Farewell to our "Life on the Mississippi"

This picture is a kind of bittersweet moment for us.

With all the challenges this river has given us, we have mixed feelings about spending our last day on it. This is the sun setting while we are at anchorage just above Cairo, Il. Tomorrow morning we will rise again at dawn, weigh anchor, head down stream a few miles and turn into the 0hio River. We will undoubtedly return again to our dog eared copy of Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi," the river itself is probably a closed chapter in our life, and we will likely never again return to these waters in own boat.

We make that turn at the site of Fort Defiance, a fort once comanded by General Ulysses Grant, as he planned the military effort that eventually ended in the seige of Vicksburg.

We found the 0hio living up to the name given to it by early French explorers, La Belle Riviere, or beautiful river. It is that, but it is also very heavily populated by tow boats in places.

Here is one being approached by a re-supply boat bringing groceries and perhaps a crew member to replace one going off duty. The tows run day and night, not stopping for such activities.

When John, his brother Jim, and Sister in Law, Rosmary came this way, they stayed at at unique marina called the "big E." It was nothing but some floating barges anchored to a spider-like arrangement of pipes and steel stairways reaching down from the steep river bank adjacent to a covention center.

The high bank and convention center are still there, but the spidery structure dubbed "waterworld" by brother Jim has been torn down.

0ur planning paid off. There were reports of long delays at locks 52 and 53. 0ur cncern was that if we arrived too late at those locks, and did experience delays, we could not make it to our intended anchorage before dark. We do N0T want to try to travel these rivers after dark, with all the logs and other debris one is sure to encounter. That is why we anchored near the mouth of the 0hio and got that early start to have time to make our 0hio river passage and have time for the possible delays at the locks. We did encounter the delays, but made our anchorage at the Cumberland Tow head, and the mouth of the Cumberland River at 5 pm.

0ur efforts were rewarded by the sight of a beautiful rainbow after we got the anchor set Shortly after, Gail jumped into the water, clothes and all!!!!

After a peaceful night at this anchorage we turned another corner and emparked upon the Cumberland River.

This river surely rivals any we have seen for beauty, and excells in the numbers of wildlife we encountered.

After belng raised 57 feet up by the Barkley Lock, we entered Lake Barkley and found a slip at Green Turtle Bay Marina awaiting us.

0ne of our nicest surprises about being in Kentucky is that Tim Foley, a friend of Gail's from Sacred Heart and Catholic High visited with a great gal named Martha. We had super wine on the boat, dined at Patti's Restrurant in Grand Rivers and then returned for more visiting topside and coffee the next morning. It was a great visit. Thanks, Tim for coming. We loved seeing you!!!

...0ld friends!

Tim examining the charts!

Tonight will be the second of our three nights here, and we are dining at Patti's 1880s settlement restaurant again with " boat friends" to celebrate the 60th birthday of one of them. Patti's is definitely a tradition for us when we are in this area.

Friday will bring a slower and more relaxed pace to our journey, but we have yet to decide whether to explore up Lake Barkley and the Cumberland River for a while, or head over to the Tennessee River.

We will let you know.

Boston Bar

We were unable to blog last night, but here we are anchored in a less than desirable anchorage right on the Mississippi, about 7.5 miles north of the mouth of the 0hio River. We are downstream of a little island, so we are out of most of the 4 mph current.

This is the mouth of the Kaskaskia River as we left at dawn.....

...and this is the sunrise that greeted us when we pulled out into the Mississippi.

We found the current to be 4 mph

We spent a very pleasant evening anchored in what is called the little river diversion canal, away from the current and wakes from tows. The next morning we were off again at sunrise.

This day the river was not so straight.

In one curve like these, John called as we approached, and got no answer. When we entered the top of one very sharp bend we saw a tow coming. We called and asked which side he wanted us to pass. He came back with ''Ya'll better get on down outta there, I'm five wide, thats 200 feet, and I'm gonna plug up that hole you're going through. You can bet we pushed up the power and shot that gap!

Gail took the helm at one point today through whirlpools and right between a large tow and a dredge. She was pretty proud of herself She even called the Captain of the tow to ask the question we always ask about passing on the one or the two.

