business? And that's it. Safety number one.
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And sometimes safety means, you know, after we get a big rain or something,
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you know, trees fall down on the creek.
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The general customer doesn't ever realize, where does that stuff go?
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Who gets rid of that? We do.
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Really? We're out there taking us chainsawing when we recorded this last week.
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I left that recording to go chainsaw a couple of trees on the creek that recently
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had come down. So we try to create a safe atmosphere. It's not a water park.
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So paddle sports is naturally dangerous. You can get injured.
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You can even die doing it. So we try to keep the creek as safe as we can without
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getting rid of the natural element of it.
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It's supposed to be a little exciting and a little thrilling and maybe a little dangerous.
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But by making sure everybody has a life jacket with them and on,
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we do make sure they have it on at least when they leave our site.
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But then also providing a customer service experience is just impeccable.
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You know, that people have a good time. We're there to take care of them,
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help them have a good experience.
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And we take a lot of pride in both those things. Yeah. What other safety advice
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would you give to folks while we're on the topic who, you know,
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want to just get out on the water regardless of if they use your all's business
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or not, which I hope they do.
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But if they don't, like, what would you say? You know, first and foremost,
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we always say paddling safe means paddling with a life jacket.
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We see way too many people that will have a life jacket on their kayak,
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maybe strapped underneath the rigging on the back deck.
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That doesn't do you any good if you were to flip over.
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Understandably, creeks like the Elkhorn are very shallow. You know,
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you flip over and you feel like you're drowning, just stand up,
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right? That's the big joke we always say.
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And that's true. But a lot of people paddle the Kentucky River,
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which is phenomenal. The Kentucky River average is 18 to 22 feet.
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And if you flip over in the middle of that, yes, you might be able to swim,
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but it's different flipping over in a stressful situation than a controlled situation.
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You flip over in a stressful situation, you know, a snake swim up on you,
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or you just missed the paddle stroke.
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Most people open their mouths, they take a big gulp of water,
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then all of a sudden shock hits. And if you don't have that life jacket on, bad things can happen.
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So we are huge proponents of always wearing your life jacket.
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If you need your life jacket to be another excuse, if you're a fisherman,
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buy a life jacket that has lots of pockets on it.
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Just considering it. You're wearing wearable tackle box, right? Yeah.
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But wear your life jacket. They even make inflatable life jackets,
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which I'm not a huge fan of for paddling.
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But if that's the way you got to go to wear it, wear your life jacket.
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Not participating in paddle sports while under the influence is another important thing.
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You know, we do see a lot of incidences happen when alcohol or drugs are involved in paddle sports.
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It's one thing to do that on the Kentucky River, which is very flat and controlled.
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The Elkhorn, you sometimes have to be on your game.
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It's moving water and moving water sometimes will put you where you don't want to go.
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And then third, paddling in conditions that are safe paddling conditions.
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So if you were to go want to paddle the Elkhorn and you call Canoe Kentucky
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and we say, look, we've had a whole bunch of rain. We're not renting right now.
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You, too, probably should not be on the creek, even if you're on your own kayak.
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And that's something anyone could do. They can call up and ask. They can call up and ask.
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We have on our website, we have a water lift. We've spent a lot of time and
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effort creating this page. But our water levels page has a chart on there that
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tells you exactly what the water level of the day is, the water temperature, the speed of the water.
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We break it down into colors, red, yellow, and green. So if it's green,
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you can read through and say that means it's perfect for everybody versus it's red. We're not running.
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And if that's not enough, we even have a live camera on our back porch.
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You can visually see the creek at any point in the time you want.
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So you can kind of determine that.
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Same thing with cars. If it's brown, turn around. We say the same thing in paddling.
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If it's brown, turn around, don't drown. um the water's
21:14
brown it's high it seems fine the water's moving
21:17
all this looks awesome but you're also out there paddling with
21:21
other things trees are going to be coming down debris
21:23
is going to be coming down we've seen porta potties come down the creek all
21:27
that stuff could be out there and when the water's moving that fast it's not
21:30
a matter of of of flipping over and it being that challenging it's a matter
21:35
of if you flip over what happens next and sometimes the water can get moving
21:40
so fast that if you flip over and you're trying to swim the shore and you run
21:43
into anything like a tree.
21:45
It's just potentially very, very dangerous. So we always say,
21:48
stay away from paddling in those high water conditions.
21:50
If you've not done a lot of paddling, one of the things we offer is lessons in classes.
21:54
I had a lesson right out here on the Kentucky River just two days ago with four
21:58
individuals that I want to get into the sport and I want to try it.
