Day 40 thru Day 43

Good Friends, Old and New

Day 40. After getting my copilot David to his plane in Louisville, I went to visit my dear friends from my Navy days, Tom and Glenda Bumpas. We had a lovely evening reminiscing about those times, when I was a junior supply officer on a guided-missile destroyer and Tom was the chaplain for our division of three of these ships. He was and is one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I've known, and is one of the few Navy folks I've had contact with since that time. He is now retired from a career as a minister and counselor, and Glenda has been a teacher in Louisville schools. They were gracious hosts and fun company.

After breakfast Tom gave me a driving tour of Louisville, and I was delighted to see neighborhoods of spectacular nineteenth-century homes. The city's cemetery is the largest and most beautiful that I have seen, including a substantial region of gravestones from the civil war.

At lunch time I took my leave and drove up the river a few miles to meet a classmate from high school (Western Military Academy in Illinois). Don Higgins had emailed me and asked if my boat trip would bring me anywhere near Louisville, and I replied that this side-trip certainly would. We had had no contact since graduation 49 years ago, but I felt like we were still close friends, and we had a great visit learning about each other's lives. Don has retired from a career mostly in the printing industry, and still pursues his long avocation as a flight instructor. Interesting guy.

In the afternoon I returned to Paducah for a night alone on the boat. While I relaxed there, in a covered marina slip, there was a substantial downpour. Soon after, kids arrived to feed bread to the turtles in the water. These turtles arrived in force, and they are as big as a plate. (All the little dark spots in the water are turtle heads.) But, the geese arrived and ate the bread, and kicked water in the turtles' faces. There was no contest.

Day 41. This was a laid-back marina day, which I have grown to really enjoy in the course of many days of pushing to stay on schedule. I had a leisurely breakfast, drank a lot of coffee, did laundry, straightened things up on the boat, and worked on the blog (really, I did). Green Turtle Bay is a well-run, well-equipped, and clean marina to spend time in. One of the best I found on the trip.

In the afternoon I went to the Paducah airport, eager to see my daughter Rachel, arriving to spend the next week of the trip with me. I was even more eager to see her after the several-hour delay caused by big storms between Chicago and Paducah. When the commuter flight came in it was late afternoon, so we went down to the cute riverfront area and had an early dinner at the very good Whaler's Catch seafood restaurant.

As it got dark we walked over to the river-wall, a protective flood wall to keep the Ohio River out of downtown Paducah. Now, the very cool thing is that along a few blocks of the town side of the wall are murals depicting the history of the area, the river, and the city. There must be over twenty-five large murals, nicely done, with little signs explaining each one. Here is a sample (I liked the view from the towboat pilot house).

I am sure you can google Paducah river wall or something and see more examples. We joined the promenade there, and it was dark before we drove back to Barklay Lake and the boat in Green Turtle Bay Marina. We organized Rachel's gear on board, set up our bunks, and turned in for the night.

Day 42. This was another quiet marina day. We did some errands, looked around, turned in the rental car, emailed, planned the coming week, and read. Dinner in the on-site yacht club was very nice. We slept on the boat, anticipating a fairly early start south up Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River.

Day 43. Some days earlier I had received an email from a fellow named Larry McPhail, who owns the DuroBoat company in Huntingdon, Tennessee, that makes aluminum boats. His regular web search "aluminum boat" had come across my blog and he invited us to meet him on the water as we went south up the Kentucky Lake. He mentioned that his two daughters had done the Great Loop around the eastern U. S. in one of his boats. I replied that I knew of the girls' amazing feat (6000+ miles in a 16' open outboard boat in about 75 days) and that we were most interested in getting together with him and his daughter(s) on our way south. This was the day we would meet them at a marina in Tennessee.

First, though, we made our way through the canal from Barklay Lake to Kentucky Lake and turned south. It was a calm morning, and I turned the helm over to Rachel right away, as she had done some time with the boat last year in Colorado lakes. We were immediately struck by how beautiful the scenery was, particularly along the Land Between the Lakes on our left side. This is a pristine nature preserve that separates the lakes in the valleys of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.

By early afternoon we were in Tennessee and met Larry, his daughter Elizabeth (the younger of the two "loopers"), and their friend and boat builder Sammy, at the Breakers Marina near Buchanan, where we arranged to dock the boat for the night.