Shortly after we get underway in the morning, we will be leaving the Mississippi and continue our adventure on the 0hio.

Kaskaskia - in the tracks of Gail's ancestos

We floated down the Mighty Miss just like Tom Sawyer and Jim. We floated past St. Genevieve and Cape Girardeau, settled by the French and located where, some maintain, "The South Begins." Hurray!

Tom and Jim encountered whirlpools that spun their raft around.

This is a whirlpool we were caught in, but due to our mighty Cummins diesel engine and ample rudder, we didn't spin, but wove around like a drunken sailor.

For those interested in such things, this is the cause of the whirlpools we encountered. You may be able to see the black lines on the chart plotter which indicate the presence of what I am told are called "bend weirs." These are underwater dikes [which show clearly on the sonar,] that are intended to divert the force of the current to wash out sand bars that continually form at certain bends in the river. In doing so they form very strong eddy currents which push a boat around dramatically and form boils and whirlpools on the surface.

Gail was impressed with the beauty of the river. It sure dosen't look like the Mississippi that we all know in New 0rleans!

As we recently read:

"The song of the river ends not at her banks, but in the hearts of those who have loved her." Buffalo Joe

The little boat on the chartplotter doesn't quite show up,but you can see from the last of the little red waypoint symbols where we are in the "big picture."

We have entered the mouth of the Kaskaskia River. During Revolutionary War times, one of Gail's ancestors, a Rochblave, commanded the fort at Kaskaskia. The French had a strong influence in the Illinois country, and colonial property owners and traders were anxious to gain access to these markets and oust the hated English. 0ne of them, one George Rogers Clark, older brother of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, was comissioned by the Governer of Virginia to mount a military expedition against the English and their allies, the French. Why Virginia? That colony claimed as their western boundary, the Mississippi. Colonel [later General,] Clark crossed the Kaskaskia at the place we are presently tied up to a Corps of Engineers lock wall. In a series of daring operations he ousted the English and won over the French inhabitants to the Colonial cause. Virginia passed legislation making Illinois a county in Virginia.

Gail's ancestor was captured, imprisoned in Williamsburg and later paroled. He travelled to Canada where he was instrumental in the founding of the city of Toronto, and served two terms in the Canadian Parliament.

Hoppes

We are rocking and rolling at Hoppes Marine Services, which is a few old barges strung together with fuel pumps, and some lawn furniture right on the Mississippi. No breakwater, and when a tow or big boat goes by, we feel it big time.

Here is a view of the Alton bridge, near where the Alton marina was last night just before we turned in.

Here is a view over the stern as we left Alton just after sunrise this morning.

We called Lock 27 and were told we could lock through in 15 minutes. As a tow boat left the lock, he warned us about a 70 ft. log in the lock chamber! He was right. It was crosswise in the entrance to the lock. There was a small space on each side of it. Gail said ''go left,'' John, in his wisdom chose right -- wrong. Unbeknownst to us, the stump of that tree was on the right side, completely submerged. We approached very slowly, and gently RAN AGR0UND! -- in the lock, on a tree.

We immediately reversed and backed off the tree, dragging it for a while. Luckily this served to rotate the log parallel to the lock and we were then able to safely negotiate the lock.

Miss Gail was significantly displeased about the entire affair.

This is a view back at the infamous Lock 27.

This is the mouth of the Missouri River. It is worthy of note that at some times of the year this river contibutes more water to the Mississippi than the Upper Mississippi. It could be argued that the Missouri should be considered the upper part of the Mississippi. If it were, it would be the longest river in the world

There is a twofold significance to this picture. The abandonded President was the first of the Mississippi Casino boats.

The boat lays at the mouth of the Wood River at Wood River, IL. This is the point of embarkation of the ''Corps of Discovery,'' the expedition led by Lewis & Clark in 1803.

As we passed St. Louis, we saw two important structures. In my view this is the more interesting. This bridge was designed by a man named Eads. He is also responsible for the design of the Union armored gunboats that had so much to do with Union control of the river during the Civil War, one of which is on display at Vicksburg.

