Break Time

On Wednesday, September 23, we pulled into Port Charles Marine 14 days after our departure from St. Paul. We covered 625 miles in 13 cruising days. Thus our little "side trip" to St. Paul is essentially complete. We are a couple of miles upstream of the marina in Grafton, IL where we stayed last August when we were in this area, and are positioned to officially begin the final phase of our Great Loop after a short break.

On Tuesday, September 29, we will leave the boat to drive out to Washington, D.C., with an intermediate stop in Annapolis, MD. Sunday, October 4, is the wedding of our nephew Evan Wojtowicz (son of Lon's younger brother Guy and wife Jody) and Katie Bott at the historic Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington. We are looking forward to seeing family and to the opportunity to revisit places where we lived in our younger days. We should be back on the boat the evening of October 6. We will use October 7 to re-stock groceries and otherwise prepare C.A.R.I.B. II for departure on October 8, weather permitting.

Our marina is in the middle of farm country--we have to drive about 10 miles before we reach the first building that isn't associated with a farm.

This is our current neighborhood

Although a bit isolated from commercial and residential neighborhoods, there are other marinas immediately adjacent to ours, including a yacht club with a restaurant and pool that we are allowed to use. Port Charles has all the amenities a transient boater could wish for. We are taking advantage of this "wedding break" and the marina's good reputation for maintenance to complete a few minor deferred maintenance items while the boat is here. The only downsides to the marina are that the wifi is flaky and we are in a dead zone for Verizon phone coverage. There are a few other "Looper" boats here, so we are not socially isolated!

On September 25 we had lunch with Dennis and Shara Taylor, friends from our home port marina in St. Petersburg, "The Harborage". Dennis and Shara have a home in the St. Louis suburb of Chesterfield where they spend their summers. They took us to eat at a local institution--"Fast Eddie's Bon-Air" bar and restaurant in Alton, IL. It is famous for cheap eats (1/2 pound cheeseburgers are $2.39) and the volume of alcoholic drinks that it serves. The first bar to inhabit the site was started by Anheuser-Busch in 1921. A second owner had it for 50 years before "Fast Eddie" bought the restaurant in 1981 and expanded it greatly (sadly, Eddie Sholar, Sr. committed suicide in July 2015.) There are unconfirmed claims that the place is the #1 volume bar in the world. Whether that is true or false, the place certainly had character, a steady stream of customers, and decent food. (We do not have first-hand knowledge about the quality of the alcohol.)

Dennis and Shara Taylor, Pat, and Lon at
lunch in "Fast Eddie's Bon-Air"

Fast Eddies Bon-Air

We are not quite sure what to expect from our first few days south of St. Louis. There is only one marina in the approximately 275-300 miles between the river locks at St. Louis and the "Land Between the Lakes" in Kentucky/Tennessee. The Ohio River has two very busy locks that could go quickly for us--or not--depending on our timing and the lockmasters at the respective locks.  For certain we will be anchoring out at least three nights and will hopefully have a Verizon signal so that we can maintain our phone and internet connections. Interesting times ahead!

Unwelcome Visitors

Unwelcome visitors on a boat are pretty much like unwelcome visitors anywhere else: they arrive uninvited, they're difficult to get rid of, and they leave a big mess behind them when they go. In the last three days we've had two experiences with unwelcome visitors.

On Sunday evening, September 20, mayflies started landing on the boat as we were docked in the Keokuk (IA) Yacht Club. It seemed late in the year for them to be hatching, but apparently they can have several hatches in a season. And although we are glad that they are an indication of clean water, they don't live long and their little carcasses pile up quickly.

Mayflies start to gather: A harbinger on Sunday
 evening of things to come

We woke up Monday morning to a boat covered in mayflies. Yuck! Lon tried to use the soft cobweb brush to move them along, but they kept re-landing on the boat. We finally gave up and got underway, hoping that the breeze from cruising would remove them, but they hung on for all they were worth. More than a few got crunched underfoot on the deck, and the black residue they left behind is going to require more than just simple scrubbing with a deck brush.