There are a number of marinas in this area, and since it was Sunday, several drew large crowds with live music in their open-air bars. So, we spent the afternoon inspecting several of them and enjoying running the boats around the lake.

Larry and Sammy took turns at the helm of Little Sadie, and Rachel and Elizabeth raced along in a bright yellow DuroBoat -- the very boat Elizabeth and her sister Katy had used to cruise the Great Circle. (They had gotten to the Mississippi from Wisconsin, then followed the Tennessee-Tombigbee route to the Gulf, crossed Florida, went up the east coast to the Hudson, and followed the Great Lakes back to Wisconsin.)

We spent a totally enjoyable afternoon, learning about their business and picking up many tips about sections of the trip yet ahead of me. Here we are with the DuroBoat gang and this particular marina owner (2nd from left). After the DuroBoat gang went home, Rachel and I spent a nice night on the boat at Breakers, guests of Robert "Rookie" Edwards and his wife Terry.

A few days later, Elizabeth published an article about our visit and my expedition on the website the sisters maintain with information useful to river and coastal boat travelers. The link is

http://travelboater.com/2012/07/26/jons-river-run/

Day 37 thru Day 39

A Whole New Ball Game

Day 37. On Monday morning David and I left St. Louis, and got an early launch at the St. Charles boat ramp with gas, ice, and the good wishes of our buddy Ted Meeker, who had kept the boat in his yard over the weekend. Our goal was to get the remaining thirty miles down the Missouri River, through a lock in the Mississippi, and most of the two hundred miles down to the mouth of the Ohio before nightfall. That was a tall order.

We blew down to the confluence in short order, and I reflected that Little Sadie had made the first leg of the trip, the long 1,846 miles down the Missouri River from put-in in Montana. What a fine boat, more than equal to the task.

We immediately pulled across into a canal leading to the Chain of Rocks lock. The Chain of Rocks is a spot where the Mississippi River drops over four feet, over a rocky ledge. I wonder at how Samuel Clements and other steamboat pilots back in the nineteenth century were ever able to go up and down at that spot. But they somehow did. Now the towboats and "pleasure craft" step down through the lock.

A lock, as you may know, is an ingenious mechanism consisting of a huge concrete box (200'x600' or 200'x1200', typically) with pairs of huge doors at both ends. Water level in the box is adjusted to your height, you motor in and tie off to a large floating cylinder (bollard) recessed in the wall, water is pumped in or out to the level of the river at the other end, those gates open, and you motor on out.

The problem is that you might wait hours to get through a lock because of the volume of towboat traffic. We were now seeing a cluster of them waiting to "lock through", and in general a great increase in barge movement from what we saw on the Missouri.

David and I had read up on the correct procedure to follow, so when our turn came we motored in, tied up to a bollard with not too much lost motion, held there until the water was pumped down, and motored out when the gates at the downstream end opened. But, the wait had cost us three hours. We went downriver past St. Louis, getting a view of the Arch that not too many see. I was reminded that when I lived in St. Louis we thought of this Gateway to the American West as a grand croquet wicket.

When we refueled at Hoppe's Marine Service that afternoon, we were told that we wouldn't get anywhere near our objective in the Cape Girardeau area that day, but could motor into the mouth of the small Kaskaskia River a few dozen miles down on the Illinois side, radio the lock master at the lock there, and get his permission to tie up there. We did and cooked supper and had a quiet night there.

On the way into that quiet river, however, we heard a loud BANG on the side of the hull. Then we saw a sizable fish fly out of the water in front of us, and then another. We had been warned about the flying Asian Carp, which hang out in slack water and do jump out of the water, especially when excited by boat motors. We saw a dead carp on the concrete structure where we tied up, and it may have jumped there -- four feet above the water level. These fish grow to over two feet long and are stocky, so when one jumps up and slams your boat, it is attention-getting. They have been known to jump into boats, injure people on impact, even knock people out of their boats.

