More train,grain and watermobile

Trains, Grains and Watermobiles

Day 6  Beautiful sunrise in Clinton, IA.   We arrived at Clinton Marina yesterday at 4:15.  We had such a relaxing day, only 2 locks that we breezed thru, 4 tows (barges) that we passed or were passed during wide parts of the river and no weekend boat traffic.  Even managed 63 miles!

 Here is Mark writing in his journal.  He’s been creating material for a book ever since we decided to     take this journey.

Had time to have pre dinner cocktails, leisurely showers and cook up a great meal.  Then plenty of post dinner time to relax on our balcony before bedtime.

Now to the title of this post.  Never thought too much about the towns on the Mississippi River and what they almost all have.  Yes, you guessed it, trains, grains (in the form of buildings or silos, and plenty of watermobiles (aka boats).  But, most of all, beautiful towns.  If you ever get a chance, a road trip all the way down would be a great one!

Enough said...

Some pictures

Dancing and Dining on Day 2

Well, first blog from out on the river! I,m sure I won’t remember most things that Devan taught me but at least I can type!

Day 1 was a bit stressful to Mark.  First of all, the Chart plotter malfunctioned. (We had downloaded all the charts to our iPad so we do have them, plus we have paper charts).  Then we realized the auto pilot was not working. ( Mark thinks something became unplugged) Then, the engine over heated!  (We were wondering if the Schauer’s had snuck aboard😉)

We did make our 50 mile goal however, even with 3 locks, 2 tows and a dredging tow smack in the middle of the channel. (Close to grounding on that little adventure). Found a marina.
Cooked up our dinner, took showers had cocktails and went to bed.

Day 2 Mark put in a new thermostat And repaired a small diesel leak while I called up Garmin and picked a marina down river where they will ship us a new chart plotter. Left marina at 11:30.
Went thru 2locks and maneuvered around 5 tows. Only mad 36 miles due to late start and 3 hours of idling while waiting to be locked thru.

Now for he fun part....Found a wonderful marina called Lawrence Lake Marina! As we turned into their channel we saw tons of boaters and heard music!  Lo and behold we had arrived when they were having their Friday night steak “fry”.  For a very reasonable price you got to pick your own prewrapped steak from the cooler, your fully baked potato and cold salad. Then you moved to the very large grill area where you grilled your own steak and slathered melted butter on bread that you toasted on the grill. So awesome!  They had a very fun performer, Joe Cody, who played danceable music, ergo, we danced. We were the only dancers but as usual we danced anyway. After dancing went back to our vessel and had wine as we looked at the river passing by. BTW, the female bartender was named Devin, made us smile....

Day 3   On day 2 the boat seemed to be “hot” again so before we left Mark looked at the cooling system and pulled out a handful of Mississippi grass! To say the least, we are now running fine . (Knock on wood, which I just did). We passed into Iowa sometime before noon. So far, one tow and one lock. Expect to get her lock 9 before we end our day. Enough for now, will try and remember how to upload pics.