DAVE GETS OFF

Sorry to leave ya’ll  (ahm staahtin’ to tawk lock this here awreddy) hanging for a few days, but we’ve been pretty busy traveling.  It’s a job of work.  After the adrenaline of the grounding left our bloodstreams, we made it down the remainder of the Illinois in fine fettle.  There were still tows and current and locks and logs and navigation and the stress of finding a safe anchorage for the night to deal with, but we had a nice run in good weather.  We arrived at the marina in Grafton, IL, at the confluence of the Illinois  and the Mississippi rivers early in the afternoon (the red and green bouy is where the two channels meet)  and tied up with a sigh of relief and the pffft of pop tops.  What a grand view to see the limestone cliffs of the Missouri side for miles upriver.  I’ll bet it’s a grand place for the autumn colors. We hurried up and did the laundry and cleaned the boat, both of which were so dirty they should have been spanked.  Then to bed by 8 pm—what a waste of $50 for a marina, although they do have the nicest showers since Eldean's.   My internal compass (at least the geographical one) is usually quite good, but, because the rivers take some crazy loops hereabouts, I found that the sun set in the  East and rose in the West.  What a strange feeling.  No matter how I checked the compass and the charts, it was two days, when we were headed south on the Mississippi, before I could shake the anomaly.  We certainly didn’t want to end up in Minneapolis for the winter.  Grafton is also the bald eagle watching capitol of the world according to the sign.  Our avian friends seemed less plentiful the further southwest we got and were very far between and few on the Miss. R.   We wondered why--  perhaps they were hanging out more on the backwaters.  The swallows stayed with us all the way though (now that’s true love) with their flitting, swooping, darting flight patterns.  We also had repeated sightings of a Monarch butterfly on his/her way south to Mexico.  We are quite sure it was the same one that we kept seeing because he/she was always the same color and flew the same seemingly aimless  course—so we named him/her MOJO and would always say HI! when she/he joined us on our hejira (religious pilgrimage) to Mecca----I mean Mobile.  She/he kept calling to us, in pappillonese, “Come all the way down south to old Mexico, cabron!”

Books:  Huck Finn,  The Story of Edgar Sawtelle,  Work Shirts for Madmen, (thanks, Craig),  Arabian Sands—by Wilfred Thesiger  (thanks, John—talk about a traveler!)

Website:  Google search :  S/V Precipice   This guy took his wife and daughters on a trip from our homeport in Muskegon through the Northwest Passage to Alaska.  All I can say is “cojones".
{ JAN-  ADM is a large food products corp.}

AGROUND!

AHHOOHGAH!  AHHOOHGAH! AHHOOHGAH!  ALL HANDS ON DECK!  WE'VE RUN AGROUND!!!

Broken Dreams

Sickening Lurch

     Remember the servant on the Addams family?  Well he's getting worse.  Sickening lurch might be a cliche, but it's the most apropos phrase for when your boat stops suddenly and you keep going.  We were approaching the Florence bridge and Jan was at the wheel.  She had been there far too long while I was below trying to construct this blog.  There was a big tow (tug and barges) coming up behind us, so, Jan decided to take the right span instead of the center where the tow would come.  Unbeknownst (love that word) to us, they had recently dredged there and left a spoil bank under the bridge.  We ran up on it at full speed and went abruptly from 10' of water to 2'.  The bow was high and dry with the waterline at least a cubit above the water at the stem, and we were in 1.5 knots of current.  We named the two kids Florence and Bridger-  see previous blog.  Okay, what now?  We ran two of our largest anchors out up river and tightened up on them with the windlass and a winch.  We've never been so cranky.  Got the rodes (lines) bar tight and smoked the engine in reverse.  Nothing so much as a hint.  Then the windlass quit, so we had to transfer the port line to the winch.  Fortunately, it was only the circuit breaker.  We tightened up (Archie Bell and the Drells)  so much we pulled the port anchor into the boat.  I decided that we needed some lateral twist to wrench that wench off the bar, so we ran it back out to the side and re-cranked.  All this was done in the dinghy, in the current.  We are cranking away and just waiting for one of those big wake makers to come along and give us some rise.  Scarcer than genuine smiles at a fund raiser.  All the while we were shouting and radioing forth and back to the bridge tender as to help from other boats (thanks, Rock Chalk, for stopping)  and the Coasties.  Just as the phone rang from the St. Louis office of the Coast Guard,  I put the boat in reverse one more time and we slipped gently back toward our anchors and didn't even tangle them in our prop. That felt better, as Huck Finn would say,"than church getting out".  All told, we wasted about 4.5 hours, got a good workout,  and got a good lesson in kedging off.  No damage to the boat.  Onward and downward!