Day 38. The next morning we motored out of the Kaskaskia and ran at a rapid 30 mph down the Mississippi. We had to get down that stretch, up the Ohio River through two locks to the Paducah, Kentucky area, south up the Cumberland River to a lock, be lifted up into Barkley Lake, and find our destination, Green Turtle Bay Marina, before dark. Getting underway at 7:00 gave us 14 hours to make 210 miles and three locks. It seemed manageable, but a tall order. With all our spare gas cans full, we felt we had fuel enough to make it (there being no fuel short of GTB Marina).

The Mississippi was a bigger river than the Missouri, and the channel was wide and deep, so though there were frequent towboats encountered, we were not held up. The morning was calm, cool, and somewhat foggy. We made the 120 miles to the mouth of the Ohio before noon, and started up that river at Cairo, Illinois.

The last time I had seen that river scene was in August, 1965, when my brother Al and I carried out my father's last wishes. Being a lifelong riverman, he had expressed the desire to have, after his death, his ashes sprinkled over the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. So Al and I did that, from the platform aside the pilot house of one of the largest towboats in the fleet of the barge line Pop had been running at that time.

Today, though, David and I were on another mission, and problems were now beginning. We were held up three hours getting up through the first Ohio River lock just above Cairo. We motored on eastward, feeling a little anxious about gas and daylight. We lost nearly five hours waiting to lock through the second one, and by then the sun was moving down in the West. We slammed upriver to the Cumberland River, and started motoring the 30 miles up it as dusk came and went. This was a very narrow, winding river, with nothing but trees lining it and scarcely ever any sign of civilization. It was dark. We had to get to our destination, because there was absolutely no place to tie off out of the channel. If we were sitting along the bank, a towboat pushing barges might never even know that he had run over us. We did know that small towboats did push small tows up and down the Cumberland.

I had never intended to do any boating in the dark. But, I had months before responded to an ad in Boating magazine for a four-million-candlepower (that's bright) hand-held spotlight, just because I thought it would be good to have. It was. We proceeded cautiously up the river, one of us sweeping the beam from one bank to the other, to show the pilot where to go, and to spot any buoys marking where the channel narrowed to go around an obstruction. This went on for a while until we rounded a turn and found a strange large expanse of lights in the river ahead. Soon we determined that it was a towboat pushing barges ahead of us upriver. Since it was generally too narrow to pass, we radioed the captain and established that we would just motor along and safely follow him to the lock and dam at Barkley Lake. It was slow. We had a beer. After an hour we did the math and decided that at 3.5 mph it would be long after daylight before this flotilla made that destination.

At the next straight stretch we radioed thanks and adios to the towboat and moved on by, into the blackness. We pushed along at the fastest prudent speed, about 7 mph, with David at the helm and me trying to do the best job I could showing where the banks were going and scanning for buoys. This was a bit surreal. Remember in "Apocolypse Now" when they were sneaking Martin Sheen up the narrow winding river in darkness, on his mission to track down the renegade Brando? It was like that. Mile after endless mile, for hours.

We did, of course, arrive at the pool below the dam eventually, and the lockmistress got us through in under an hour. It was a tall lift to the lake, and David thought being down in that dark box of water with glaring spotlights all over the top was kind of creepy, and I had to agree.

Then we motored out into Barkley Lake and I realized that I knew only that the marina was in a little bay a mile up the lake from the dam. But it was dark and we didn't know what that really meant. Fortunately David thought we should go in the direction a down-bound towboat was coming from. We did that, and following contours on the chart on the GPS we did see some kind of a bay to the right, about a mile up. We made our way in there, nearly going aground, and saw a sign at the narrow entrance. We were too tired to be jubilant, but we were greatly relieved, to shine the light over there and make out GTB etc. I did know where our assigned slip was, so we eased in, tied up, shook hands, and sat back with a beer. At 2:15 in the morning.

Day 39. This day was an epilogue to the voyage we had done from Kansas City to Paducah. However, even though the adventure had been wrapped up, the entertainment had not quite. On the map I had seen that an interstate (I-24?) went northeast across Kentucky to a short distance south of Louisville, where I intended to drive to visit friends and drop David off at the airport.

We bounced out of the boat fairly early, rented a car in Paducah, and headed east. I was driving, with too little sleep, and we were playing with the Sirius satellite radio. We made good time along I-24, not paying attention to how the mileage to Nashville was steadily coming down. When we pulled into a rest area and found that we were just into Tennessee, we knew something had gone awry. The map there demonstrated that I-24 forked off right after Paducah from some turnpike that went to Louisville, and we were now entirely across the state from our destination.

