Monday, August 6, 2012
Much Obliged
I also wanted to thank everyone who has donated so far, we truly appreciate it. You guys have kept our food supply plentiful, our health in check, and our energy levels high; can't thank yinz enough.
HALFWAY
Ahoy, land lovers! A lot has happened since my last post. For one, we officially passed our halfway point for the entire trip on Thursday. It took us exactly 60 days. If the Mississippi lives up to its rumored current, we're hoping to do the second half in around 30 or 40 days.
Our halfway point was at mile 876.5, just before the town of Cave In Rock, Illinois. This town was named after, you guessed it, a cave in a rock. The cave can be seen from the river and has a history in the pirate game. Outlaws used to hide in the caves to rob unsuspecting travelers. We checked the cave out and it was bigger than we had expected; also pirate-less. The town itself has a population of 350, and everyone we met was extremely friendly. Being the halfway point, we treated our self to dinner, then a much needed breakfast the following morning. I say much needed because we endured a storm that night that we weren't quite ready for. I had my tent half set up when the brunt of the storm hit. It sent my tent cartwheeling across the camp, eventually wrapping around a tree. I eventually got it staked down but everything in the tent, including myself, got soaked. Storms like these can be exciting, for sure, but only when you're ready for them. Shawn's tent was already staked down but ended up getting pulled out, soaking all of his gear, as well.
We've been in the Shawnee National Forest for the last few days. Lots of wildlife through here. Our Bald Eagle count is now up to 25 for the trip, and I was finally able to get close enough to snap a picture of a buck on the bank. I also saw our first snake the other day. I believe it was a Corn Snake.
We saw the American Queen again today; this time on her way to New Madrid, Missouri. We saw her at port in Paducah, then again at the lock downstream. We had to do our first portage at the lock. Luckily, one of the crew members at the dam drove us around once we got our gear up the hill. The lock was built in 1929, which makes it extremely slow. Because of this, we ended up beating the American Queen around the dam, but she quickly caught up with us. We then watched her take off down river, folding stacks down to clear the bridges. She's rumored to be the largest of her kind ever built.
I guess we made the Erie Times newspaper this past Sunday. We had talked to a fella a couple weeks back about the story. It turned out to be a decent article, I suppose. I did, however, want to clarify that we do not get hotels or stay at campgrounds at night, As the article said. We've only gotten one hotel in Cincinnati, and hit two campgrounds in total. The other 61 nights have been spent on the banks of the river.
As I've mentioned in past posts the Ohio River has been a battle the whole way. This river is no longer appealing to the paddler; at least not in low waters. However, It is finally winding down and we are beginning to feel the pull of the Mississippi in the waters. We are a mere 40 miles, and one lock away from the Mighty Miss. In just a couple days we will be hitting her muddy waters. Once we do, we only have around 954 miles to go- all downhill.
Our halfway point was at mile 876.5, just before the town of Cave In Rock, Illinois. This town was named after, you guessed it, a cave in a rock. The cave can be seen from the river and has a history in the pirate game. Outlaws used to hide in the caves to rob unsuspecting travelers. We checked the cave out and it was bigger than we had expected; also pirate-less. The town itself has a population of 350, and everyone we met was extremely friendly. Being the halfway point, we treated our self to dinner, then a much needed breakfast the following morning. I say much needed because we endured a storm that night that we weren't quite ready for. I had my tent half set up when the brunt of the storm hit. It sent my tent cartwheeling across the camp, eventually wrapping around a tree. I eventually got it staked down but everything in the tent, including myself, got soaked. Storms like these can be exciting, for sure, but only when you're ready for them. Shawn's tent was already staked down but ended up getting pulled out, soaking all of his gear, as well.
We've been in the Shawnee National Forest for the last few days. Lots of wildlife through here. Our Bald Eagle count is now up to 25 for the trip, and I was finally able to get close enough to snap a picture of a buck on the bank. I also saw our first snake the other day. I believe it was a Corn Snake.
We saw the American Queen again today; this time on her way to New Madrid, Missouri. We saw her at port in Paducah, then again at the lock downstream. We had to do our first portage at the lock. Luckily, one of the crew members at the dam drove us around once we got our gear up the hill. The lock was built in 1929, which makes it extremely slow. Because of this, we ended up beating the American Queen around the dam, but she quickly caught up with us. We then watched her take off down river, folding stacks down to clear the bridges. She's rumored to be the largest of her kind ever built.
I guess we made the Erie Times newspaper this past Sunday. We had talked to a fella a couple weeks back about the story. It turned out to be a decent article, I suppose. I did, however, want to clarify that we do not get hotels or stay at campgrounds at night, As the article said. We've only gotten one hotel in Cincinnati, and hit two campgrounds in total. The other 61 nights have been spent on the banks of the river.
