Little River Diversion Channel to Green Turtle Bay

Now that we’ve had a couple of days to recover from some serious miles in the past couple of weeks and the excitement of crossing our wake, I thought I’d go back to Little River Diversion Channel and catch up some details on the blog. 

By the way, I should mention one thing.  Crossing your wake and completing the Great Loop Cruise is kind of like “No, but I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express last night” – we feel like we can take on about anything right now!!!!! 

First and foremost I have an IOU out to Rhonda.  The entire run down the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers we were listening to cicadas, lots of them, suffice it to say there were at least a gazillion of them, minimum, and Rhonda kept telling me to mention it in the blog.  Well, I kept forgetting it because it’s a little hard to get a picture of one of those little critters in the woods from the boat and without a picture, I don’t think about it!  So, having just completed the Great Loop Cruise, our camera seemed able to do unimaginable things also, so we zoomed in and got a shot of a few of those little critters. 

OK, now I’m out of the dog house with Rhonda (again) so I’ll get back to the blog and cover the last 48 miles of the Mississippi River, the first 57 of the Ohio, and the first 31 of the Cumberland River, basically Cape Girardeau, MO to Grand Rivers, KY.  Check out this really cool shot Becky got of "Help Me Rhonda" leaving Little River Diversion Channel.

Lots of beaches on the Mississippi in this stretch.  Got a couple of folks out digging in the sand for whatever.

Always love the white pelicans wherever we find them.

Here’s a picture of us actually crossing our wake – Becky took the picture and emailed it to us later – this is the real thing while we were moving up the Ohio River!  But wait a minute, who's driving the boat?  Love that autopilot!

When we were making the trip out to Oklahoma a few years ago, the rivers were in serious flood stage and there was no safe place to anchor.  I called the resident engineer at Ohlmstead Lock and Dam, which was under construction at the time (and still is 5 years later) to see if he would allow us to tie up to a wall there.  By the way, when Ohlmstead L&D is completed, it will replace locks 52 and 53 on the Ohio River.  The resident engineer  works for the Federal Government and I already knew what the answer would be – NO!  But he surprised me with this – “You know I can’t approve that but I will say that we sometimes see boats pulling up to the lock wall as we are leaving in the evening and they are always gone before we arrive the next morning.”  I’m pretty good at ciphering anyone speaking this kind of “good-ole-boy talk” and we spent the night there.  The amount of construction and activity has increased tremendously since then. We decided not to try overnighting there this time.

Lock #53 was not in use when we got there.  They have a wicket system there where they can lower a section of the dam 17 feet and you just go right over the top of it.  That funnels all of the water through that section and it reduced our speed to 3 ½ miles per hour running against the current.  It was a bit traumatic for Wilson – he occasionally has flashbacks of going over the dam at Lock #11 on the Erie Canal right before we rescued him from the floods.  We found him with his head buried in the seat.  It's really sad to see him like this. 

But he recovers quickly and seemed to enjoy the rest of the day, but he still didn’t say much.

The industrial scenes are interesting – this guy has his work cut out for him moving that coal pile around.

I mentioned previously how we timed Lock #52 perfectly with no delay.  Actually, Jonathan and Brooke had lots to do with that.  They had gotten ahead of us and had been waiting over 2 hours – we got to go through with them!  Thanks “Salty”!  These locks were built in the 1930s – pretty simple and I bet it didn’t take 5 years plus to build them either!

We docked at the free city dock and had a nice welcome from Paducah.  They have a really unusual riverfront.  The whole thing is a parking lot/boat ramp combination.  You can drop your boat off of the trailer into the water at any point.  Many other folks just drive through or park to enjoy the view.

Paducah was a surprisingly nice little town.  Surprising because I don’t recall ever reading any great write-ups about it.  Everything is walking distance from the free dock. Becky and Rhonda took a walk through town after dinner. 

They have a flood wall just like Cape Girardeau, MO, Cairo, IL, and Morgan City, LA, but they have really dressed theirs up with nice murals on the town side of the wall. 