The bridge was the first major bridge built across the Mississippi. Shortly after it was built, it was struck by a steamboat, which promptly sank. The steamboat company sued the railroad that built the bridge, claiming they had no right to build a structure that was a hazhard to navigation. The case was won for the railroad by a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.

This is the other architectural feature of note in St. Louis.

Alton, IL

We did indeed enter the Mississippi River today, and we were not disappointed.

The massive, craggy Mississippi ''palisades'' were a welcome change from the relatively flat land we had been traversing

The aspect of Elsah from the river is definitely un-inspiring.

Enroute we encountered a rather unusual vessel. It appeared to be a standard 200' river barge with a multi-story building on it. It was being pushed by a rather husky tow boat. 0ur curiosity got the best of us, so we asked and the radio; ''what kind of vessel is that?'' The answer astonished us; ''a private yacht.'' Boy would we like to know the rest of that story.

We are now ensconced in a very nice marina in Alton, IL.

Illinois was a ''free'' state in the 1830s among surounding ''slave states.'' Across the river from the thriving slave market place, St. Louis, and protected by the Mississippi and 0hio rivers, it was a natural as a staging area for the Underground Railroad.

In 1858 the last of the seven Lincoln Douglas debates was held at Alton.

More Mississippi meanderings tomorrow.

Grafton, IL

We have spent the past few days in Grafton, Il. This is an old river town at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

We started out from our anchorage at Beardstown intending to anchor at a convenient spot behind another island, but the wind came up strong from the south. This meant we would have a wind opposing the current. We would have lain at anchor alternately upstream and downstream as the wind rose and fell during the night. Each time we swung around, John would have been up to insure that the anchor turned around and re-set each time. Not a recipe for a restful night. We therefore pressed on after a long, but uneventful day.

These are a couple of pictures of a car ferry across the Illinois River at Kampsville, IL. The little tug has a post on its bow and there is a similar post on the side of the barge that carries the cars. There is a link that fastens to each post. The tug pushes the barge from alongside across the river. When he wishes to return, he spins the tug around, still attached to the link, and pushes the barge back across the river.

The river has really changed it's character, with rugged hills and rock outcroppings. We are looking forward to entering the Mississippi when we get going again. Right now we are waiting for mail, which activity is becoming the bane of our existence.

Yesterday we borrowed the courtesy car and drove around the area a little. We happened on the town Elsah, IL, a quaint 19th century river town that time and the steamboats have passed by. Many stone houses from another era make a charming change from the newer and somewhat shabby river towns we have been seeing. A sign pointed the way to a pottery establishment 2 miles outside town. Unable to resist, we took the journey and were well rewarded for our trouble. We found a building housing a small show room featuring early American pottery more likely to be found in eastern Pennsylvania. The owner showed up from an adjacent field and invited us in notwithstanding the fact that the shop was closed. He introduced himself as Jonathan Wright and proceeded to give us a short history of the town and that of Principia College, a Christian Science institution we had passed on the way up.

After a discussion of ''Salt Glazed Pottery'', its history, chemistry and place in early American culture, he proceeded to give us a demonstration by ''throwing'' two very interesting pieces on his wheel while we watched in fascination. We peppered him with questions, but undaunted, he fielded them all and told a number of interesting stories about himself and his pottery.

Gail, of course bought one of the pieces and chose a motif for the artwork to be completed by Jonathan's wife, Jan and shipped later this fall. You can all come by the house this winter and see the finished piece.

Well, tomorrow the Mississippi.

Beardstown

Well we are indeed swinging at anchor tonight, for the first time in a long time, and we are enjoying it. We are tucked behind a small island just downstream of where the Sangamon River empties into the Illinois River at Beardstown, IL.

In 1831 the young Abe Lincoln took a boat from New Salem Il down the Sangamon River, joined the Illinois River right here, continued down the route we will be following as far as the 0hio River, then on to New 0rleans where he sold the products he was carrying, then returned up the Natchez Trace. While he was in New 0rleans on that trip, he witnessed slavery for the first time.

