Wheeling, WVA to Louisville, KY

Monday message, huh?  Looks as if a few Mondays have slipped by, but here we are!  Onward and upward…..

Wow, we last met in Wheeling, WVA, where we ate dinner in a little pub—the only waterfront eatery we could find.  We’d seen a sign from the river advertising a Hotel Restaurant, so headed there.  Turns out the Hotel owners closed their restaurant years ago, and today the hotel staff person said the hotel itself is only hanging on because of the Marcellus Shale workers who rent by the week.  In the time it took us to eat a hamburger at the pub no less than a dozen trucks rounded the corner carrying ‘fresh water’ to the mining fields. Quote from a local: “the mining isn’t a problem, it is the chemicals that are put into the earth”….Needed: a safe way to extract the natural gas…

We had a new experience at the Hannibal Lock when a towboat in the large chamber, the BILL STILES, changed its crew. We sat inside the small lock chamber while half an hour’s worth of people, provisions and suitcases moved back and forth across the lock gates.  When all was transferred, we all rode down.  Wouldn’t want to drive a tow, but it does have a certain fascination!

About locking down.  At Morgantown, WVA, we were 814 ft. above sea level.  (CAROLYNN ANN and LAZY DOLPHIN continued on to an 857foot elevation---the highest point reachable by boat in North America).  When the Ohio enters the Mississippi, just under 1000 miles downstream from Pittsburgh, the riverbed will be only 275 feet above sea level.  So as we head south, we now go down 10-30 feet each time we enter a lock. Locks are frequent in the upper Ohio. Further along, the distance between locks, the ‘pool’, will lengthen.  For now, the nation’s drought has brought restrictions to locking for recreational vessels---only the even hours of the day. Low water levels have actually closed parts of the Mississippi River to commercial traffic as barges need 10-12 feet of water under them.  We need only 3 feet. We’re told that the Army Corps of Engineers, who manage the lock and dam systems, are pouring water out of the Ohio, as well as doing a lot of dredging, in an effort to deepen the Mississippi. It is fascinating, and complicated.

After Hannibal Lock, Fred spotted an ice cream stand, the Jug, with a dock, so in we went.   The ice cream was great, the dock, not so much.  Decided it wasn’t sturdy enough to hold us for the night so we anchored behind an island a bit further down the river.  As the picture of our chart plotter shows, two tows passed us by in the dark of night. I stayed up to watch just in case one decided to come on our side of the island. (What, pray tell, would I have done had that happened???) As it was, MARY HARTER passed only about 75 yd. away from us--her lights looked really close in the dark!  The spooky part is that all that can really be seen is the tug.  The barges have one blue light on the very front and then about 3 football fields of black sliding silently through the water.  Uffda.

When the fog burned off in the a.m. we slid thru Willow Island lock and made a short run to the Muskagee River and tied up at Marietta, OH. Arrived early enough in the day to walk the River Walk/Bike Path and visit the Charles P Snyder, the last coal fired steam engine stern wheeled tug.  The model of the boat in the museum was as interesting as the boat itself.  The model was large enough that the builder actually put it in the water and drove it down the river a ways.  How fun is that?

That evening, on the trolley tour we learned that Revolutionary War Officers were given land grants in Marietta in lieu of pay for services. Wealth came to many in Marietta, primarily through the discovery of oil and the making and selling of bricks. The city has a delicious collection of old and older homes, each more ornate than the last.   Today Marietta leads the nation in the production of Refrigerator Magnets.  Go figure.

Next stop (after an overnight on the restaurant dock at the Wild Horse Café) was Charleston, WVA.  We’d hung a left at Point Pleasant and headed up the Kanawha River.  The first half of this Ohio tributary was pristine and beautiful.  I felt as if we should be paddling a canoe, rather than rumbling along with engines.  Nearer Charleston, the coal barges re-appeared and the busy-ness of the area became apparent.

Charleston offered a free dock with electrical connections, only the dock was filled because there was a ‘Live at the Levee’ Concert going on when we arrived, so we rafted to CAROLYN ANN.  LAZY DOLPHIN was there also, and we all had dinner together at Pies ‘n’ Pints.  Did some sightseeing at the Capitol, (most notable: beautiful crystal chandelier and a statue of Abe Lincoln suffering under the weight of the Civil War), rode the trolley to a wonderful market, and walked to a baseball game with Barb and Randy.  The Power (Pittsburgh farm club) defeated the Texas Rangers Farm club 4-3.

Next day we had fun with some of the many, many sternwheelers on the Kanawha.  Maureen and Frank Burdette (introduced to us by the Brandensteins of Pittsburgh) turned out to be the former owners of the SPIRIT OF WEST VIRGINIA, a beautiful sternwheeler whose crew visited us before they took a party of 25 out on the River.