This rookie blunder added an hour and a half to the trip, but fortunately we had a cushion and were able to get David to the airport in good time. He went to his plane back to Denver, and I went off to find my Louisville friends whom I had not seen for nearly a half-century. Looking back at the challenges David and I had worked through, and particularly the previous night's entertainment, all that my tired brain could dredge up was: All's well that ends well. We had had a fine and memorable time.

Day 34 thru Day 36

Day 34. In the morning David and I met Chris at the Old Dutch Hotel and had an interview over coffee, for her planned article in the Washington Missourian. She was smart and pleasant and it was a good meeting, also involving talk about the evolution of the book business, with which we had all been involved. After we left the hotel, Chris took some promo shots of us and we cast off and headed downriver. The article is pretty accurate and very well-written, and can be seen at www.emissourian.com, under the Features, People tab. I'm too apple-techno-challenged to be able to copy the link here, and I'm okay with that. (link to article)

We had a good run to St. Charles, MO where we were met by a new friend, Ted Meeker. I did my high school years at a nearby military academy, Western M. A. in Alton, IL. The school is long gone, but the alumni population is pretty close-knit and involved. You get that way when you spend four years studying and marching around and scrubbing floors and playing sports and living 24/7 side-by-side. A very fine experience.

So I never knew Ted, who graduated a few years after me, but he contacted me out of the blue and offered to help my trip any way he could. And he did. Like Kansas City and a lot of other places, the St. Louis area is absolutely devoid of any accommodation for pleasure boating on the rivers -- a huge problem for me needing to leave the boat safely for the weekend. Ted rented a boat trailer, hauled the boat out and parked it in his side yard, and took us to the boat shop to get my new prop, and to the rent-car place. What a guy.

Another WMA alum who has been a friend a long time, John Salter, got us a deal on a room at the prestigious Missouri Athletic Club in downtown St. Louis. John's take on my river-rat appearance: "about an hour shy of Homeless". Anyway, John and classmate Bill Kaune rounded up a dinner party of about eight WMA folks and John's wife on short notice to celebrate our passing through. Great fun. Okay here are some pictures.

Day 35. David went off sight-seeing for the day, and I went visiting. I saw my step-sister Christy for the first time in over fifty years, though in recent times we had been phoning and emailing. A very satisfying visit with her and her husband Jim.

I visited my dad's best friend in life, who worked with him for decades in the river business and succeeded my dad as president of Federal Barge Lines after my dad's death. Pete Fanchi is 99 years old and I have enjoyed seeing him and his wife Rose many times in recent years. I then had a good visit over dinner with Rose and their son Pete and daughter Karen and their spouses. After dinner I made my way back downtown to the MAC, taking an early-evening tour down memory lane, cruising a couple of neighborhoods where I had lived. It's always an odd exercise. Nothing has changed, but everything has changed. I don't know why I do that.

Day 36. David went off sightseeing again (getting an early jump on the line for going up in the Arch) and I picked up Ted Meeker and we went to Edwardsville, IL to see my good buddy Conrad Kirby. For quite a number of years Conrad has been the driving force behind a renewed interest in WMA by the far-flung alumni. He established a website, published a newsletter for several years, maintains the database of contact information, and is the information "hub", broadcasting information on alums that comes to him. Conrad has been slowed down by two bouts with cancer, so now I make a point to run out to E'ville whenever in the area. A nice visit with Conrad and Sharon, as always.

Ted and I ran back, picked up David, grabbed a pile of BBQ and beer, and made it back to his house in St. Charles in time for yet another WMA gathering. Most of the same guys, but also with my good friends Darryl and Fran Slater and Joe and Chris Lange. After a fine evening of catching up and encouraging each other to make the class of '63's fiftieth reunion next spring in New Mexico, we went our separate ways. Ted and his wife Geri had been impeccable hosts.

I totally turned my back on the WMA connection for the first 25 years after graduation (for no good reason, just lack of effort), but since the 25th reunion I have recognized that these guys are among my closest and most valued friends. They certainly gave David and me a memorable weekend in St. Louis.