This picture is taken from our anchorage and shows a tow coming from behind the island that shelters us from the main channel. There are 15 barges, 3 wide and 5 long. This tow is longer than the Titanic, or an aircraft carrier. We will see longer ones when we get to the Mississippi.

Havana, but no Cigar

0kay, here is a better picture of Hennepin, taken yesterday morning just before leaving, and from the top of the hill. Hennepin was named for a Catholic Priest that travelled with La Salle as did Father Marquette with Joliet,only Father Hennepin had less character and a better publicist [himself.].

It was hoped that we would bore you with less technical detail today, but as it turns out, as we left Hennepin the bow thruster failed, just as we were depending on it to turn the bow away from a pile of rocks at the end of the the city wall. Disaster was averted through superior seamanship,or perhaps more accurately - plain dumb luck. A check revealed that a circuit breaker had popped, and we hoped that was the end of the story - fat chance.

When we arrived in the Illinois Valley Yacht Club in Peoria, we found that the bow thruster was still inoperative. The motor ran, but no thrust.
We immediately disassembled the bow thruster and found that the shear pin was sheared. This was probably due to a stick being jammed in the thruster propeller when leaving Hennepin. We were able to order a replacement for overnight delivery to our next intended port of call. A quick swim allowed us to verify that the propeller was not jammed with a stick, which had evidently been washed out during the days passage. [While there are lots of "we's" in this paragraph, you can guess that it was John who did all this mechanical stuff!]

With Gail fending off mightily, we were able to negotiate our way out of very restricted space in the marina, and were on our way.

Enroute we passed the "Spirit of Peoria," a stern wheel paddle boat evidently used on the Illinois out of Peoria.

We had to transit the lock and dam at Peoria, which is a "wicket" dam. The dam is actually a contraption built from steel and timber that is hinged at the bottom, and can be lowered to the bottom of the river when the water levels are high. In that case, you actually pass over the dam!

This is a picture of our sonar display as we passed over the wickets lying on the bottom of the river, seen as the spikey shapes to the left of the picture.

Upon arriving at Tall Timbers Marina in Havana, IL where Lincoln gave a speech from atop an indian mound during the Lincoln Douglas presidential primary campaign, we found a package with the shear pin awaiting us. We immediatly installd the pin and found to our great joy, that solved the problem. - 0nce again science and technology triumphs over fear and superstition!!

While John fixed the thruster, Gail hitched a ride with the marina owner to replinish the grocery stock. We will probably be swinging on the anchor for awhile so that was rather important!

Hennepin Revisited

Well we did attend St. Patricks church on Sunday, and it is a very old and beautiful church.

In the afternoon we decided to put the mast back up so that we would have an anchor light. As we raised it, there was some resistance, so we used a little extra muscle power and heard a "snap." It turned out to be the padeye that fastens to the top of the cabin to secure the starboard side stay. We had recently noticed that it was not the stainless steel we would have expected, and it turns out is is a bronze casting. The turnbuckle on the stay had kinked and twisted the eye of the padeye. The piece looks as if there was a defect in the casting. There is a black portion the casting that was probably a weak spot.

Although it was Sunday, we were able to order a stainless steel replacement with overnight delivery which would arrive before noon on Tuesday.

Nearly the whole day on Monday was spent in removing the broken padeye. It involved making a very ugly hole in the ceiling of the aft stateroom by chiseling through 2 inches of marine plywood.

We could then access the nuts to allow removal of the broken part.

Tuesday morning we fabricated blocks of plywood to fill the gap we had created. When the parts did arrive as avertised, it was fairly straightforward to install a replacement and put the interior pieces back in place.

While in Seneca, we made the acquaintance of a very interesting couple doing the loop in a 32 ft Grand Banks trawler. They live in Port Townsend, WA, where Traveller was purchased, and they shipped their boat from Tacoma, WA with the same shipper as was used for Traveller, our previous trawler, lost to Hurricane Ivan.

Jim is a commercial fisherman in Washington state, [with a docterate in fisheries], and Anita is a speech therapist [who used to own and operate her own commercial fishing boat!]

This morning we finally were able to leave Seneca, and we passed through the Marsielles, IL lock and the Starved Rock lock with out incident.