22:01
We teach you all the basics, how to do the six different most important strokes
22:05
that we have, how to read water.
22:08
And then if they want to go to the next level, which all four of those students
22:10
are, we take them on a moving water stream.
22:13
We talk about how to manipulate water, how to catch the eddies on the side and ferry across current.
22:18
So if you're newer to the sport and you're unsure, it's a very inexpensive investment
22:21
to have someone teach you how to do it appropriately.
22:23
No, that's awesome. So I know we spent a lot of time talking about Kentucky
22:26
and I don't want to neglect your other business venture.
22:29
So please tell us about your other job, the bourbon boat. I'm glad you're all about this. Yeah.
22:34
So also co-owner of Kentucky River Tours.
22:38
So Kentucky River Tours started, The Bourbon Boat is our tagline. Started back in 2018.
22:45
So we were, Kentucky State University had a wonderful resource here in town
22:50
called the Kentucky River Thoroughbred.
22:52
They custom built that boat back in 2014.
22:55
And they got it here and they were gonna do environmental science on the river
22:59
with a grant teaching kids about water and what's in our water,
23:04
that sort of stuff. And they got it here.
23:06
And all of a sudden realized all the legal requirements that there are to run
23:09
a boat that's that stature. It's a Coast Guard inspected vessel,
23:13
requires a Coast Guard captain.
23:15
So the first year they had that vessel, they just weren't able to use it to its full potential.
23:19
And so Alice and I sat and talked about it and said, we have a really good friend that's a boat captain.
23:24
Why don't we write a contract and see if the university will just let us run
23:27
that boat for him for a couple of years? And we were avoided that contract for three years.
23:32
Um after our first season of running that vessel with a
23:35
friend that was a captain and its own crew um we decided
23:39
the next year to go a different route on captains and so we
23:41
went and found another gentleman to do the captaining for us alice
23:45
and i decided to crew it for the next two years just to see what the experience
23:48
was like you know um it wasn't at that point just uh we're going to do this
23:53
as a side part of our business if this is something we want to try to do on
23:56
our own we probably should experience it too and we were at a point with canoe
23:59
kentucky we could spend a lot of time on it. So we did.
24:02
And after those two years, we found a lot of people asking for other options on the river.
24:07
You know, we want to go out and learn about Paul Sawyer. We want to go out and
24:10
learn about the wine industry.
24:12
Bourbon even wasn't that huge
24:14
at the time. So we weren't getting a ton of bourbon requests, but some.
24:17
But we were very regulated on
24:20
what we could teach. It had to be water education because it was a grant.
24:23
So after three years of running that boat, K-State decided they wanted to go
24:26
a different direction for a few years with a different crew.
24:29
And the captain we were working with at the time, we said to each other,
24:33
we said, we probably could do something here on our own. We could start our
24:36
own business doing boat tours out here.
24:38
People were asking about bourbon. Let's start a bourbon boat.
24:40
So we went out and bought a hull and bought a motor and then custom built our first boat.
24:45
So we built it ourselves from the top to the cushions to everything on it was
24:50
built right here by Craftsman in Kentucky. So cool.
24:53
There's our 15-passenger boat that we still have, the Trace of Kentucky.
24:56
And started doing bourbon-themed tours. on the river, adopted the line,
25:01
catch the bourbon boat, partnered up with the big guy in town,
25:05
Buffalo Trace, and started doing tours that you could tour their distillery
25:08
as well as tour the river with us.
25:10
For the first couple of years, we had actually pick all of our guests up in
25:13
a van at Buffalo Trace Distillery and shuttle them down to Riverview Park.
25:17
We were doing seven or eight tours a day. Oh my gosh.
25:21
Anywhere from four to 14 people at a time. But we were trying to get as,
25:26
it's a new business you got to make money so you're trying to run as much as you can,
25:30
and i was doing the narration on almost every
25:33
single tour um so it was a lot and we did
25:36
that for four or five years um in the meantime after k-state's two-year hiatus
25:41
from us they wanted us back and so they hired us back and we ran it one more
25:46
year for them so we ran our company and their boat farm and after that year
25:51
k-state said the grant is over we're done with the boat we feel like we want
25:54
to be finished with it. And he said, please.
25:57
Let that boat go somewhere else because it's a phenomenal resource.
25:59
And so we did successfully buy the boat at auction, turned it into the Bourbon
26:04
Bell and started offering tours on that as well.
26:07
So what that allowed us at Kentucky River Tours was to have now 48 passengers at a time.