Day 29 thru Day 33

Across the Wide (state of) Missouri

Day 29. After coffee David and I went up the road to the hilltop behind where Little Sadie was tied off, at the edge of Sibley, MO. We were delighted to find the wonderfully restored Fort Osage, perched on the bluff overlooking the river.

We toured the fort, and learned a lot about the fort's history from the storekeeper, Mike Duane.

Fort Osage was the westernmost of several forts built along inland rivers in the early nineteenth century. This one was intended as a deterrent to the possible invasion up the river by the British, with whom we were in a struggle for possession of much of what became the western states. Also it was a busy trading post to support the large local Osage Indian tribe, to develop them as allies. When we finished the tour, Joe Phillips, another staff member at the fort, gave us a ride back to the boat in his utility vehicle, and shortly we were underway.

By early afternoon we were in Waverly, MO, where we tied off and went up the hill into town to find lunch and ice. After we ate in the grocery/deli, as we were checking out with our 40 lbs of ice, out of the blue a local fellow, Shawn Russell, offered to take us to the boat in his golf cart. Waverly was one of many spots displaying their connection to the Lewis and Clark connection, all the way along the Missouri River.

Another unfortunate display all down the river was the sunken barge. We have seen many battered barges up against the bank, left for the ages. Apparently when a barge is damaged (usually in a flood) its owner has no responsibility to remove it, so it becomes a planter, slowly filling with mud and rusting into the river.

In early evening we tied off to the bank below the city park at Glasgow, clambered up the hill and walked to town looking for a place to eat. Things close up early on a Sunday in Glasgow, however, so we had a good walk around town and went back and cooked supper on the boat. Glasgow is a pleasant little river town, with very old and interesting architecture.

Day 30. After coffee we set out on a fast run 55 miles to Cooper's Landing, an oasis on the river near Columbia, MO which is now the only place to gas up on the water between Omaha and Alton, IL on the Mississippi River. Anywhere else you are hauling gas cans up Main Street. We were starting to see more topography along the river, including the first view of limestone bluffs, a feature of many areas in Missouri.

We found a good spot to tie off at the dock at Cooper's mid-day And settled in for a two-night stay. We wanted to get into Columbia for dinner that evening, and Dale Davis volunteered to take us the 10-15 miles and bring us back. A totally nice fellow who lives in Florida half the year and at Cooper's half the year.

Day 31. This was a badly needed layover day. Cooper's is a campground, a small marina, a store, a cafe, a live entertainment venue, a gas station, a bag-ice dispensary, toilets, shower, laundry -- pretty much everything the river traveler could want.

I did some blogging, ordered a spare prop (to replace one I had misplaced) to be shipped to a shop in St. Louis, did puttering around on the boat, and planned the upcoming visit to folks in St. Louis. David got a ride with Brian, an employee at Cooper's, to Columbia and had a good afternoon of sightseeing.

Behind Little Sadie at the dock was a reconditioned 1930s gambling boat, kept here all summer by a couple of U. Of Mo. Professors. A local friend of theirs, Billy Ray Duvall, gave us a tour of it. All the interior was original brass, woodwork, etc. and the boat, with original wooden hull, had been dropped into a custom steel hull, so now was very seaworthy. A diesel engine turns the paddle-wheel, and that is its actual propulsion. I want one!

I had a nice visit with Mike Cooper, the owner, and passed on paddler David Miller's best regards to him. "Coop" was not doing well at the moment, having been bitten by, he suspected, a Brown Recluse spider the night before last. Coop runs a great operation, providing much needed services, and we appreciated the stay. His staff, including Max (a Klinkit from south of Juneau), Dale, Brian, Vanessa, Melissa and others, were interesting and fun to do business with. After a great fried catfish dinner, we visited with locals, listened to more fireworks, and turned in. Again, because of the protracted dry spell in the Midwest, we had no mosquito problem. Just heat.

Day 32. David by this time has become a seasoned Missouri river pilot, and we made a fast run the 70 miles to Hermann, MO. Along the way we passed a beach party along a sand bar near the mouth of the Osage River, where easily fifty boats were beached and lots of folks were celebrating July 4th.