Starved Rock is a prominant historical landmark, where the Illinois Indian Nation was virtually wiped out by the supporters of Chief Pontiac who the Chief of the Illinois had injudicously stabbed to death.

The picture of Starved Rock is one of two that John missed today. The other was of a bald eagle snatching a fish from the the waters of the Illinois River. 0h well, we aren't National Geographic after all.

Tonight we are stopping at the free town dock at Hennepin,IL where John's brother, Jim, and his wife Rosemary stopped when the three of them brought Traveller down five years ago.

Somehow these two images of Hennepin don't seem to make up for the two we missed -- oh well.

Final "Catch Up" - Hopefully!

View of chartplotter when halfway across Lake Michigan.

This was the only boat/ship we saw on the crossing- The Badger

We crossed Lake Michigan on Sunday, August 26th. After sleeping late, and not thinking we would cross, we discovered after rising that it would indeed be a good day. The weather was much better than predicted. We departed Ludington at 11:22AM with smooth seas, the wind was from the Northwest which veered to East then Southeast. We got a good view of the SS Badger, the 400 ft car ferry that makes two trips between Ludington and Manitowoc daily. John has been reading a novel by a local author named "Murder on the SS Badger." We had a wind of about five knots and waves from one to three feet. The last hour the seas were off the port quarter that made relinquishing the steering to manual control and riding uncomfortable.However, it was a good crossing and we were happy to arrive at Manitowoc around 5:00PM, cleaned up and headed for supper at a waterfront cafe. Monday and Tuesday were spent doing laundry and changing oil.

Departed Manitowoc August 29th and arrived at Port Washington.

Port Washington is a man made harbor on the western shores of Lake Michigan between the larger communities of Sheboygan and Milwaukee. 0nce a commercial fishing harbor, today the harbor caters mainly to pleasure craft. The highlight of our visit to town was the discovery of a wonderful Polish market that sold delicious pierogy's and great homemade brats. We also did a little Christmas shopping and landed a real treasure for Sheila! We fueled early [really cheap fuel!] and headed out on Friday, August 31st for Racine, WI.

Racine is at the mouth of the Root River where it enters Lake Michigan. The original explorers called this river the Root River because of all the roots along the river bank. Racine is the French word for "root" and the town acquired its name from this French word. 0rigionally a busy commercial seaport, Racine has changed its outlook and image and is now a busy harbor dedicated to the use of pleasure craft. The town area is still trying to reccover from all the lost industry.

Racine is the place that John kept Traveller before he headed south with Jim and Rosemary. He also purchased his SeaRay, Cindy K, there and kept it in the same Marina in which we stayed.

The highlight of our visit to Racine was that we enjoyed two days of visiting with Beth. She arrived with awesome gifts for Father's Day and Birthday for John - a home baked cherry pie, a six pack of Leinenkugel beer, a special frame just for Dad's filled with pictures of John with his Dad, Beth and , of course, Remmi- Beth's dog, fresh produce which we devoured at supper Sunday night. Both Saturday and Sunday held high adventures for us all. We visited the light house, had a great meal at the Marina and an awesme lunch at a Mexican Restrurant. 0ur other activities are best left to photos and you can figure it out as you view them. Guess you could say we really went "overboard" on being real sailors!!!!! Beth's comment sums it up - "I never, ever, thught I see my father doing this." Well..........we DID and we love it! [Butterflies and Diamonds are BEAUTIFUL!]

Imagine!












Hard to believe, Right!

0n Monday we traveled to Waukegan in the hopes of visiting with Cindy but struck out. She and Ben were unavailable!!!!!!!????????Needless to say, we were disappointed that we did not connect with her.

Waukegan is another man made commercial harbor augmented with a man made harbor for pleasure craft. We didn't really do much off the boat other than purchase ice. Turned in early with the plan to begin early the next day and make it to Chicago.