The view that greeted us
 Monday morning when
we opened the window shades

The view of the back of the boat

Our second experience with an unwelcome guest occurred today, Tuesday, September 22, soon after we left Lock 22 just south of Hannibal, Missouri. While on the bow of the boat straightening lines I heard a "thunk" and thought that CARIB had hit a small piece of debris in the water. A few minutes later I started walking down the deck on the starboard (right) side of the boat and discovered the true source of the noise-an Asian carp had jumped aboard.

The carp that jumped aboard CARIB, the net used to get
 it back in the water, and the slimy blood left behind

Unwelcome visitors aside, we've had some very nice days on the water and on land. On Sunday, September 20, we left Burlington, IA after an early morning fog lifted. Thirty-eight miles with no locks made for a relatively short cruising day to Keokuk, IA, and after a quick bike trip to the grocery store, we spent the remainder of the day and evening simply relaxing.

Sunday morning fog on the Mississippi

On Monday morning, September 21, we endeavored to ignore the mayflies as we cruised to Quincy, IL. In this stretch of the river we noticed a lot of duck blinds. Duck hunting season started September 1, but the recent weather--with its clear, cloudless skies--cannot be pleasing the hunters very much.

Working on a duck blind in shallow water

When we docked in Quincy, Illinois for the evening the first order of business was to remove mayflies-both alive and dead-and scrub the deck. The second order of business was to walk up the hill into historic Quincy. The city was a major transportation hub in the 1800's and the evidence of that wealth can be seen in the large and beautiful Victorian homes along Maine Street east of downtown. The downtown itself has many older buildings with the usual plethora of antique shops. Very quiet. The city has over 3,600 buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places, but the gaps left by buildings that didn't survive gave the city a somewhat "disjointed" feel.

A street in downtown Quincy bordering
Washington Park

Victorian at the corner of 16th and Maine

Nice as the houses are, Lon is uncertain why
National Geographic named
the intersection of 16th and Maine as one of the
10 most architecturally significant in the US

During our cruise today we were able to stop in Hannibal, Missouri for an hour or so. When we went upriver last August the Hannibal Boat Harbor was too shallow for us to dock. The water is up a little higher now, so we had all of 6" under our keel today. Hannibal is truly the mother of all "Mark Twain was here" sites, as it was the boyhood home of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. Many of his friends and neighbors were the inspiration for the characters in his "Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" books. 

The smaller white house to the right is the
boyhood home of Mark Twain

Main Street, Hannibal, MO

Finally found an ice cream parlor, but
it was too early in the morning to want
to stop

Lon by the house of the boy who was the inspiration
for the character of Huckleberry Finn

Pat whitewashes "Tom Sawyer's Fence"

We had a bit of fun with the "earthcam" that has been installed on "Becky Thatcher's House". We called Pat's parents with the web address for the camera and they were able to see us in "real time" during our visit.

We are settled in for the evening at a very nice marina in an out-of-the-way spot along the river opposite Louisiana, Missouri. One more day of cruising and we will reach a marina near St. Charles, Missouri, where we will dock the boat for a couple of weeks. This will enable us to take care of some minor maintenance, visit boating friends in the St. Louis area, and, next week, drive to Washington, D.C. for the October 4 wedding of nephew Evan Wojtowicz.

A peaceful respite in Two Rivers Marina

Lock Heaven

Description of "Lock Heaven": Two days, four locks, no waiting. There is nothing better than hearing from a lock master, "Keep coming, we'll have the lock ready for you." We heard that particular phrase twice on Thursday, September 17, as we made our way from Bettendorf, IA to Muscatine, IA and again today, September 19, as we cruised from Muscatine to Burlington, IA. On Thursday our speed through the locks allowed us to dock in Muscatine just before thunderstorms hit.

