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| Inventive mooring |
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| You can grab them right out of the air! |
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| Now that's pressure. |
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| 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.
1 comment:
Hey you water rats - we wait with "baited" breath (loved the carp story) every morning to see what's shaking on the "Ole Muddy". I'm sure the V-Berth was looking like great digs for a scum-sucking bottom dweller. Jan's gonna need a large paddle handy to hold all them fish at bay when the word gets out down river! I'm struggling with your math on the length of the trip running at max output of 50 miles per day - is that new math????? Jan is looking very elegant at the locks decked out in her shipyard finest. I'm sure she's struggling with all the ogling she must must be enduring from the crews on the barges. Bill and I pipe-dream about catching up with you once you hit warmer waters. He has good days and bad days. We had several good days in a row, and then some foul weather rolled in and his knee swelled back up and he feels yucky again. However, he did manage to get his "big-ass" driver out and hit some unbelievable second shots off the fairways with it and land us in third place in a golf tournament a week ago. That shot is worthing paying money to enter the tournament to witness. Almost 230 yards on one shot. All the prairie dogs were soon taking cover! Love the blog - we'll stay tuned in.
Jan
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