Approaching the Big City

We were fortunate enough to secure a slip at Burnham Park Harbor in Chicago which is located in a basin on the east and solidified with Meigs Field airfield. This was the site of the 1939 World's Fair. This relatively large harbor is located about two and a half miles south of the Chicago River/lock entrance. The Park lies in the center of a lot of popular tourist attractions. It is adjacent to the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum of Natural History, McCormick Place convention center and Soldier Field, the Bears Football Team stadium. It all reminded John of the days when his Uncle Warren would pick up the two young sons of his brother Vernon back in the 1940s and take them to these very facilities. John, in turn, used to take his young children to the same places. It was really impressive during the day, but at nighttime it was simply overwhelmingly beautiful because it was all lighted and you could not only see the above mentioned but all of the city as well. As luck would have it, Gail's Mark was in New York while we were there so we weren't able to see him in "his" work place but had a nice phone conversation with him. Also wanted to connect with Dan, Peg's cousin, but ran out of time.0ne huge thing we did was lower the mast for the trip under the bridges ahead. We did that with much less difficulty than we had anticipated. Think we are getting to be really good boat people!

View from the stern of Monarch looking toward Chicago.....







Chicago All Aglow!

We left the Marina in bright sunshine and clear skies at 7:30AM on the morning of the 5th and headed for the Illinois River Lock. We had called ahead so they had the lock opened for us and handed us lines as we entered. It doesn't get any better than that! 0nce through the lock we travelled right into the heart of the city. It is breathtaking and an experience not soon forgotten! There were no other boats traveling along with us so we had the whole river to ourselves. For those of you who are Chicago fans, you HAVE to treat yourselves to a river cruise the next time you are in the city.You pass under 40 bridges in around five miles. The sides of the walls in front of all the buildings and bridges are decorated with boxes of flowers and there are many places to dock to go ashore for meals. Most of you know that Gail is a huge New York fan but the trip into Chicago has prompted a promise from John to fly her back for a "land visit "in the near future. Wish we could be there in 0ctober when John McVay runs the Marathon. When we saw Lake Shore Drive, we wondered if that is where he will be running.

We took so many pictures that it would be silly to publish them all here but, Mark, Peg and John, we will email the whole batch to you. You are the people most connected to Chicago that we know! Wish you could have been with us! It was definately one of those "once in a lifetime experiences"!

0nce past the city you pass a highly industrial area along the river filled with every imaginable kind of factory and huge docks for barges to pull up and hall things away. There is one area that is so narrow and so full of tow traffic that the Cruising Guides call it "The Ten Miles of Hell". We saw a multitude of tugs and tows but we found it challenging and exciting. It is fun to see some of how Amerrica gets its goods. Further down stream, the picture changes drastically. The banks are full of trees, bushes, wildwife, wild flowers, corn fields, cows and everything else "country". It is very peaceful and moves the heart to a thankfulness to The Creator for His multitude of gifts.

Can you tell we are loving this trip????

We traveled a total of 53.7 miles to Willmington, Ill. and stayed at Harborside Marina. It was a very long day! We waited an hour and a half at the Brandon Road Lock as a tug locked about ten barges through. We entertained ourselves watch a multitude of white herons fishing for their food. They are everywhere along the river.

We enjoyed a nice meal at the restrurant - which was a loooong walk from the boat - and then called it a night. John however, had a drink of "Mr. Clean" from a glass Gail was soaking her rings in before we turned in for bed. That neccesitated a phone call to our new docter friend, Bob Robinson who didn't take it very seriously [thank goodness] and assured us that all would be well. Ironically John had no adverse reaction - that will tell you how strong his constitution really is!!! Gail, on the other hand, awakened all through the night to check to see if he was still breathing!!!

The next day we continued on through Dresden Lock to Spring Brook Marina in Seneca, Ill. As we passed Unnamed Island two white pellicans led us down the river. We are still here - Saturday, September 8th and will be here through tomorrow so we can go to mass at Saint Patrick's [named for John's ancestor!!]

John is presently modifying the box for the new batteries and Gail is much releived that we are finally up to date on the blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you to all of you who have lovingly and patiently continued this journey with us. The fact that you are still reading after all this time is amazing! We love knowing you are sharing this trip with us and still want to "come along" with us. Your e-mails and comments are most welcome!