St. Louis to the Quad Cities

As I mentioned when last we met, the traffic below St. Louis was a zoo, but once into the City, we slid easily into the Material Sales Corp.’s H shaped barge array, and Jimmy helped us  both tie up on the barge named Robert E. Lee.   We were too pooped to accept his offer of the car for sightseeing, but really enjoyed the stop!

SEA DREAM's bow and  YOUNG AMERICA at MSC, St. Louis

Locks and dams can be the bane of our existence.  The main chamber of the Melvin Price Lock (#26 of the 27 locks between St. Louis and MSP) was closed for repairs, so only the smaller, auxiliary chamber was open.  That means that tows that can’t fit have to lock in stages—-take apart, lock up or down and reattach.  That can  mean long waits for pleasure craft like us, as the paying customers definitely take priority.  In the case of Mel Price, the wait was 4 hours.  Sigh.  Once through, we parted company with SEA DREAM.  Mike and Linda went on to Grafton, IL to enjoy the pool and spa there, and we crossed the river to Alton, IL where I caught a cab to the St. Louis airport.

From August 5-8, I was in Burke, VA with  daughter Jen and grandchildren Matthew, Casey and Rebecca while Christopher did a US Forest Service gig (his job,that is) in Ketchikan, Alaska. 

Walking around the lake with Casey, Becca and Ruby.

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Matthew awaiting surgery for a shattered heel.

While I was away, Fred moved YOUNG AMERICA to the Port Charles Harbor Marina, and there she remained until August 15.

So long, SEA DREAM!

They say boaters plans are written in the sand—-very near the shore— and often get washed  away.  So it was to be for this trip.  Joe and Punk, who’d visited their daughter on the West Coast after coming around the Great Lakes to Pt. Chas. Harbor, returned to CAROLYN ANN on Thursday;  SEA DREAM returned from an hour north of the marina on Thursday, and I returned from Burke on Friday, August 8.  The three of us had planned to be in MSP by Aug. 21 but Mike and Linda decided to return to GreenTurtle Bay instead, and do day trips with friends there this summer.  So we bade SEA DREAM adieu and spent the next week acting like retired folks without a care in the world.  Well, why not?  We are, after all, just that!   (The real truth is that CAROLYN ANN was having work done, and Fred and I waited around until it was completed).

Two N-37's in the Muscatine, IA harbor.

USPS Port Captains Ed and RoseMary Bielike came for a visit and   Joanne and Doug, Great Loop Harbor Hosts for the area, set up a dinner for 10 at a nearby restaurant, so we were far from lonely. 

We finally sallied forth, and have been doing 50+ mile hops—-to Two Rivers Marina near Louisiana, MO, the Quincy Boat Club in Quincy, IL, Keokuk and Muscatine, IA and a lovely anchorage on the side of the River when the next marina was too far away and too silted in anyhow.  The River is LOW,  Go figure, after we had to wait and wait for it to settle down.

Just above Keokuk, we attempted to assist a Personal Watercraft (Jet Ski) that was powerless in the water.  The JetSki had no steering and no place to tie a tow rope. When it tipped over, the operator, Kristin,  swam it toward shore, where she found, much to her dismay, that the powerlessness was caused by failure to engage the fuel.  Once the switch was turned on, she returned to us to collect her passenger and they headed home.    It is never dull.

Finally reached the Quad Cities of IL and IA—Moline and Rock Island IL; Davenport and Bettendorf IA. 

Rock crushes scissors....Joe got the 50 amp. plug--we had to use two 30 amp cords.

Had a late lunch with my big brother Gene,  always a treat!

Jet pilot and Submarinerr.  A very special pair!

He lives about 20 min. away, in Geneseo, IL.

An amazing squall blew through on Friday morning.  Winds went from 0-40 in a heartbeat, and my, how the rains came down!  And then it was gone.  Sun came out and Punk and I began to walk to the grocery—-2.3 mi. according to the iPad.  Happily, we got a call that Gene, bless him, had returned (by car, of course) and was on the way to our rescue with Joe in the co-pilot’s seat.  A quick grocery shop and a pleasant evening followed.

More rain this morning, and bless him, Mike the harbormaster rescued our forwarded mail from the postal person who’d been unsuccessful in his attempt to leave the package at the Marina’s Restaurant.  Hmmmm.  