CARIB II docked in Muscatine. The slips aren't quite
meant for boats of our size, but they worked well enough.
And it was free--with power!

We had stopped in Muscatine last August for a single night, but it was after a long and challenging cruising day so we didn't have time to do much sightseeing. This time was different. After the midday storm on Thursday moved out we had time to walk around. In the early 20th century Muscatine became known as the "Pearl Button Capitol of the World" due to being the world's largest producer of freshwater pearl buttons. Freshwater mussels were harvested from the Mississippi River and the buttons punched from the shells. The city has a Pearl Button Museum, but we decided to pass on that bit of excitement.

Lon by the bronze statue of a mussel
harvester on the Muscatine
 waterfront

Name placard for the mussel harvester statue

Like any self-respecting historic river town Muscatine has its share of old buildings, some going back to the mid-1800's and in various stages of repair (or disrepair).

Historic downtown Muscatine

A pretty impressive county courthouse,
 and Civil War memorial to the dead
 of Muscatine county

Muscatine can also claim that "Mark Twain lived here", which is the Mississippi River town equivalent of the claims about George Washington that were so prevalent on the East Coast. Twain--then known by his real name, Samuel Clemens--lived in the city briefly in 1855 while working for the local newspaper that was partly owned by his brother Orion.

Friday, September 18, was a weather day for us in Muscatine. The storms of Thursday continued intermittently on Friday, so it was no day to be out cruising. One of the storms on Thursday had hail, and we cringed every time we heard the clunks on the front windshield. Fortunately it didn't last long and didn't damage anything on the boat. But we did find out that Zipper is no fan of thunder and heavy rainfall. Those noises sent her scurrying to the aft stateroom, where she 'hunkered down" on the floor at the foot of the bed. Aside from that she is doing great!

Zipper trying to escape the noises of the storms

It was back to cruising in the sunshine today. One of the towns we passed was Oquawka, IL. I thought the name was cool and wanted to use it in the blog "just because". Little did I know that we were passing an "Offbeat Tourist Attraction" as listed in RoadsideAmerica.com. Oquawka is the home of a memorial grave marker to Norma Jean, an elephant with the Clark and Walters Circus, who died on July 17, 1972 after being struck by lightning in Oquawka's town square. Buried where she fell, the limestone tombstone was erected after a fundraising drive by a local pharmacist. Apparently "Elephant Killed by Lightning" signs all over town direct tourists to the memorial site, and a festival each August celebrates Norma Jean. Who knew what we were bypassing?

The Oquawka, IL waterfront. Norma Jean, where are you?

Well, we may have missed Norma Jean, but we did arrive in Burlington in the early afternoon, which gave us time for a leisurely lunch outdoors on the patio at the Drake restaurant. Burlington is still as quiet this year as we noted last year, so we are simply relaxing this evening. Tomorrow should be an easy day--no locks on our way to Keokuk, our last stop in Iowa.

The Captain relaxes. . . 

 . . . and so does the first mate

Our view from the slip in Bluff Harbor Marina

Cruise Ships and Snorkeling--But It's Not the Caribbean

Our travel on Tuesday, September 15, took us from Dubuque to the town of Clinton, IA. As we left the Port of Dubuque we passed the American Eagle, a brand new cruise ship that made its debut on the Mississippi River this past May. It can carry 150 passengers in luxury, but luxury doesn't come cheap--the price for a 7-night cruise on the upper Mississippi starts at $4,450 pp double occupancy.

The American Eagle docked just outside of the
Port of Dubuque

Clinton was as we remembered it from last year--nice marina, good restaurant on site, and convenient to a grocery store. The only problem with the marina was the large amount of grass and algae around the docks. Given our problems with the stuff over the past few days we were not happy to see that. 