We spent just one night in Paducah and had a nice dinner to celebrate our crossing.  Thanks Galen for treating us!  It’s only about 14 more miles up the river to intercept the Cumberland River.  Rhonda and I would normally use this route anyway to avoid all of the barge traffic at Kentucky Lock but it is necessitated for everyone right now by maintenance currently in progress on the Kentucky Lock which is the shortest route to the Tennessee River.

“Rocks” appears to be the business/industry of choice for this 31-mile stretch.  There were a couple of nice rock quarries and lots of associated barge movement.

We were anxious about the delay at Barkley Lock with all of the Kentucky Lock traffic directed here also, but the cards and planets were aligned for us again.  The lockmaster told us to pull right on in to the approach wall and tie up there – he would get us through in about 30 minutes.  We had passed numerous barges in the last couple of miles waiting for their turn.  I think the lockmaster might have heard that we “stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night” – Oops, I mean “completed the Great Loop Cruise yesterday.”  He was probably a little scared to delay us.  Well, it’s OK to “play like” for a few days, isn’t it?  Barkley raises you 57 feet but you Looper rendezvousers shouldn’t get too excited about that – there’s a 93-footer at Wilson L&D two locks from Wheeler State Park – third largest in the world!

As soon as you come out of the lock, you are 1 mile away from Green Turtle Bay.  Lots of green turtles around for some reason?  Ya think?  Well, if we hadn't just completed the Great Loop Cruise, I might not have made the connection!

Speaking of just completing the Great Loop Cruise, our gold burgee was waiting for us and, we got the old swapped out for the new.  Because of our lengthy time to complete the Loop along with our long side trips, we’ve actually gone through 2 white burgees.  This last one has been flying from Galveston, TX to here.

And just about the time we think there’s not much else new the Loop can throw our way, Jonathan and Brooke drive up with a borrowed car to get us all to dinner for the evening.  THERE IS A CAGED WALL BEHIND THE FRONT SEAT!!!!  

 Apparently the owners did not know that we stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, I mean just completed the Great Loop Cruise.  Anyhow, you can imagine the fun we had with this and we finally got Galen in a spot where he couldn’t cause much trouble for anyone.

We found a great little BBQ spot in Grand Rivers.  I know, everyone eats at Patti’s but the BBQ was outstanding and the waitress had a great sense of humor.  Galen prides himself in being able to handle any hot foods – you know, the hotter the better, so he loaded up his pulled pork with a healthy dose of their hottest sauce.  His face turned bright red, beads of sweat were rolling down his face, and he was having trouble breathing if that helps get you the visual.  The waitress walks up and says, “What’s the matter with him?  Is he a wimp?”

We’re going to miss Galen and Becky tremendously and here’s probably the last shot of us docked together – they decided to park the boat at Green Turtle Bay for a week and make a trip home and we need to press on  to our home on the Tennessee River. L

 I know it's hard to see, but did you notice the gold burgee flying up front on Help Me Rhonda?  In case you are wondering, that means we just completed the Great Loop Cruise!

If you have any doubt about the quality of the facilities here at Green Turtle Bay, check out the indoor pool and spa (that’s in addition to the outdoor pool).

 Lots of docks, huge ship store, any kind of maintenance you need, 2 restaurants on site, etc..

Speaking of ship stores, I have to tell ONE MORE Galen Dunmire story.  Galen is apparently a cheapskate when it comes to buying shoes and his current pair of boat shoes was literally falling apart.  So, we had been riding him about getting some new shoes for days.  We’re in the store and I see him eyeing a pair of Sperry dock shoes.  He’s always looking for a “deal” so I told him if he could get those for $60 he should buy them.  The store clerk checked with the boss (by phone) and said they would be $61.  You guessed it – he tries to deal for that last dollar and tries for a long time – we’re feeling sorry for the lady who keeps saying, “I don’t have the authority to drop the price anymore.”  Finally she’s had enough and in the spirit of the BBQ waitress says, “Well, I could just sell you a roll of duct tape – that would be cheaper.”  Well, of course Galen loved that and if you can get him smiling, you’ve got him.  He bought the shoes.

