Small Town, Big Town

Tuesday (Aug. 26) was a very short cruising day for us--only 16 miles--and that turned out to be a good thing because we encountered a couple of delays. The first was due to weather. Thunderstorms were in the Clinton area until about mid-morning, and we weren't able to get underway until after 10 a.m. Our second delay came about 15 minutes into our cruise. When we were just a short distance from the first (and only) lock of the day, we got a very loud "engine overheat" warning. We pulled off the channel and were able to tie up to some tire-clad posts near the shore so that Lon could investigate. Fortunately, it turned out to be an easy fix--removing vegetation from the raw water intake of the engine cooling system. A quick lock through and two hours on the water brought us to the very small town of Sabula, Iowa for the evening.

Downtown Sabula has seen better days--
there wasn't much going on

This and the gas station
seemed to be the busiest
 places in town

Island City Marina was an OK place to
spend the evening

Abandoned storehouse(?) along the
waterfront near the harbor

We left Sabula rather early on Wednesday morning (Aug. 27) and had a beautiful cruising day to Dubuque, Iowa. We breezed through our one lock of the day, and did not see a single tow with barges all day. Other than a couple of fishing boats our only maritime company was paddlewheel tour boats.

Meeting "Twilight" as
 it heads downriver

The Spirit of Dubuque out
 for a day cruise

We have been enjoying the scenery during our river cruising, and it seems to be getting better the further north we go. There are lots of islands, and river bluffs make the occasional appearance. We have also seen quite a few white pelicans; they're beautiful in flight. According to one of the lock masters, the local fishermen aren't too thrilled to have the pelicans and cormorants as competition for the game fish--I'm not sure what kind of solution there can be to that particular problem.

River bluff country

Pelicans and cormorants have their own island

Sandy beach with a volleyball net--it must be one
of the local hangouts on weekends

Because we had been cruising for nine days straight--and the weather forecast for Thursday did not look good--we decided to take a "day off" and spend a couple of nights in Dubuque. The Port of Dubuque Marina is quite new and very nice, but it's nearly empty because they are a transient boater-only marina and apparently there aren't that many transient boaters out and about during the work week.  

CARIB II (left) and one other cruiser in the
Port of Dubuque Marina

The predicted all-day thunderstorms didn't materialize today, so we were able to spend time exploring Dubuque's attractions. We skipped the casino, but did visit the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium, which was located adjacent to the marina at the port.

Part of the National Mississippi River
Museum & Aquarium Campus

Lon "catfishing" at the museum

There's an alligator in Iowa!

The William M. Black steam-powered dredge boat.
Retired from service in 1973 because it was a fuel hog,
requiring large amounts of oil to generate steam

We also got on our bikes for a ride around downtown and a few of the surrounding neighborhoods. We partook of the cheap thrill of going up the side of a steep hill in an old funicular rail car. The Fenelon Place Elevator, 296 feet long and with a rise of 189 feet, claims to be the shortest and steepest railroad in the world. The current railway dates to 1893.

The view looking up from the rail car--
much easier than trying to cycle the hill

One car descends while another
comes up the hill

Dubuque is a fairly large river town, with a population somewhere between fifty and sixty thousand. Its neighborhoods have a large number of historic homes, many of them very large, which speaks to the wealth that must have existed here. Even today, Dubuque is apparently doing better economically than many other small cities.

A beautifully restored home . . . 

 . . . and one still looking for
a little TLC

Main Street Dubuque

The weather is still looking a bit unsettled for the next few days, but we think there may be some breaks tomorrow that will enable us to continue to our next proposed destination, Guttenberg, Iowa. As we do, Illinois will be left behind and Wisconsin will start to share the river with Iowa.