By 11 the skies were clear,  and we were underway.  As we arrived at Lock #14, we were told to use the Auxiliary chamber.  New experience.  Coming out of the lock, we sidled past a serious storehouse of Corps of Engineers very heavy equipment, and then re-entered the main channel by way of a narrow cut between two wing dams.  Veddy interesting, and tricky!  

CAROLYN ANN is through the  wing dam gap.  Our turn. Note the wind blowing the yellow flag.

The alternative was a long wait at the main chamber as a backup of about 14 towboats come downriver after being held up by dredging of a shallow, impassable (for them) spot several miles north.  We were happy with the Auxiliary Chamber and all of its’ extras!

Today’s destination is expected to be Sabula Iowa, (home of the Bombfire Pizza) and thence to the Twin Cities, one day at a time!

Hope your days are extraordinary and that you remember to breathe!

Old Lock #1 to the Mighty Mississippi

Hi again,  

Our run from Old Lock #1 to our rendezvous with SEA DREAM in Aqua Harbor  was uneventful, save for one small violation of Fred’s rule #3. **  In case you’ve forgotten, or didn’t know them, here are:

        Fred’s  ‘Rules for a good day of boating’      

                   #1  Nobody gets hurt.

                   #2  Don’t hit other boats.

                   #3  Always reach a safe harbor before dark.  **

                   #4  No matter what happens, DON’T yell at the crew!

                            (#4 is, of course, my personal favorite!)

We hit a lock delay—inevitable in river cruising, and were mildly frustrated by the lockmaster, who had a penchant for chatting.   We wanted to just get moving, as the sun was down and twilight fading fast.  Fade it did, and we had 5 dark miles to go to our anchorage.   Attempted to slide into an inlet at 3 miles and ran hard aground.  Water went from 15’ to 0 in a heartbeat!  Fred was able to back us off (a week later the boat  was hauled to tighten the propeller nuts that probably got jarred loose) and we gingerly, but safely, entered and anchored in Sumter Landing. We hate when that happens, and it’s a case of ‘the best laid plans’……..(Actually, we've been there before, and the light is always on at the Lodge, so it wasn't a really big deal, but it was a  'happen'...)

Mike and Linda met us at Aqua Harbor, and we spent a couple of days there before heading north.

 I wasn’t much company, as I spent most of the days tucked away in a conference room working on the exam for a celestial navigation course.  (Completed it and sent it off for grading on July 29th.)

Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, KY again gets kudos!  This was our launching spot for the run up the MS.  There was plenty to do  during the week we spent there—the marina has a spa and yacht club dining room, and of course we had to shop, provision, and get the boat and the crew is shape for traveling, bur mostly we were waiting for the River to drop and slow! 

Getting ready to travel meant getting Fred's back squared away.  We found the Orthopedic Institute of Western Kentucky in Paducah, and can't say enough good things about them.  The first floor of their huge building is devoted to Urgent Care (Ortho only, please) and Physical Therapy.  Looks like about an acre of machines, with a steady flow of folks moving through their paces under the watchful eyes of lots of Therapists. 

 Fred was seen (as soon as he completed the inevitable  ream of paper work) by, among others, Ben, a very pleasant and competent Orthopedic Physician's Assistant.  In the blink of an eye, X-Rays of Fred's thoracic spine were read, and within an hour we were at a local hospital for an MRI.  Ben phoned us (we weren't even back to the Marina yet---can you believe it?)  to say that there is a fracture in T-11!  Fred's been walking around---slowly and with great pain---with a fractured vertabra!  Put more simply, he has a broken back. A brace was ordered over the weekend, and on Monday morning we were back to  pick it up.  

What a difference it has made!  Within a day there was a noticeable improvement in the level of pain, and by Friday he could lie down and get up again without so much as a wince!  Add in the PT exercises he was given and you have one super therapeutic operation!  The cause of the fracture is said to be compression from Fred's developing a 'kyphotic' (think question mark shaped back) curve--probably from the gazillion hours he spends hunched over his computer or the wheel of the boat.  Make that he used to hunch.  Now he leans in from the hip.  We will continue to follow up to be assured that all is well.