GALEN AND BECKY DUNMIRE, WE ARE REALLY GOING TO MISS YOU GUYS!

So, we said our goodbyes the next morning and Help Me Rhonda made a whopping 21 miles to Kenlake State Park.  We’ll pick up there later.  Oh yeh, did I mention that we recently completed the Great Loop Cruise? 

Completing The Great Loop Cruise - Help Me Rhonda Crosses Her Wake

I have to be honest - I am just about blogged out and very tired from a very exciting day,  so we'll keep this short.  We left our anchorage at Little River Diversion Channel this morning as soon as the fog lifted. It was a beautiful morning to start the day.

 Rhonda got some more eagle shots on the way down to our crossing point at the Ohio River, so I will take the time to post these.

I spent a lot of time this morning sitting in my favorite spot up by the bow pulpit, retracing in my mind all of the places we have traveled and the experiences we have had in the last 5 and 1/2 years and almost 8000 miles of travel.  Wow, what an awesome experience.  I have to admit, I even got a little emotional just thinking about how blessed and fortunate we are to make the trip and how blessed I am to have such a wonderful wife and "shipmate" to share it with.  Don't laugh - Rhonda took one of her premarin hormone pills just in case it hit her too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here we are approaching the point where we were on 4/30/2008.  On that date we were traveling down the Ohio River and joining the Mississippi River and later the Arkansas River to Muskogee, OK to manage a new marina there.

I went back and pulled up a picture of our previous boat from that day when we traveled from the Ohlmstead Lock on the Ohio River to Caruthersville, Missouri.  We had a 41' Roughwater and docked at a corn barge for three days to wait out some serious weather.  We later sold the boat while we were in Galveston, TX and found our current boat close by at Corpus Christi, TX.  Here's "Help Me Rhonda III."

Here's the chartplotter as we made the turn on to the Ohio River, "crossing our wake" and officially completing the Great Loop Cruise."

We are so blessed to have shared this with our cruising friends, Galen and Becky Dunmire aboard "Mooring Dove."  They crossed our wake with us and we have truly enjoyed traveling with them.  They got some live shots of the event but it will take some time to get all of that onto our files.

We traveled 100 miles today and needed to get through one lock at the 96th mile to be able to make Paducah, KY by dark.  We could not believe it - barges were backed up everywhere waiting to get through and the lockmaster worked us in the moment we got there with no delay!  Awesome.  We got docked and had a celebration dinner with Galen and Becky and Jonathan and Brooke (Salty) at Shandies in downtown Paducah. 

Here's a shot at the Paducah city dock with our old faithful white burgee that is starting to come apart and a gold burgee that we borrowed from Galen and Becky for the picture, signifying completion of the Loop. (They have previously completed the Loop and are on their second time around.) Our new gold burgee is waiting for us at Green Turtle Bay Marina - we should be there tomorrow.  We had to include Wilson in the picture also after he joined us in Lock #11 when we were Castaways there on the Erie Canal!!!

I'm exhausted, time for bed, thanks again for traveling with us!

Hoppies, Kaskaskia, and Little River Diversion Channel

First of all, I need to correct some comments in the last blog.  Based on our 2 times on the Mississippi River BELOW THE OHIO RIVER INTERSECTION AND DOWN TO NEW ORLEANS, we were expecting to see the large tows of 42 barges again.  That is not the case thus far, we assume because this upper Mississippi River stretch seems to be much smaller and narrower than the lower half.  Most tows are 20 or fewer. Having made that correction, we departed Alton Marina early morning after confirming with the lockmaster 2 miles away that we would have no delays.

If there's any doubt in your mind whether or not we are in towboat and barge territory on the Mississippi River, this should answer the question. These are the towboats sitting on the banks not moving traffic at the moment!  And note the size of these - huge.