We were now in a stretch of days with 100+ temperatures, so we tied up the boat at the public dock at Hermann and fled to a motel. The Harbor Haus was very adequate, convenient, and cheap. Hermann is a German settlement in an area known as the Missouri Rhineland, because it is allegedly reminiscent of the Rhine River valley. There are several wineries in the area, and we tried some local wines with dinner. They were odd but good. After dark the town celebrated Independence Day with a huge fireworks display over the river, attended by probably everyone in the county.

Day 33. In the morning we went out for coffee and enjoyed looking at the wonderful Victorian architecture around town. Again we had a calm morning on the water, so we motored downriver to Washington, MO. Like the day before, we tied off the boat at a public dock and ran for air conditioning. I noticed that Washington also has its share of lovely old buildings.

We stayed at the wonderfully restored Old Dutch Hotel. Jackie Schell, the manager, put us in touch with her sister Chris Stuckenschneider, who scheduled an interview for the next morning, for an article she planned to do in the Washington Missourian newspaper about our trip. Tomorrow would also complete the run across Missouri, and the beginning of a weekend stay in St. Louis, where I had several contacts to make.

Day 23 thru Day 28

The Tamed Missouri River, Finally

Day 23. Randy, my nephew from Michigan, arrived on Monday and we got him moved in on the boat after checking out of the hotel in Sioux City. We needed groceries and ice especially, so we took a cab to Walmart and loaded up. We gained some tips on how to get along with the channelized river from fellow boater Kevin and his group at the local riverside bar, had some supper, and went to the boat and bed.

 

Day 24. Stocking up on ice again, since South Dakota summer was in full swing, we pulled out into the river and began to see what a river with predictable channel and depth is like. What a wonderful difference! The Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) maintains a channel that is at least nine feet deep and typically about 300 feet wide, unless there is need to restrict it in a spot. The ACE channel follows strictly the way the river will naturally flow. It will pretty much always round a turn following the outer, or concave, bank and continue following that shore until the river turns the other way. Then the channel will naturally cross to the other bank and follow the curve around that way. The water thus follows the path of least resistance, going straight until it is forced to follow a curve.

 

So the ACE folks will dredge that channel if/where needed, and they have wing dams coming out from the shallow side of the river, to push the water over into the channel and keep it "flushed out" and flowing swiftly. Wing dams or dikes are walls of rocks running part-way across the river from the bank. We saw a few towboats hauling rock upstream for ACE, to repair the wing dams and retaining walls damaged by last year's flood.

 

Fortunately this year the water level is low enough that we could clearly see the wing dams, so were not likely to run over one and break the motor. The current at this point was going about six miles per hour, we estimated.

 

We found that using day marks on the shore and buoys in the water that guided crossings, we had little trouble staying in the channel, which varied from 12 to 25 feet deep. There was one scare in the afternoon when we found a snag -- a tree stuck on the bottom in the middle of the channel -- and had to work around it on both sides to find good water. There were but two surprises of this type, though, and otherwise the deep water was easy to follow. We tied off at a boat ramp in a recreation area featuring an outhouse (always a nice touch), had supper and turned in for a quiet night's sleep.

Day 25. We met Rich Porter in the morning when he launched his flat-bottom fishing boat, and discussed the river. He is a bow fisherman, hunting carp with a specialized bow and arrow. He said that the Asian carp, which become quite large, eat all the food on the bottom that is needed by the fry of other species, and are starving all the other fish out. So progressively the carp are taking over the Missouri River. We would hear more about the carp as the trip progressed.

As the day heated up we got underway, and made a fast run to Omaha, NE, pulling into the Dodge Park Marina there. I called and got instructions from the marina superintendent, Mark Smith, and we tied off in an open slip. It was about 105 degrees out, with several hours of daylight left. Then to my amazement, out of the blue Mark called me and asked if we were docked out in the open. Since we were, he went out of his way to drive over to where we were, find a covered slip we could occupy for the night, and help us move to it. Then he continued on his way home. One of the many kind and generous folks we have met along the river, taking the trouble to make life easier on river travelers.

 

We visited my niece Alice that evening, who made sure we were set up to take showers, and we went out for pizza with her and her friend JoAnn, then they dropped us off at the marina and we settled in. Randy found a garden hose and wetted himself down to cool off. It was very warm late into the night. I figured I had better just get used to it.