As I've mentioned in past posts the Ohio River has been a battle the whole way. This river is no longer appealing to the paddler; at least not in low waters. However, It is finally winding down and we are beginning to feel the pull of the Mississippi in the waters. We are a mere 40 miles, and one lock away from the Mighty Miss. In just a couple days we will be hitting her muddy waters. Once we do, we only have around 954 miles to go- all downhill.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Hot River
Hey, everyone. It has been some time since I've updated. Battery life and service are scarce again. We are on the stretch of river between Louisville, KY. and Evansville, IN. This a beautiful stretch, perhaps the nicest we have witnessed so far on the Ohio. It's beginning to seem as if we picked a rough summer to do this trip. The lack of rain and excessive heat is not making it easy. However, it will not deter us from reaching our goal of hitting salt water. According to CNN, this is the second worst drought in U.S. history; second only to the summer of 1934 (Dust Bowl Era). In Memphis, the Mississippi River is a mere three feet from record low, and the Army Corps of Engineers are looking to spend $7 million on dredging to keep the barge industry afloat (pardon the pun). It is amazing how much the Miss has fluctuated in the past year or so. Just last May, the river was 55 feet higher, and within just a foot of record high crest. The river was three miles wide in some spots where they had blown levees to save Cairo, IL. While on the subject of floods, the flood of the Ohio River in 1937 is worth mentioning. As we've passed through most of these river towns since Pittsburgh, we've seen flood marks with dates written beside them on old buildings, poles, bridges, rocks, etc.; 1937 being the highest. There others marked all along but didn't come close to the '37 mark.
The heat deserves a mention, as well. According o the Weather Channel on my phone it is 104 degrees right now but "feels like" 117. While we have actually gotten used to paddling in these temperatures, there has been little relief at night making sleeping extremely uncomfortable. Temps have been around 80 at night. This excessive heat is breaking records, as well. It has been the U.S.A.'s hottest recorded first half of a year. And if you go back to July of last year to now, it would be the warmest year on record. Good thing for us, we are surrounded by water. We are able to jump overboard whenever we feel it necessary. We can also choose how much clothing to wear during the day. Most of the deckhand working on the barges are wearing jeans, boots, hard hats, and life jackets over top of a shirt. This is most likely mandatory, and they cannot dive in the river as they please. The heat advisory is in effect until tomorrow night, for now.
We've talked with a fella who is a deckhand on a barge and he assured us we would be pleasantly surprised with the increase in current once we hit the Miss, even with the low waters. He also warned us that the scenery is awful down the Miss so we should take it in while we can. We've taken his advice. There have been a couple of good camp spots, as you can see from the pictures; Anderson Island being close to the best in this river. It is the picture of the red sky. I don't have a lot of pictures to share because the river has been uneventful lately. There are some pictures of a storm we endured from a pavilion just off the bank. Another picture shows a massive Asian Carp we found freshly killed by something, most likely a propellor. More to come soon. Enjoy!
The heat deserves a mention, as well. According o the Weather Channel on my phone it is 104 degrees right now but "feels like" 117. While we have actually gotten used to paddling in these temperatures, there has been little relief at night making sleeping extremely uncomfortable. Temps have been around 80 at night. This excessive heat is breaking records, as well. It has been the U.S.A.'s hottest recorded first half of a year. And if you go back to July of last year to now, it would be the warmest year on record. Good thing for us, we are surrounded by water. We are able to jump overboard whenever we feel it necessary. We can also choose how much clothing to wear during the day. Most of the deckhand working on the barges are wearing jeans, boots, hard hats, and life jackets over top of a shirt. This is most likely mandatory, and they cannot dive in the river as they please. The heat advisory is in effect until tomorrow night, for now.
We've talked with a fella who is a deckhand on a barge and he assured us we would be pleasantly surprised with the increase in current once we hit the Miss, even with the low waters. He also warned us that the scenery is awful down the Miss so we should take it in while we can. We've taken his advice. There have been a couple of good camp spots, as you can see from the pictures; Anderson Island being close to the best in this river. It is the picture of the red sky. I don't have a lot of pictures to share because the river has been uneventful lately. There are some pictures of a storm we endured from a pavilion just off the bank. Another picture shows a massive Asian Carp we found freshly killed by something, most likely a propellor. More to come soon. Enjoy!