Peoria Pounder

Blog S/V Visitor 19 Sept. 2011  Pos. N 39 44.2,  W 90 37.42

Peoria Pinks

There are many forms of water  torture I’ve only read about.  The ancient Chinese version where they tie you down and let water drip, drip, drip on your forehead for days.  We’ve all heard about the new fad of water boarding where they put a wet towel over your face until you signal acquiescence.  Or, like in a John Garfield movie, they stick your head in the toilet bowl and flush after a couple minutes (swirlie?).  But, the Peoria Pounder owes them nothing.  Here’s the skinny.  Take a big ole Dutchman on a Fri. nite and give him:  1 West Coast IPA at an Irish saloon with 10 crab cake mini-balls, 1  Bass ale at a Creole ( how the H do you spell) rhythym kitchen bar/rest.,  maybe 3 or 4 Hacker-Schorr draft pints and a German sausage at the Octoberfest beer tent ,  play a bunch of Latin rhythyhym inspired ? polka/ german marches  (Frie Bier Ist Gut)  until he’s as happy as a gov’t worker on pension( thanks, Sam Clemens).  Just lay back until you see that big orange ball peek over the up river horizon.  Okay, now let loose with the ersatz steam calliope on the huge riverboat just off his bow.  Give it some intermittent foot bass notes,  don’t shy away from the dissonant archipelagos (thank you Keith),  and stomp all over the melody.  Give that bastard some Sousa!  He’ll give you up his mother, his wife,  and his daughter.

No, seriously, we had an excellent time in Peoria.  The farmers market on the waterfront was an organic “corn”ucopia.  Met a veggie guy who used to swim in Lamberton Lake next to our house in his salad days.  Another preacher’s kid who moved around.  I think he had a little Methodist in his madness.  Good soup, buddy.  Fresh eggs guaranteed to last weeks:  blue eggs.  “There’s more in this world than is dreamt of in our philosophy”, ($10 to anyone who can finish the quote).  If yer ever in the big P, check out the Peoria Bread Co.-  this is my third morning on the best cinn. roll God ever graced this little blue ball with (Yeah, Bill, I know- preposition).  Thanks to the old man tending the roses.  Sorry, we just couldn’t resist the Peoria pinks. 

There’s a great bar for sale- Cap’t Ron’s-  just up from the lock, LDB.  Classic.  After hours party ‘til 4 antemeridian.  Mighty spicy bloodys.  Rog?  River is a little bit of a ditch down here- not much fauna, but we did spot one early morn coyote with a black tipped tail.  Still some herons and swallows.  “Summertime,  and the Asian carp are jumpin,  Corn is mos’ ripen, and the river is low.  Your Daddy is poor, but your Momma’s good lookin.”  We’re leap-froggin’ down the river with mostly the same boats.  Getting to know them mostly as radio personalities.  All sorts of luck, good, bad, and indifferent.  If it wasn’t for bad luck, some wouldn’t have no luck at all.  One gets the feeling that we’re all, less or more, in the same boat, though.  “People on the river are happy to give”  Thanks, Duddon Pilot, (do you know that river, Gary?), for the Penfolds Koonunga Hill shiraz cabernet 2007.  “Uhhh, uhhh,uhhh, I can almost taste it, now.” 

We’ve done about 400 miles and both tanks are still well over half from a fill in Muskegon.  Running at approx.. 1200 RPM at 6-7 mph.  Not bad.  Paid $50 for one dock so far.  Not bad.  We’re still hugging each other.  Not bad. “It’s not bad work, if you can get it, and you can get it if you try. “  Gershwin. 

Peace, Visitor out.

BUH,BUH,BUH,BIRD,BIRD,BIRD-- BIRD IS THE WORD

Yeah, she likes me.

Pelicans in Illinois!

The yellow tipped seagull

Now that's hot!

OK, she likes her, too.