26:14
It kind of allowed us to get an alcohol license. And when I say kind of,
26:18
according to state law, riverboats in Kentucky's eyes are 100 passengers or
26:23
more. So riverboats were allowed to get an alcohol license, but we only hauled 48 passengers.
26:29
So we had to go change the state law. I said, why not? So we went up to the
26:32
halls of Congress here in Kentucky and filed for a bill a couple years ago and
26:37
changed the state law to say that a riverboat is 40 passengers or more.
26:40
Gosh, that's cool. Which allowed us to get an alcohol license.
26:43
Yeah, I would have never thought I got to do something like that.
26:45
So, um, got an alcohol license on board,
26:48
which we're not running a booze cruise by any means, but it's cool to go out
26:51
and learn about the history of bourbon while you're sipping an old fashioned
26:55
or learn about the history of whiskey making while you're doing a four flight tasting on board.
27:00
Um, the, the bell allowed us to do a lot of that stuff. So that company has
27:04
continued to grow. We run both boats now.
27:07
Um, we moved locations from Riverview Park to a wonderful lease with the Frankfurt
27:12
boat club in downtown Frankfurt. So we partnered up with them a couple of years ago.
27:17
We were we were storing the boats at the boat club during the day,
27:21
driving them downstream to Riverview Park to pick them up for years.
27:24
That was just the way the agreement worked.
27:26
And then a couple of years ago, people might remember the Broadway Bridge started to fail.
27:30
And all of a sudden, under Coast Guard rule, no one was allowed to go underneath that bridge.
27:35
So plenty of people did, but our boats are both inspected by the Coast Guard.
27:39
We couldn't do that. So we all of a sudden weren't able to drive to Riverview
27:43
Park to pick up guests anymore.
27:45
And so we went to the Frankfurt Boat Club, who historically never wanted customers
27:49
boarding or deboarding boats on there.
27:51
And we just pleaded mercy and said, we need a place to run our business still.
27:55
And the leadership there was extremely nice to say, sure, we'll take care of you.
28:01
And we ran one season with them out of there, and they realized it was just a great fit.
28:06
And so they allowed us to continue to load and unload our customers there.
28:11
They love seeing people come down. And that led into last year we took over
28:16
the building that's there as well, which historically has been a restaurant on the river.
28:19
And they hired us in to start that up. And so now we run the River House down
28:23
there, which is just a small restaurant down there.
28:27
We do sandwiches and appetizers, cocktails, milkshakes.
28:31
But the whole idea that we're trying to come up with is that we were able to
28:34
take New Kentucky, Kentucky Retour as the River House, put them all in one location
28:38
right in downtown on the river.
28:40
But the idea being people can just come and sit on the river, let water go.
28:45
Stare out at the river maybe you're sitting on the
28:48
dock in july and you really wish you were sitting on the beach in
28:50
florida somewhere you can kind of get that same feeling that
28:53
yeah that vibe of being sitting on the water um enjoying a drink maybe that
28:59
leads you into renting a canoe or kayak maybe it leads you into going to a on
29:02
a boat tour but we're just trying to create a on the water experience in downtown
29:06
frankfurt where people can just come and realize what a wonderful resource We have,
29:12
you know, we're a town built in a bend on a river and so many people forget about that.
29:15
And it's easy to think about what happened in 2025 and how ugly and nasty the
29:20
river was to our community.
29:22
It's part of the life of the river to do that.
29:25
We need to realize that 99% of the time the river is just a crazy,
29:29
wonderful resource that we have that is beautiful and historic.
29:33
And that's what we're just trying to build in town. And so if folks want to
29:36
come visit you and maybe they're unfamiliar with where the Frankfurt Boat Club
29:40
is, how do they get there? Where do they go? Yeah.
29:42
So right now, the easiest way I can tell people to get there is if you plug
29:45
into your GPS, the Pulse of Your Public Library on Wapping Street,
29:49
pull behind the library and walk underneath the singing bridge.
29:52
And we're basically right there.
29:54
101 Riverboat Landing is the exact address that you can get there at it.
29:59
But yeah, you can come down there. We're open every day, but Tuesdays and Thursdays.
30:03
We do try to take those days off.
30:06
Sometimes we're still on the river because people want to go on the river and
30:09
we'll put them on those days, private charter days or Tuesdays and Thursdays.
30:12
But yeah, we're open the rest of the time. It's a cool spot to come sit,
30:16
enjoy a drink, enjoy a milkshake, enjoy a sandwich.
30:19
If you're boating up and down the river, you can access us by the water as well.
30:24
We sell fuel there to boaters. So if you need to fill up your boat with gas, we got you right there.