Monday, July 16, 2012
Day 43 - 780 miles
Hey everyone, greetings from Louisville, KY.! We are actually camped 6 miles above Louisville on an island. The last time I posted i mentioned we were supposed to get a lot of rain. We, unfortunately, didn't get much of it directly but surrounding tributaries should help us. We were hoping to get poured on which, in turn, would speed up the current. We are, however, at the widest point in the river (over a mile) so we wouldn't notice the change in current anyway. We saw the American Queen on Thursday. She is a 418 ft. long steamboat built in 1995, costing around $65 million. She has 222 state rooms allowing 436 guests and 160 crew members. We were told the paddle wheel in the back still propels the boat but most of her maneuverability and speed comes from two diesel powered propellers. The following day we ran into another fellow who was traveling the river. After talking with him he mentioned he was a writer and was working on a piece exploring the Mississippi River basin. He had started in Coudersport, PA. In a kayak. He said he decided to get a boat with a motor once he ran into the Army Corps of Engineers' territory (I strongly recommend as well), which is what we saw him in just above Madison, Ind. His name is Paul Schneider if anyone is interested in checking out his books. Just before arriving in Madison we went under a large bridge that was under construction. They were replacing the old bridge using a method called "truss-sliding." The process involves building the new, 2,426 ft. long bridge on temporary piers next to the old piers, then demolishing the old bridge and "sliding" the new bridge onto the old piers. The bridge would only be closed a mere 10 days! We stopped in Madison and got a bite to eat but decided to stay at a camp ground across the river in Milton, Kentucky. Some friends from Pittsburgh were passing through on their way to Louisville and stopped in and joined us, as well. Everyone was awesome up there and showed us a good time and lots of hospitality. Thanks to everyone, especially Joe for letting us stay there and even setting us up with the extra trailer with AC! Thanks to Brian and Freebird for the good times, stories, and laughs. We said our goodbyes and hit the river again in the morning paddling through rain the rest of the day. When we stopped I decided to build a dry rack on the bottom of my canoe by lashing limbs together. It has worked great, and I should have done it a while ago. We passed Marble Hill Nuclear power plant in the morning which is an abandoned nuclear plant that was never finished due to shortage of funds. $2.5 billion was invested. There were also reports of poor construction. Fear of nuclear radiation leaks was high, as well, due to the disaster at Three Mile Island around this time. It's a big river right now but we're pushing on eager to hit the swift moving Miss. Groceries and a mop chop tomorrow!
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Indiana
We're finally out of Ohio and into Indiana. In Lawrenceburg we passed the Hollywood Casino which has a riverboat with a passenger capacity of 9,000 guests and 4,400 gaming positions, including a World Poker Tour room. The next town was Rising Sun which also has a casino in town. Rising Sun looked like a nice place but also seemed like most other river towns we have come across, so we decided to paddle over to the Kentucky side and check out Rabbit Hash, KY, which was what seemed to be a small community frozen in time along side the river! It's an unincorporated hamlet that has had canine mayors since 1998. We stopped into the general store and met the locals who were extremely friendly and willing to tell us some history of the town. Terrie, the store owner, gave us coffee and showed us some interesting pictures of the horse-drawn ferry that used to cross the river. The horses would simply walk on a treadmill-like belt which powered the ferry. Before leaving, she gave us some shirts of their music festival that they have every year which sounded like it would be a great time. I hope to make it back there to spend some more time talking with everyone and hearing some stories. The river itself is still slow as ever. However, there is finally rain in the forecast! We're hoping we can get some current to give us a push. We should hit our first lock in 95 miles today. There is also a huge music festival in Louisville this weekend but it doesn't seem as though we're going to make it in time. Bring on the rain!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Cincinnati
Friday night we, two canoeists going 2 MPH mind you, got pulled over by DNR; Never mind all the drunkards open throttle all around us. However, they weren't unfriendly and only cost us some time. We saw another Bald Eagle later on that night. That's a total of 11 now on this trip. We survived the heat wave and reached our goal of hitting Cincinnati by Saturday. We were admiring the USS Nightmare just before the city, when we got stopped again! These guys were Ohio boat police though and were psyched on what we were doing. We told them our story and that we got stopped the night before. They did a quick vessel check so they could give us a vessel safety sticker in hopes of saving us the hassle of more stops in every city. They even gave us some candy bars, Gatorade, and other snacks, then sent us on our way. We got a hotel in the city and did some relaxing. Some could argue this is "cheating," but our bodies and clothes needed some cleaning seeing as we've only showered twice in over month and haven't done laundry at all. It was also 103 that day so we decided to stay on the Newport, KY side of the river to avoid traffic and steep banks on the Cincinnati side. A block up from where we stayed was the Southgate House. This historical site was the birthplace of the inventor of the Thompson sub machine gun, aka the "Tommy Gun." It is now a bar and concert venue that gives off an eerie feeling, such that a dimly lit, early nineteenth century home should. We left the city yesterday and are back at it with fresh arms!
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