Blog S/V Visitor  N 40 41.29  W 89 35.27  16 Sept. 2011    Peoria, IL

It seems that the birds have all the riparian rights to the river bank down here.  We have seen beaucoup buzzards, beaucoup blue heron, soaring bald eagles, the great white heron or maybe egret, golden or maybe  juvenile baldies, scores of seagulls, wary wild turkeys, many mallards, some kind a big white duck, maybe a king fisher, murders of crows (ravens), schools of swarming blackbirds, a squawking parrot on a trawler, and, much to our surprise a white pelican.  In Illinois.  In Illinois.  And then we saw an islet covered with them.  Whoa.  Peterson's Field Guide (thanks Ann Decker) tells us that this is a "casual straggler".  Harold asked, "There's no good -ism, right?"  Well, I've got one for ya, or maybe just a boat name:  Casual Stragglerism.  Chuck can be the Dominie, you can be an elder, and we'll be coming late and sittin' in the back.  Check out the pic of the gulls.  Among the ring bills and glaucous gulls is a new species:  the yellow tipped gull.  What is that?  A piece of plastic or some kind of tag?
Down here in Illinois, along the river, we have found the people to have an endemic sweetness, without fail.  Plus, it's October Fest in September!  Whadda Deal!! 
Just a footnote.  Jan's getting tired.  ADM has quite a presence here along the banks of the Illinois.  How are you doing boys?  If genetic engineering works for corn, wouldn't it be fun to do homo sapiens?  Huh? Huh?  How are you treating the little guys?  The guys with cow shit on their shoes? 



http://www.adm.com/en-US/careers/Pages/default.aspx

BAHRJES, WE DOAN NEED NO STINKIN' BAHRJES

Inventive mooring

You can grab them right out of the air!

Now that's pressure.

Hang on Sloopy, Sloopy hang on.

Okay check out this math.  We have 1200 miles to go to Mobile from Chicago.  We can do 50 miles a day max (6mph for 8 hrs).  50 is half of a hundred, so, we'll need 60 days to get to the Gulf.  Holy shit, 5 work weeks to do it.  We won't be there 'til Dec.  DOH.  Rainy day under the tarp from Joliet down to Hennepin. Sat for an hour + above Starved Rock Lock at 11 am waiting for a tow to be floated up-  so we decided (I commanded Jan)  to break out the bottle of Chianti so we could have some wine with our whine.  What a life.  It's amazing how the lock can float up all that weight just by opening a valve.  Archemides was a genius.  "Put the load right on me".  We reached the tiny village of Hennepin (a group of pre-teens playing with a basketball in the street sans hoop) at 5:45, tied up across three little finger docks, and raced up the hill to the grocery just as they were closing.  Reminded us of the little store on Drummond Island with their own butcher.  Pretty much a Bud, Bud Lite, Miller kind of deal.  Ate dinner (supper) at Ray's next door:  a classic 50's bar/restaurant run by Ray's widow and her sister- swiss steak, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, soup and salad bar with beets, cottage cheese and peaches, reminescent of Lanning's in GR.  Neat as a ballpoint, nicest people in the world, waitress Andree of the smile and the legs and the neck.  Morning.  Mist on the water, cold as a cop's squint, three locals fishin' from the bank.  That's the left descending bank. "I wish I was a catfish/ Swimmin' in the deep blue sea,/  I'd have all these pretty women,/ Fishin' after....., fishin' after me"., We didn't need to break out my new UGLI STIK- an asian carp jumped out of the water right onto our deck.  Cat, you almost had a brother- I thought Jan was gonna have a kid. I held it down on the deck waiting for it to drown in the air, but after about 5 min. he was still gulping (talk about die hard) and we decided that we really didn't want to eat a carp from this river so we tossed him back to swim up to the electric barrier.   Pics to prove it.  OK, I need to crash.  This life on the road is brutal.

" Sent up the river to Joliet"

Blog of S/V Visitor 12 September.  2011
I dictated this to Jan last night from my cozy lair in the v-berth .  I was going to correct it this morning, but, I thought it might be funny to leave it as is. Life is easy, comedy is hard.  Cannons = canyons, royal= roil.

Left Chicago 7am and locked through Chicago Lock.  Our first lock through did not go well since we got yelled at for no life jackets, fumbled the lines, and lost a bumper in the water.  What a trip going through the city cannons!  All the folks hustling to do battle.  Oh there's Water Mitty crossing the State Street bridge with Silas Marner close behind.  Is that Emma Boveary with her satchel on Dearborn Street?  And is that a glimpse of Citizen Kane in his gothic tower? The energy of the city soon gives way to the raw muscle of the industrial waste lands.  MasterBlaster with his huge bucket- handed arm unloads a gravel barge in a whirling, repetitive dervish.  Trains racket over great structures of century-old  riveted iron which are still mostly operable.  Seems like all we can rivet today is our attention to the little screen.  Who said America's needs move by truck?  Well, they move by barge and train too.  Trillions of ounces of raw steel and cargo crush down the river oblivious to all obstacles.  While sinuous trains tremble the surrounding terrain.  Chemicals, gases, electricity, lubricants, plastics, coal, stone, fission, sand, and smoke all in a jumbled royal of hectic activity.  Whew!  Just missed that barge!  Thankfully the river gives way to banks of cottonwood and corn behind the shoreline thickets.  Herons, cranes, ravens, turkey's and buzzards hunt and feed along the banks.  My favorite story of Joliet is when someone told me he was in the pen with Chuck Berrey.  Well we were in lockdown too at the Lockport Lock, dropping 40 feet into the slimy walled well.  Quite a day on the river.  Finally tied up at the wall in Joliet, exhausted. "May the Good Lord shine his light on you, Like the evening sun."  Glimmer Twins