Our orange fender above a sea
 of green grass and algae
in Clinton

Our concerns were justified this morning (September 16) when the engine temperature began to rise higher than normal soon after we left the marina at Clinton. As with every other time this has happened we pulled out of the navigation channel to anchor. There was little to no vegetation in the raw water strainer, which meant that it was likely the obstruction was at the opening in the boat hull. Not an easy thing to check, but Lon put on his snorkeling gear, hooked up a tether so he wouldn't float away, and went into the water. Happily, his efforts were worth it, as he was able to clear the blocked through-hull and get the engine operating normally again.

The Caribbean it's not--Lon "snorkels for grass" in water where the
visibility was less than a foot

While we were anchored we were passed by yet another cruise ship, the American Queen. She is the largest steamboat ever built and the only authentic overnight paddlewheel steamboat in America.

The American Queen cruises toward Clinton
as she passes CARIB II at anchor

Our final destination for today was the Isle of Capri casino marina in Bettendorf, Iowa, but we made an intermediate stop in the town of LeClaire, IA. The primary purpose of the stop was to get diesel for the boat at an absolutely unbelievable price--$2/gallon.  

This is what a "boating angel" looks like. Fred Boley
brought his tanker truck to the LeClaire courtesy dock and
filled our fuel tanks for a price that we are not likely to
 see again. Thank you Fred!!!!!!

We discovered that LeClaire had more to offer than just cheap fuel, so we stayed for lunch and a little bit of sightseeing. Anyone familiar with the History Channel's "American Pickers" program will know that one of the hosts is from LeClaire and has his business base there. We didn't have a clue about the show, but it apparently is responsible for bringing lots of tourists to town. It was a cute, clean town with some very nice old architecture--and lots of antique stores. LeClaire is also where Buffalo Bill Cody was born in 1846, so we stopped by the museum that bears his name.

LeClair streetscape

The Buffalo Bill museum. In addition
to Buffalo Bill memorabilia, the
museum has sections devoted to
general regional history

The Lone Star wooden towboat in the Buffalo Bill
Museum. Built in 1890, the Lone Star operated until
1967 and was the last operating stern wheel towboat
on the Mississippi

We have another relatively short cruise tomorrow--about 30 miles to Muscatine, IA. The trip includes 2 locks, so we'll either be in Muscatine by lunchtime if we're lucky at the locks, or for dinner if we're not.

Goodbye Minnesota, Hello Iowa

On Saturday, September 12, with 60+ miles and 3 locks to cover to get to Lansing, IA, we'd hoped to get an early start from Winona, MN. Mother Nature had other plans. Cool air temperatures and warm water temperatures had combined to create a layer of fog over the river. I suppose we could have started cruising anyway and used our radar, but it was much less stressful to simply relax, enjoy another cup of coffee, and let the sun take care of the problem in relatively short order.

CARIB II on the Winona, MN riverfront. The sun
was already starting to burn off the fog by this point.

Aside from a few clouds and a cool breeze on Friday, September 11, we've had no complaints about the weather so far. It's been absolutely wonderful for cruising, and the bluffs of the Upper Mississippi are every bit as beautiful as we remember from last year.

Water, bluffs, and sunshine

We have been fortunate to get through locks (11 so far) without extensive waiting, "extensive" to us being more than an hour. Some of that has been luck, but in a couple of cases we made our own luck by speeding up to get to the locks before commercial tows. A tow with many barges can take 2-3 hours to transit a lock, so for us it is worth a few gallons of fuel if we can avoid a wait of that length.

This greeted us when we left Lock 9. We had to
exit by driving through the gap between the lock wall (the
yellow bit) and the barges

Our stops in the Iowa river towns to this point have been very different experiences than they were last year. On September 12 we were in Lansing, IA; on the 13th we were in Guttenberg, IA; and today-the 14th-we are in Dubuque, IA. All are towns where we previously stayed, so this time around we haven't felt the need to spend time sightseeing after we dock for the day. Of course, it could also be that the social opportunities with other boaters that have presented themselves in each of these places means that we haven't really had time for sightseeing even if we'd wanted to.