30:29
Pop in, get a snack, grab a couple of beers to go and cruise the river.
30:33
Sweet. Yeah. So seating, just to be totally clear, in case folks are listening,
30:37
if folks come down, they can have a seat. They don't have to have a booking.
30:41
They're good to just. Just come down and sit on the river and chill.
30:44
They can. We've got a great little covered porch out there. We've got a little
30:47
lounge area with some really cool inflatable couches.
30:49
Oh, that's great. Yeah, yeah. They're cool. And you can just sit and chill.
30:52
As long as we're open, you're welcome to come down. And yeah,
30:55
check it out. Seems like a good day.
30:57
Like, you know, you could go get a book at the library.
31:00
Walk on down. Enjoy the river. Just let nature and literary scholarship,
31:05
I guess, feed your soul. It feeds your soul.
31:08
And it's also, we're heading into warmer months, cooler down on the river. Am I right?
31:13
I mean, maybe it's just a feeling like you're on the water. It's moving. It's open.
31:16
But it feels cool. It is cooler. And, you know, we have a natural air conditioner
31:19
in Frankfurt with the old Frankfurt Rock Quarry there right above Taylor Avenue.
31:24
And that beautiful air that blows out of that quarry does naturally keep the
31:28
river a little bit cooler there. Now, can you feel it at the boat club?
31:31
Probably not. But if you take a boat tour with us and we go down around that
31:34
bend as we're passing by porters and the boathouse and all that stuff on the
31:38
left, you can actually feel that cooler air coming out of there.
31:41
And certain weather days, I don't know if it's when it's low pressure or high
31:44
pressure, I'm not smart enough to understand that, but smoke will actually come
31:47
pouring out of there across the river.
31:49
And it's a really romantic and neat vibe as you come through there and see that.
31:54
So, you know, I think it's interesting that we've talked a lot about the connection
31:58
to water and like our relationship to water.
32:00
But I'm curious, like, why do you think water really feeds us the way that it does?
32:07
And why do you think it's so important to our community and to your family's mission?
32:11
I think water just gives you, in a busy, crazy, loud world, I think it just
32:16
gives you a little bit of unplugged moments of silence, of serenity,
32:22
especially in paddling. I love power boats. I love paddling.
32:25
I'm a canoer by trade. As I said, I've canoed since I was very, very little.
32:30
But in a kayak specifically, my dad actually said it best the first time he
32:35
kayaked with me is when I started working for Canoe Kentucky.
32:37
He said, it's just a more intimate experience with nature.
32:40
Because every time your paddle blade in a kayak touches the water,
32:43
water naturally drips onto your lap.
32:45
It drips on your hands. And that can seem a little frustrating,
32:47
but it actually is just this really neat connection of everything coming together.
32:50
It's very intimate experience with water it's very quiet
32:54
um just sit in a kayak to sit on water
32:57
it just there's something about it it just kind of slows you down and just kind
33:00
of cleanses your spirit and your soul and just yeah it's just very relaxing
33:04
and and for us getting people to kind of look back at that i think is important
33:08
it's just a good way to relax chill unplug unwind you know we do have a lot
33:13
of people that go out and paddle that are just looking for the instant ram moment.
33:17
They want to get their selfie and come back and that's fine if that's what you're into.
33:20
But to go out and just spend a little bit of time of just silence,
33:24
not having your phone or your device going off all the time,
33:27
there's something about that that I think we all need to get back to.
33:30
The world's way too busy and way too noisy and there's something about silence
33:34
and just the way nature can talk to you.
33:36
And our community, Franklin County, is so rich in those resources.
33:41
The Kentucky River is by far a beautiful stream that so many communities would die to have.
33:47
The Kentucky River is awesome because you don't have to have a point A to point B trip.
33:53
You can put in at one place, paddle up river as far as you want,
33:56
and come right back to the same spot.
33:58
It has very little current to it because it does have its lock and dam system
34:02
on it. So it's just a very peaceful, easy way to get out.
34:05
I mean, even if you just have a 45 to an hour minute lunch break,
34:08
you can get out on it and enjoy it.
34:10
And then we're also blessed with having the Elkhorn here and Benson Creek and
34:14
Glens Creek and all these other really neat creeks. a lot to get out on.
34:17
So we're just trying to give people the opportunities to do that.
34:21
One of the things we started the boat tour company was because there was no
34:24
way to get on the water here in Frankfurt.
34:26
And unless you had your own boat, you just couldn't get onto it.