2011: A SPRUCE ODYSSEY

Blog S/V Visitor   Sun.  11 Sept.  2011   Pos.  N  41  53.7  W  87  36.8

Anchored just Nth of Navy Pier

An inauspicious date-  every siren ashore gives one a frisson of danger. An unmarked black Zodiac just passed with a contingent of booted, camo-ed warriors aboard (to whom Dave, of course, yelled,  sotto voce, “Allah Rules!), and the Chicago Harbor Patrol has a 50 cal.  mounted on the bow.  “Don’t tread on me.”   Who’s to say whether the Chicago Board of Trade is a force for good or evil?  Probably both.   What a gorgeous day with the sunlight changing against the “cement, clay, and steel”  towers of man and the breeze wafting the clamor and odors of the streets in and out of range.  The powerboat day trippers are blasting what is no longer rock’n’roll except one who had the excellent taste to boom some Stones and Jimi.  We are under the big black monolith of the John” Handcock” (now that’s Freudian).  “Open the{ lock} doors, Hal.”  “I don’t think I can do that, Dave.”  “Open the {lock} doors, Hal.”  “This conversation is useless.  Goodbye, Dave.”  2001:  A Space Odyssey. 

After scrubbing the boat down (op Zontag????) and eliminating- with prejudice- a couple hundred spiders,  we had a fine outing with Don and Jane, Joan and Clare, Jerry and Deb, and Nick and Tim.  Fine weather, fine snacks, fine people- thanks for the Old Style, Clare  (Drink Local- Think Global).  What could be more preciouser (Jan says this isn’t a word). Sat. night we saw a confluence of a full moon, fireworks, and the ferris wheel.  As Douwe-age 4?- would say-  “That’s awittahwation”. 

  Spent the night on the wall between the Chicago and Columbia Yacht Clubs.  Huntin’ with the big  dogs.

pyramid scheme

treats

Dave's security breech's

We are now known as “loopers” for doing part of the Loop from the Great Lakes down to the Gulf, thence around Fla. , up the East Coast, thru the Hudson R. and the Erie Canal, and back to the GLs.  Better than “Yoopers”, I guess.  Cat was gonna join us for the trip thru Chi-town but, unfortunately it didn’t pan out- as the gold miners used to say.  We miss you, Cat, you would have loved it.   Peace, out.

LEAVING LAS MICHIGAN

Blog of S/V Visitor  9/10/11  N 41-48.49   W 86-48.75                                                                                Well, we're starting slow and then we'll taper off.  We left musk. on Sat. 9/3 after a 30 knt blow and made Holland, no prob.  We spent the long weekend at Eldeans w/ Jim, Jan, Jeff, Jess- thanks J's- great local food- prepared with love and imagination.  Also, fantastic showers.

http://www.moosewoodrestaurant.com/recipes.html       Had a grand time in 25 knts of wind on the beach at Warren Dunes "unto the third and fourth generation".  Dined with Ann and Bob Decker at Buzzard's Roost in Pigeon Lake Sun. night. Again, thnx for the great food and wine!  We're spoiled for Chi town and the Big Easy.  Motored to St. Joe Tues. and laid up on the wall by the train bridge, watched the Pere Marquette trundle by, and waited out another NE blow. Jan called her cousin Barb who showed up with an exquisite box of pastries.It was all good as we had work to do- installed another house battery to handle the reefer.  Spent $258 at Wolf's in Benton Hbr.  If you're a boater, it's a must.  What a panoply of boat neccessities (toys)!  30 year old cans of paint.  1960's lamp shades.  Saw the 1920's schooner WILD GOOSE laid up in the yard under the tatters of a blue tarp with some planks out and some new frames sisterd in.  Thru the grimy gaps could be seen the gleaming mahogany that spoke of her glory days.  I wondered if there was not some bank of memory filled from the brass housing and glasses Fresnel of her sternlight.  What sunny days and stormy nights must ave passed in her wake.  Thur. the lake settled and we did the 24 miles to New Buff. and showered up and did the laundry.  Of course, it rained and we left this morn with everything damp except our spirits.  Look out Monroe Hbr!