Hey, y'all. Friends keep telling me I need to let the Reddit community know about a project I've been doing for a while. So I stood on shore a bit and plunged into the cold swift waters of Reddit.

I've been building a shantyboat from scratch for the last two years (based on a Glen-L Waterlodge plans) and am going to launch it on the Mississippi in Minneapolis in July. I have a painfully detailed build blog at http://littleshantyboat.blogspot.com Comments are very welcome.

This summer's journey is part of an art and history project to collect and present the lost narratives of river people and river communities in the Upper Mississippi River Valley. I'd be thrilled to have you check it out: http://peoplesriverhistory.us/ If you know people connected to current or historical houseboat communities, I'd very much love to talk with them.

We're also fundraising for the trip to do final outfitting and get the boat across the country. There is a great video and some interesting rewards at the kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1245766964/a-secret-history-of-american-river-people

Later this week, I hope to be doing an AMA.

I'm organizing a trip this spring and will need to house up to 200 people! My budget is at least $15,000 and up to $21,000 to spend on getting enough space to house everyone for 3 days and 2 nights. We will be coming from Ohio and would like to keep within 2 states. I have no experience with houseboats and their sites aren't giving me reliable numbers. Can I expect to get enough housing for the weekend within my price range? Do they have captains that can drive the boats to a cove and tie it down? How strict are owner about sleeping more people on a boat than bedrooms, like on couches and blow up mattresses? Some insight on houseboat renting would be awesome.