34:29
And so by having canoe and kayak rentals, by having boat tours,
34:32
we're just giving people a way to get out and enjoy it. And Canoe Kentucky is,
34:36
90% of our customers are from within Kentucky. Very small percentage are actually
34:41
from Franklin County, which is interesting.
34:43
We get a lot of Lexington, a lot of Louisville, a lot of Northern Kentucky,
34:47
Cincinnati people, not as much Frankfurt.
34:49
Opposite with Kentucky River Tours, 90% of our guests are not from Kentucky.
34:53
They're Bourbon Trail customers.
34:55
And having them on the boat and listening to them and just the amazement and
34:59
the things they say about our river, how beautiful it is. if everybody else
35:03
in Franklin County could hear that, you'd all of a sudden realize what resource
35:07
you have right now in the backyard.
35:08
I think that's very meaningful for a lot of us to hear, especially after the
35:13
2025 flood. So thank you for sharing that.
35:16
I'm going to ask you rapid fire questions now. Are you ready?
35:21
So this is just off the cuff, top of your heart. Don't think too much. No stress.
35:27
And no judgment from myself or anyone listening.
35:31
Favorite season in Frankfort? fall.
35:33
Elkhorn Creek or Kentucky River? Well, that's not fair.
35:39
The Elkhorn, you know, the Elkhorn just has a very special place in my soul
35:43
and my heart. So at the Elkhorn.
35:45
Favorite coffee spot and coffee order? So I'm a tea guy. I think we talked about
35:49
this last time and y'all were awesome. You had a tea waiting for me.
35:52
So, you know, I was a coffee guy for so many years, but Judy Austin,
35:56
Kentucky Down Under, who I said is one of my mentors in life.
35:58
When she had something to talk to you about, she'd say, or anytime anybody would come visit,
36:02
she's like come on up let's have a tea because she was australian and judy
36:05
explained to me best she said you know it takes five minutes to boil water it
36:09
takes five minutes to steep tea and it takes 10 minutes for us to drink it it's
36:12
20 minutes out of your day that you can just sit and chill and relax so i've
36:16
become a tea person i i made a vow back in january i've had one cup of coffee
36:20
since january and i used to drink coffee three times a day i've gone over to tea and um,
36:26
And Andy's and Engine House would be an equal tie for me on where a good tea
36:29
comes from here in Frankfurt. I love it. What tea are you getting when you get tea?
36:33
Usually just a chai tea, but Earl Grey is phenomenal. And a little bit of tea
36:38
and then just like a little bit of sugar, a little bit of cream in it.
36:40
Yeah. Yeah. Favorite Frankfurt landmark?
36:43
You know, everybody talks about going up to Frankfurt Cemetery and seeing Daniel
36:46
Boone's grave, which is awesome. The view is incredible from up there.
36:50
I actually will stop typically before I get to the Boone Grave at the little chapel on the right.
36:54
And the big 12-foot stone cross there is the home of the father of modern bourbon,
36:58
E.H. Taylor's grave. And I actually love the view from his grave.
37:02
Maybe I got a bottle of bourbon in the truck every now and then and I put a
37:05
little bit on the ground for him. I don't know. But I really like that landmark in town.
37:09
An afternoon river float or an afternoon river cruise?
37:13
So if it's been a day that's been a long day, being on a river cruise would be all right.
37:18
Just sitting and chilling. And sometimes we'll even take our small boat out,
37:21
just Allison and I, and just turn the motor off and let it sit.
37:24
But if it's like an off day, I love getting in a canoe and putting it on the
37:28
Elkhorn. And five hours later, I end up somewhere.
37:31
You know, sometimes you're just laying in the bottom of the canoe looking up
37:33
at the sky. But you'll get there
37:35
eventually, right? So sometimes it's just sitting and chilling that way.
37:38
Oh, that sounds really nice. It is very nice.
37:40
I'm going to have to copy that idea sometime. That's pretty good.
37:44
Well, I appreciate that you were here, Nathan. And thank you for taking the
37:47
time out of your schedule to do not one, but two episodes with me.
37:50
I feel so lucky to get to know you better in this way. So thank you.
37:54
And thank you for joining us this week, fellow Frankfortians.
37:57
We will catch you again next week on the City of Frankfurt podcast.
38:01
Do not forget to follow us wherever you follow podcasts. YouTube, Spotify, Podbean.
38:08
Make sure you subscribe in all of the places so you get your most recent City
38:12
of Frankfurt podcast for the Frankfortians news.
38:15
And we look forward to talking to y'all again sometime soon.
38:19
Thank you so much and thank you again, Nathan. Thank you.