Day 26. We now had to get from Omaha (mile 630) to St. Joseph, MO (mile 450), with no likely source of gas between. Including four gas cans we thought that 68 gallons should be adequate, but were not yet sure about usage at different speeds.

 

We saw the sights of Omaha and then settled in for many miles of sameness -- the riparian strip always dominated by cottonwoods, blue heron the dominant bird on the river, with occasional cranes and one snowy egret, flat open country out beyond the riverside trees. From time to time modest wooded hills would stretch out to the west or east of us. We saw large new sand islands and dunes on shore, produced by last year's flood, which created dust storms when the wind blew.

 

There was very little settlement along the river, and what there was bore testament to the devastating flood of last year. Clusters of low-rent houses and outbuildings were nearly always empty, with windows and doors gone, or wracked out of shape or flattened. I was too slow with my camera, but my favorite was one intact residence whose riverside wall of windows was covered with plywood sheets. Across these was the instruction, spray-painted orange: NOT ABANDONED -- KEEP OUT A**HOLES.

We pushed through the middle of the day and afternoon, past the mouth of the Platte River (thoughts of Denver and home), past Nebraska City and on the left the Iowa-Missouri line. A new affliction that was to visit us often in the coming days was the black fly. Just those little guys, but their bites on our legs really hurt. So whoever was in the passenger seat would grab off baseball cap and slap around frequently, briskly, to clear them off the inside of the windshield and out of the cockpit area. Something to do on a slow day.

David Miller's book told us about a river camp called McAdams Landing at mile 548, which would be a good overnight stop about halfway to St. Joe. Miller had a nice visit with locals there, and we hoped to find a boat dock, some company, an outhouse, maybe some ice. We got there and there was nothing and no one, except an unoccupied new-looking travel-camper. The flood had taken out whatever facilities had existed, and in walking around it appeared that the buildings a bit upstream were not occupied. Where there had been a boat ramp had filled in with mud so there was barely room to beach the boat just clearing the fast flow of the channel. We decided to stay anyway.

 

As we were getting situated, tying off the boat and popping a beer in the terribly hot stillness, we were alarmed to see an upbound towboat approaching, on our side of the river. Fearing that his wake could wash us up onto the mud, we braced with paddle and boat hook as he came by. Just as he came abreast of our location, the pilot cut his speed drastically, and we held through moderate wash as he continued by. We were very relieved. Within a few minutes we went to battle stations again, as a downbound towboat came by. Happily, he also slowed as he passed, so we survived. Tying off in or near the channel is not recommended, but we didn't have much choice. We just hoped that there would be no traffic during the night.

 

Soon we were surprised and pleased to see a car pull in above us, and soon a fellow came over and hailed us. We went up and met Terry Gillespie, the new owner of this (previously Carl Iske's) property and a dentist from nearby Red Oak, Iowa. Terry had his camper-trailer here on the river and was looking forward to doing improvements to make it something of a river-traveler friendly camping park. Soon Ed Welte, the owner of the next-door residence we'd seen, showed up.

 

After getting our respective suppers out of the way, we went up to the (deliciously air-conditioned) trailer and drank coffee and visited with Ed and Terry until late, talking about the river, the flood, and the history of the place. I read them Miller's warm account of his stay there some seven years earlier. Ed gave us an update, saying that Bob McAdams was pretty elderly but now living in nearby Peru, NE. Ed had been to the funerals of three of the folks David Miller had visited, including Carl Iske, Sarabeth McAdams, and another gentleman. A thought-provoking note at the end of the evening.

Day 27. After coffee with Terry we shoved off early into a beautiful morning, happy for some cloud cover. At noon we pulled into tiny Rulo, NE for ice. We got that and great burgers at Wild Bill's Bar & Grill. A couple of farmers there told us about the desperate dry spell they were having, a theme I would hear often in the coming weeks. Wild Bill's was high up the hill, unlike the very large boarded-up Camp Rulo River Club, which went under the flood. On its sign was the offer FOR SALE $25000. I don't think they will get it.

