OCTOBER 2024 SUMMARY

The inland rivers are behind us!! Yay! 

The rivers were interesting in several ways.  There is always hype on the Looper blogs, etc,- tales of horror and difficulty.  This is typically focused on things like gigantic tows of up to 20 barges, debris in the rivers (logs, whole trees, chevrolets, you name it), ripping currents, swirling eddys, giant locks, oh my.

We found the navigation to be straight forward.  The tow masters, the few we encountered, were happy to talk to us, professional and polite (even if I failed to take a crash course in speaking southern).  There was minimal flotsam and jetsam in the water and the locking was very easy.  True, on a couple of occasions we were held up while tows were given their correct priority.  The big river locks were actually incredibly easy to manage, with a single line on a floating bollard.  I single- handed a few of them on the early morning departures.

What surprised us the most was the stunning lack of signs of humanity along the rivers.  Probably due to the wide differences in river levels in the seasons, there was little riverside habitation.  None on the Mississippi, some on the Illinois and scattered on the other rivers.  The Ohio had a lot of industrial activity, lots of barge staging areas, etc., far more than the Mississippi.  We would travel days without seeing as much as a lone fisherman on the rivers.  Here we were, slicing down the middle of the continent and there were almost no people to be seen.

Perhaps the most frustrating part for me was that it was nearly impossible to plan.  The locks, although we had few issues, were a constant wildcard in planning a day's run.  You could breeze through in 45 minutes, or be held up for 4 hours.  You had to be ready for Plan B, C and D every day.   Sure, we had plenty of time.  We were, in fact, killing time to let the hurricane season die down.  But you still need to take care of logistics.  Because of the flood of Loopers making their way down river, you need to make reservations at planned stops.  That commits you to a schedule, the anathema of cruisers. So, the uncertainty of the day's destination was bothersome.

In short, the rivers were an experience.

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Paul comments in this font
Cheryl comments in this font


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