The end-of-season dock party at the Lansing Municipal
Marina. Very friendly folks invited us to join the festivities.

Three boating couples from the Dubuque area invited
 us to share docktails with them in Guttenberg

New "Loopers"-as of 7 days ago-Wes Parker and Becky
Holmes join us on CARIB II in Dubuque with . . .

. . . Loopers-in-Progress Becky and Mark Mather of Guttenberg, IA.
 Becky and Mark have completed about 3200 miles of the
Great Loop, but are not currently cruising.

Lest anyone think it's all fun and games, we have been dealing with occasional engine overheating the past few days due to a proliferation of algae and grass in this part of the river. The vegetation gets sucked into the raw water intake for the engine, clogging filters and reducing water flow. It doesn't take long for the overheat alarm to start sounding. If there's a silver lining, it's the anchoring practice we've been getting (twice so far) so that Lon can clean out the offending green stuff.

Grass and algae hanging out together. The light green
stuff on top is the algae

Summer seems to be back, at least for a few days, and we will enjoy it as we head tomorrow to Clinton, IA.

Casting Off

At 7:30 a.m. on a damp and gloomy September 10, we cast off our lines at the St. Paul Yacht Club and turned C.A.R.I.B. II south to begin our journey back to Florida and complete the Great Loop. Several of our wonderful dock neighbors were on hand to bid us "Bon Voyage." Although we are excited to be cruising again, the departure was mixed with some sadness at having to leave family and friends after a wonderful summer.

Miller Dock neighbors Ron Hilson, Barb Hilson,
Barb Hakke

Dock neighbor Truman Howell
on Trubador

Leaving the Robert Street Bridge and St. Paul behind

The gloomy weather did not last long. By the time we reached Hastings, MN--a bit over 2 hours into the trip--the sun started to make an appearance. The remainder of the day was glorious.

Back to first mate duties . . . 

Captain Lon on duty

We had an additional crew member for these first two days of the trip: we were joined by sister-in-law Brenda Clausen, wife of Pat's brother Eric. We are always happy to have company, and of course, we are always happy to put that company to work.

Brenda at the helm

Brenda handles the stern line
in the lock

Our destination for September 10 was the town of Lake City, MN. The town lies about halfway down Lake Pepin, which is the widest naturally occurring part of the Mississippi River. It's a cute little town and, as one might expect, has a focus on water activities. Fun fact: Lake City is the officially recognized "Birthplace of Waterskiing." In 1922 eighteen-year old Ralph Samuelson strapped on two boards with steam-bent ends and was towed by his brother on Lake Pepin--and a new sport was born.

Lake City, birthplace of waterskiing

Lake Pepin is a sailboat mecca

A beautiful sunset in Lake City

CARIB II at rest after a 66 mile, 2 lock cruising day

Our cruise today, September 11, was scenic, although a bit chilly. During the day we encountered a group of canoeists from Pat's alma mater, Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Sixteen students, two professors, and two guides are travelling the Mississippi River in four Voyageur style canoes. The participants in the "Augsburg College River Semester" started in St. Paul on September 1 and will be canoeing much of the length of the Mississippi River before returning to Minnesota in December. Go Auggies!

Intrepid Augsburg students paddling south

We are in Winona, MN for the evening. We stopped in Winona on our way north last year, so have not spent much time sightseeing this time. Pat's brother Eric drove down to have dinner with us and--horrors!--drove away afterwards with our much-valued crew member Brenda.

We are enjoying the additional speed that travelling downstream provides. When we cruised "up" the Mississippi last fall, we were lucky to maintain a cruising speed of 7 mph. Now that we are travelling with the current, we are able to maintain a cruising speed of nearly 10 mph. It may not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference in the number of hours it takes to travel a given distance. In two days we have traveled the same distance that took us three days last fall. We have heard that when we get south of St. Louis the current will provide us with an even bigger push. By tomorrow evening we are hoping to have reached Iowa.