With 60 lbs. of ice we pushed on toward St. Joe, adding fuel to the boat from our gas cans. Based on the authoritative Quimby's 2012 Cruising Guide, the Sunset Grill and River Towne Resort has gas and all services except maybe dancing girls. According to our binoculars shot as we came into St. Joe, they have yellow police tape and a KEEP OUT sign decorating the main building. My first clue had been that their phone was not in service. According to the Chamber of Commerce, they have been gone for some years, even before last year's flood. And the Chamber guy's suggestion was to go to the city boat ramp or someplace and get a cab to run us to a gas station. This was not looking good. We absolutely had to be full-up with gas now, since the next advertised source would be at Columbia, MO, some 280 miles downriver.

The ACE nav chart showed a St. Joseph Boating and Yacht Club a few miles south of town, so even though it was late afternoon, and their phone also was not in service, we decided to just go there and get whatever help was available (even if it was to call that cabbie). We motored down there and Whew! A boat dock, and a friendly guy coming down asking us where we're from and all that. At mile 444 the Club is alive and well.

 

Dick Lawson got us situated, and promptly drove us 2-3 miles to a gas station where we got enough gas to fill the boat's tank. Then we settled in with Dick, his wife Susie, and fellow club board member Bruce Steltenpohl in a shady fan-cooled spot under their (new, up on stilts) clubhouse and shared some ice-cold beers and traded stories.

 

As soon as I wondered aloud about having enough gas for the next leg, Bruce promptly took us to the gas station again so we got all the gas cans filled. Then we continued trading stories 'til midnight with these lovely folks and other arrivals at the club.

Day 28. We were awakened at first light by Bruce, who brought us breakfast sandwiches from McDonald's on his way out fishing with Dick. We got going, took pictures, bid goodbyes and thanks to Susie, and headed south. After a couple of miles we passed Bruce and Dick with a Thanks Again and a Like Your Hat, and motored on.

 

Today was the day that we were to arrive in Kansas City, where the next Executive Officer relieving process would occur. Randy would fly out to Michigan, and the new XO -- my dear old fellow graduate of the book business, David Youngstrom -- would fly in from Denver. Now, Kansas City is pretty completely riverboater-unfriendly.

 

Independent research by Randy, David and me had found no good place to tie off the boat and do the switch. Happily, David had early in the day made his way downtown, rented a bicycle, and done a several-mile reconnaissance of the waterfront, and had selected a state park boat ramp below downtown to guide us to.

By early afternoon the cab arrived with David and several bags of ice, Randy and I wished each other safe trips, and David and I headed out. We wanted to "get the hell outa Dodge" well before dark, being uncomfortable with tying off in a big city waterfront.

 

Thirty miles downriver we pulled in by the boat ramp at Sibley, MO, just below what a local fellow reported as not-to-miss, the venerable Fort Osage.

We visited a bit with local young folks up at the ramp's parking lot. It was Saturday, June 30th, and July 4th festivities were getting underway. We hoped that this contact, since the boat was somewhat hidden below the bushes, would make it less likely that an errant tossed cherry bomb would explode amongst the gas cans on our bow later in the evening. We cooked and ate a lovely Pad Thai supper, washed dishes and settled in for the night.

Then yet another perfectly generous local person, we dubbed "camo guy", came slipping and sliding down the bank, not spilling a drop of his beer, and offered to go fetch, or take us to town for, practically anything we could think of. We thanked him and said we were pretty well equipped. But we learned that he was there because he and his buddies were about to launch and go Bullfrogging. We didn't know about that.

In Bullfrogging, you go toward the shore in your boat and shine a very bright light, hopefully blinding and stopping short an unwary bullfrog. While he is mesmerized, according to camo guy, you jab him between the eyes with a gig, some kind of a long-handled harpoon. Then, after some more labor-intensive steps, someone eats the frog's legs. The economics of Bullfrogging are suspect, we think. We got a good night's sleep, despite the boys just upstream doing Bullfrogging, as well as fireworks, bugs, rain, train, and Sibley power plant noise and lights.

It was the end of June, a full month since I left home. I had traveled over 1500 miles down the "Big Muddy" Missouri River, leaving a bit over 300 miles to the confluence with the Mighty Mississippi. Randy and I had had a very interesting and educational week. It was not as intense as the previous three weeks had been, but I welcomed that change. The next ten days with David promised to be interesting, and satisfying, in very different ways.