Rave reviews for the Ortho Institute.  Another of the worker-bees, Tripp, kindly printed out directions to the hospital, and thence to the Pharmacy, and as a bonus gave us a flier inviting us to the Fall Celebration in late September in Paducah!

So we are good to go!

The Mississippi flooding has continued well past spring this year, and the River is barely back in its banks in many places.  River levels came down a foot a day (confirmed by Joe and Punk aboard CAROLYN ANN just above St. Louis) and by Thursday, July 31 we were as ready as we were likely to get, and tossed the lines.     Had an oops as we were underway----I left my iPad in the Courtesy car the marina provides (and a fine Dodge van it is!!!)

Harbormaster Bill and his faithful pup "Pistol"

Bless his heart, HarborMaster Bill drove the iPad to Paducah (1/2 hour by car) and bless HIS heart, Mike took me for a dinghy ride to the boat ramp to retrieve it!  Good people going above and beyond!

A brief reminder about the Upper Mississippi.  Green Turtle Bay is on  The Cumberland  River, and we cruised down to the Ohio, and thence to where the Tennessee River empties into the Ohio, where we anchored to meet Bill in Paducah. Next morning we headed down the O-HI-O, through Lock #52 and over Lock #53.    Last year’s blog talks about these outdated locks and the expensive, stalled construction of the ‘new improved’ Olmstead lock on the Ohio.  Nothing much has changed…

We are told that cement blocks are going in to form the dam.

At Cairo, IL the Mississippi divides into the ‘Upper’—-875 miles north to Minneapolis—and the ‘Lower’—-950 miles south to New Orleans.  We very carefully turned to the right to enter the 200 miles of open water (no locks or dams) that stretches to St. Louis.  

Most people going to Minneapolis by boat enter the River above St. Louis, from the Illinois River.  CAROLYN ANN is there, having come from the Carolinas and through the Great Lakes to the Illinois River.   We didn't have that option unless we went all the way around Florida and up the East Coast, so it’s back to the ‘Goofy 200’, as we have fondly named it.

We made the turn carefully as the current in the Ohio was pushing us to 10.5 miles an hour!  90 degrees to the right later, we’d slowed to 3.8 miles an hour and that has been the story of this trip.

On Friday, the 1st of August, we travelled from 6 a.m. to 6:15 p.m., anchored at mile 29.2 (almost 30 River miles from Cairo—-probably 8 miles due west of Cairo).  The River doubles back on itself (oxbows) and did its very best to keep us from making headway.   

Little green frog attempted to stowaway.  He went swimming instead.

Saturday we again were off by 6 a.m.  Around 3 in the afternoon we started looking at possible anchorages suggested by the guide books and Active Captain.  Too much current here, too little room to swing there, and it took until 6:10 to find a spot where Mike and Linda could safely put down their anchor (mile 77.5—the Cottonwood Bar), and we rafted to their port side.  We were out of the channel where the big guys—-towboats pushing anywhere from 6-36 barges—-travel and all was well.

The looooooong lock wall at theKaskaskia River.

The next day, we actually got up to 6.5 mph for 2.5 minutes!  Averaged 4 miles/hour from 6 a.m. to 2:35 p.m.,  when we tied up to the newly re-done long lock wall on the Kaskaskia River, Mile 117.5.  Fred and I have been there 3 times before, and it has been different each time we stop. When the sun gets lower and it cools a bit (87 degrees out there now) we can go for a walk before we sleep. 

Monday morning the fog rolled in, and it was 8 a.m. before we left the Lock wall.  The current is slowing a bit, and we’re actually averaging  about 5+ miles per hour.  If I seem to go on and on about the boat speed, it is because, well, 4 miles an hour is really, really slow! 

The ‘goofy 200’ is just goofy, that is all there is to be said.  As we near St. Louis the industry picks up—both sides of the River have quarries, staging areas for the many barges that we see hauling ‘stuff’, shipyards, scrap yards, construction companies, power plants etc.etc.etc.  Fred has his binoculars at the ready and is loving watching the machines!  And it is good to see the output of product in America, vs the output of intangibles in our service economy.  

Enough.  On to the post, the photos, and the rest of the day.  Hope yours has been delightful. 

Be well, and do remember to breathe!