On Monday, we headed a bit further up the Kanahwa for a photo op with CAROLN ANN at the W VA Capitol.  Joe and Punk continued on to the headwaters of the Kanawha; we did a 180 and returned to Point Pleasant. On this visit I stopped in the very old, very beautiful Lowe Hotel for morning coffee, and chatted again with Charles Humphries, who once again put s music on the 8 track flood wall sound system so I could enjoy a delicious break.

Tuesday night we were tied up in Huntington, (W VA) at the Riverfront dock with LAZY DOLPHIN, and enjoyed a (gluten free) dinner at Uno’s.  Next morning we marveled at the maze of tows and barges at the W VA-KY border---coal, coal everywhere.  At the Greenup Lock, the large chamber was closed, so it was necessary for large tows to send the barges through, and have the tugboat come along separately.  A second towboat organizes the barges at the exit of the lock, and we rode down with the tug, who then gathered up her load and continued on.

I’ve read that recreational craft like us can be tossed about in the lock by tug boats that keep their engines running in the lock, creating a wake that adds to the normal turbulence caused by the water exchange in the lock chamber.  We were fine---no problem whatsoever.

After an overnite at Maysville, we stopped at the Four Seasons Marina in Cincinnati.  We asked for a slip that would accommodate a 16foot width, and got a slip that was 16’2”.  Fred was able to shoe horn us in without damage, and we spent an uneventful evening.  Had planned to spend some time in Cincinnati, but as we are fitting cruising into our regular life, we have plans, and miles to go…

Saturday we stopped in Rising Sun to pick up Fred’s harp, only to discover that it’s Labor Day Weekend, and no-one is working.  We did have a fun talk with 2 gentlemen on a tiny steam lorry, who offered us a ride, and when we declined, blew the steam whistle for a photo and scurried away.  We scurried off, as well, and went on to Turtle Creek Harboor in Florence, IN.  Paul and Marty (of the anchorages on the Ohio book) were awaiting our arrival and we had a great evening visit.

Car rental was not available in Florence, so we went on to Madison, IN, where on Tuesday morning we drove to Detroit for a 4 day USPS Governing Board meeting. Stopped again at the harp store, and Fred’s bright red flatsicle  (a mini-harp with tuning levers to add sharps and flats to11 of its 25—3-1/2 octaves---strings) is now being tuned and practiced daily!  Happy Birthday to him!  On the return trip we stopped at the Neal Armstrong Air and Space Museum just off I-75.  

We left Madison around 11 a.m., and found that the River was closed to barge traffic as a section of the new second span of a bridge between Indiana and Kentucky was being hoisted into place.  We anchored in the middle of the river for a few hours to watch, and when the section was about ½ way up, decided to move on. 

We’re going to our vacation condo in NY next week, and so needed to arrange transportation and find a place to leave the boat.  Nowhere in the area seemed to have both.  Plan A was to head for Green Turtle Bay near Paducah, KY, a great, safe marina where we’ve left YA before.  No flights.  So Louisville seemed the next best choice.  No marinas.  As luck would have it, we stopped to top off the fuel tanks at the RiversEdge Marina where we’d bought fuel---and pizza---on the way north.  Bob, the marina owner, was out of diesel fuel until morning.  He agreed to let us stay on his dock and wait for the delivery, and in the course of conversation, offered to rent us a slip he owns at Captain’s Quarters Marina in Louisville.  Did we say yes??? YOU BET!  So here we have been since Wednesday, and here YA will wait while we fly home.

Louisville Slugger Bats are manufactured here, and we toured the downtown factory. From there we had a very informative time at the Mohammed Ali Center.  A brave and interesting man, he is.  On Saturday, a Jug Band Festival was held at the waterfront, celebrating the KY origins of the genre.  LAZY DOLPHIN arrived on Sunday, and after church at the Thomas Jefferson UU, we joined Barb and Randy for dinner.  

Through Doug, Louisville Port Captain for the Power Squadron, we met Bob, Margy, Steph and Tony---a foursome who leave Oct. 1 to do the Great Loop together on a 42’ Mainship.  We know they will have a blast!

By Tuesday, CAROLYNN ANN had also arrived in Louisville, so once again the six of us gathered for dinner.

Wednesday morning we flew away to NY.  We’ll be off the boat until Oct. 9.  Trips to Boston for an event at MIT, and a few days in Portland, ME for the reunion of the Cutlass Submarine crew, plus the necessary visits to doctors and dentists.

I guess I should change the name of this little epistle from the Monday Message, to the Monthly Message.   Seems to be more reflective of the reality.  In any case, we look forward to meeting up with you again in October, when the leaves are falling and it is time to head south!

Be well, and remember to breathe!