Speaking of huge, this may be the largest dredge we've ever seen.

There's a split in the Mississippi just above St. Louis.  The actual river hangs a right and the water drops via a dam.  It's important to read the sign, take the left turn here, and use the diversion canal through the lock!  Right, Jonathan and Brooke???  LOL

One of the nice things about the two locks between Alton and St. Louis is that both of them have 2 chambers.  In both cases, barges were in the larger chambers, but we had no delay getting through the smaller chambers.  The other nice thing about them is the wonderful and courteous lockmasters.  WOW, we felt like we were getting a welcome and info from a tour guide, and the better of the two was our first-ever lady lockmaster! So, here we are in the last lock with Mooring Dove.  The upstream gate on this one was pretty cool - had a bit of a sci-fi look to it as it rose up out of the water rather than the standard swinging gates.

And here's a shot of the dual chambers, side-by-side, with a barge exiting about the same time as us.  Don't worry, they are pretty slow, and we were way out of the way before them.

Here's our first view of St. Louis as we rejoined the regular body of the Mississippi River.  You can see the arch in the distance behind the bridge.

Lots of bridges on the north side of town.

Yes, Wilson is still with us, and he's pretty excited about seeing the arch for the first time!

And here's the arch.  Pretty cool, this thing is huge!

St. Louis has no easy access or marinas close to the city, so we continued on down the river to a well-known stop (at least well-known to Loopers and travelers of this part of the river) - Hoppies.  Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins took over this business 40 years ago from his father. It's nothing fancy, just a few barges together on the side of the river, but a critical stop for many boaters, especially for refueling. 

And let me take this opportunity to introduce the infamous Fern Hopkins.  Make no mistake about it - Fern runs this place.  She tells you what she wants and how she wants it!  She tells you how to drive the boat, and they handle all of the lines and even placement of fenders.  If you want it a different way, you better wait till Fern leaves and change it without her knowing it! She told Rhonda and Becky that some men don't like taking orders from a woman. They told her that Galen and I are used to it!  And we love it too, right Galen????

Fern gives a briefing in the afternoon to anyone interested in the details of traveling the river, offering recommendations for anchoring, areas that need some caution, etc., etc.  While there's nothing fancy about the place, it's a tradition to stop here and we had lots of fun.  Also, we knew we were in good company - these folks wear GIT-R-DONE shirts!

But wait, there's much more just around the corner and up the hill in the town of Kimmswick, MO. Although it was Monday and they knew the WHOLE town would be closed, Rhonda and Becky decided to take a walk into town to check it all out.

Here are a couple of the establishments noted above.

While there, they met a local alderman and, of course, they wanted to know all about the town. Originally, the town was known for its salt deposits and as a vacation spot for residents of St. Louis. By the 1970's the town was beginning to run down. The 7-UP heiress (they did not remember her name) decided to buy up the whole town (about a 4-block area). She then sold homes to people who restored the homes and started businesses in them. Today, all of the businesses open from 10:00 to 4:00 (5:00 on the weekends) and they all agree to be closed on Mondays. The normal population of Kimmswick is 125, but during their annual apple butter festival over 100,000 people show up for the weekend. They also have a strawberry festival in the spring, but it only attracts about 30,000. The revenue from these events fund the town so that the locals do not have other taxes!     

While Rhonda and Becky were sightseeing in Kimmswick, Galen decided to walk to the next town. Actually, he never really intends to walk, he always gets a ride.  In this case, one of the locals, Joe, picked him up, took him to the next town, and then brought him back to Kimmswick.  Later in the evening when all 4 of us decided to take an evening stroll, Joe joined us.

It turns out that Kimmswick had another wealthy resident from St. Louis and Joe gave us lots of detailed information about Mrs. Anheuser, the great-granddaughter of the Anheuser-Busch family. Joe's job was to drive her around town and his wife worked inside the home. Joe said she was a wonderful lady, and she told him lots of stories as they drank tea on her back porch. She left her estate and a hefty endowment to the town of Kimmswick. The town rents the home for weddings and other events so that they use very little of the endowment. The stable and riding area are an equine therapy center, often used and available for autistic children.

                                                  

Here's the Anheuser home from the front and back.

It sits at the top of the bank of the river with a beautiful deck and great views in all directions.

 Across the street is an unusual rock wall (and a pretty good-sized tree).  Kimmswick has some German stone-cutter history also. 

This bridge was originally built in 1874 but has been in use only for pedestrians since 1930.

It's amazing how much history you can find along the banks of America's waterways.  Here sits one little small town with so much to offer.  We have had lots of fun getting to learn about so many of these little towns along the Loop.  However, it was time to move on the next morning with 40 miles to our next stop.  On the Mississippi River, you have to plan your stops, distances, and travel times by what's available.  We could cover lots more distance, especially with the 3 to 5 miles of river current, but we didn't want to risk not being able to get to some of the other "possibilities."  Our "for-sure" stop was a lock wall at the Kaskaskia Lock. On the way down we saw several rock quarries, and it looks like business is pretty good!  Lots of barges, trains, trucks, and activity everywhere.

Lots of folks don't realize there are lots of sandy beaches along the Mississippi River (we didn't either until our first trip down in 2008), especially with the low water levels exposing much more shoreline than normal.

Every now and then you'll see some people stopped to enjoy the beaches.

And here's our stop for the night.  The Kaskaskia Lock is inland about a mile off of the Mississippi River. The lockmasters allow overnighting here as a courtesy and it is a great stop - you don't want to be anchored out on the Mighty Mississippi vulnerable to the current and the barge traffic. That's Jonathan and Brooke aboard "Salty" in the foreground, then Galen on "Mooring Dove" and "Help Me Rhonda" on the end.  We fired up the grill and grilled chicken and bratwursts with potatoes and salad on the side.  It was a very pleasant evening and a good time was had by all.

Here's the view looking out toward the river.  By the way, that view was non-existent the next morning - serious fog and no visibility, but that was OK, we only had 70 miles to travel and left around 9 AM after the fog lifted.

Next stop, Cape Girardeau, MO. There was not much different to see on the way there than what we've already shown you.  There was this one huge rock, known as Tower Rock.        .

Cape Girardeau has a flood wall similar to Morgan City, LA (Wow, that was a lot of miles and months ago!).  They have a section of it painted nicely and the gate is open while the water is down - way down I might add. Unfortunately, there is no place to dock here either, so we did not get to walk around Rush Limbaugh's hometown.

About 3 miles downstream is the Little River Diversion Channel.  Randy and Kristin aboard "Kristin Says" had checked this out the previous night and let us know that they found no less than 7 feet of water.  It was a little tricky getting in to with the narrow entrance and swift current but a welcome spot for the night.

It wasn't much, but like I say, you take what you can get on the Mississippi!  After everyone anchored, Jonathan, Brooke, and Becky took "Salty" over to the beach on the eastern shore while we enjoyed some guests right here by the boat!  You can barely see Salty in the distance in the middle of the picture.

Adam and Jen, please be sure the grandkids see these.

In closing, TOMORROW IS A BIG DAY FOR US!  As a reminder, the Great Loop Cruise is a continuous circle route, and when you return to the starting point, the term "crossing your own wake" is used to note the closure of the circle.  The distance for us has been almost 8000 miles.  So, we'll be crossing our wake tomorrow when we make the left turn on to the Ohio River.  We were last there on April 30th, 2008 on a trip from our home in Athens, AL on the Tennessee River to Muskogee, OK to manage a new marina after we had retired the first time in 2005.  It's been lots of miles and 5 1/2 years (including another lengthy out-of-the-way stop for 2 years in Galveston, TX after Muskogee).  We left Galveston in November of 2012 to earnestly pursue finishing The Great Loop and we are almost there, 49 miles to go.  Pretty exciting stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!