Our last two days at Green Turtle Bay marina. They were rest / recovery days from the last 6 days of running back and forth to Pennsylvania. Susan got the backlog of pictures and videos posted which made her very happy. We both did mundane things like return the car, laundry, sleep, surf the internet, etc.

On Tuesday night we went back to Patti’s 1880 Settlement for dinner. We both went for the Beef Oscar a grilled filet tenderloin with grilled shrimp and a very nice Bearnaise sauce on it. We had seen them at the first night at Patti’s, and wanted to make sure that we had them before we left. We took desserts home for a later evening treat.

We left on Wednesday 15 October to go back to Pennsylvania for Hazel’s funeral. It was a sad occasion, but at another level it was nice to see their family and mine again. The grandbaby is just as cute as she can be.

Since we were focused on getting there, we really didn’t see anything on the way out. The one highlight was in West Virginia, there is a chain called “Tudor’s Biscuit World” They have great biscuits and will put pretty much anything you want in them. Highly recommended!

On the way home today we passed through Kentucky Bourbon country. There is pretty much a distillery at every exit on the Kentucky Parkway. Being unable to resist temptation on the way back we stopped for a tour at Makers Mark.

We got the spiel about the water, it’s fresh spring water with no iron in it so it won’t have a harsh taste. They then use “soft red winter wheat” instead of rye like most other whiskey’s in the area. We got shown the entire process from grinding and cooking the grains to the dipping the neck of the bottle (by hand!) into red wax to seal it.

We also got to taste the products at the end. First we sampled the “wine” that is put into the cask to age. I could taste some of the grain flavor, but it really isn’t any more than moonshine at this point. Next was the “Makers Mark” that I know and love.

Third was their new brand called #46. After the 6 year age process, the open the barrels and put in some staves made of French Oak that have been “toasted” and reseal the barrel. It ages another 6 to 9 moths to get the additional flavors from the Oak. It was OK, but not my favorite. It has lots of wine like fruit flavors that didn’t do anything for me.

Last was “Maker’s Cask”. They just filter and bottle the contents of the barrel. It’s not blended with any other casks and is about 114 proof, about 57% vs the regular Maker’s at 40% or 80%. They cut the regular with water to get the proof down. It has lots of flavor and it really didn’t have a harsh taste.

The highlight for Susan was the glass ceiling on the way into the giftshop. It’s a sculpture by the glass artist Dale Chihuly. We had seen his work before at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens and the Art Museum in Milwaukee.

Yesterday was a quiet day doing some odds and ends around the boat, a few loads of laundry and doing some nap therapy. Susan did a spa day and I was able to get my beard trimmed. This is one of the nicest marina’s we’ve been to.

The high point of the day was Docktails with all the loopers, some from the flotilla, some of them new arrivals. We met a new boat crew that will be starting out next summer from their home in Alabama. They were in the process of taking their boat home, so had to go to the Ohio and then down the Mississippi. They were in a good timing window, weather should be good and the stuff in the water is down.

We were on the dock in front of Seaveyor, they made burgers for everyone. Other loopers brought things to eat, we had a ton of food. Susan made her cornbread that uses a can of creamed corn as the liquid part of the recipe. It makes it moist and delicious.

Saturday we went to Enterprise and got a car for the weekend to explore Paducah and later on Nashville.

Our first stop was the National Quilt Museum. They have over 500 quilts in their collection and have two wings that hold traveling collections. I grew up with quilts being used for warmth and having very simple designs on them. Living in Dover, most of the Amish quilts were also of that style. The quilts here were eye opening.

First was the level of stitching in the piece assembly and in the quilting. Thousands of tiny, even, perfect stitches, no puckers, no uneven seams. Wow. Second was the huge variety of designs and colors. Yes, some were the simple designs that I was familiar with, but there were hundreds of different patterns. Pretty much anything you could think of doing with fabric was represented.

I’d love to be able to show pictures, but since the quilters own the copyright on their designs, the museum does not allow photographs. The best I can do is the museum URL “http://www.quiltmuseum.org/” they do have some pictures. Presently on their front page is the “Beatles Quilt”, a homage to the band. There is something from every album and squares for each of the band members.

My favorite quilt was of a moose in the woods. When she finished assembling the top, she quilted it with the selvage side out. This added lots of texture to the finished quilt. From a distance it looked as if there was real fur on the moose.

Next was the Riverfron Maritime museum. Paducah had a tremendous flood in 1937 and the Maritime museum has a great set of displays showing the downtown area under 10 feet of water. All of the residents of the town were displaced for three weeks in February before the water receded enough for them to return.

Also at the museum is a large, multiple screen boat simulator. I had a chance to try driving a tow boat, and of course I managed to crash into a pleasure craft that was coming up the river. They also have a small Coast Guard Cutter that is much much easier to drive.

We had an early dinner with new boat friends Todd and Debbie from Seaveyor (they had been our hosts for Docktails the night before). We had “southern style tamales” which means rather than being cooked in corn husks, they are steamed in waxed paper. A new low for food on our trip. But the company was great, they are very nice people.

Since the marina is in a dry county, we stocked up on wine and beer on the way home. I thought Canada had been expensive, but when you are one of the few beverage stores on the county line it looked like some price gouging was in action. But, like the stores in Canada, they had a pretty decent selection so we were good to go.

We missed out on the Civil War and train museums. Both were highly recommended by other loopers and people in the town. Maybe on our next loop we will get a chance to see them.

Before the “Looper Flotilla” splits off we did one last group event, dinner at Patti’s 1880′s Settlement Restaurant. Like Hoppies’, this is a place that all the Loopers rave about.

Fun fact, the town of Grand Rivers is in a dry (no alcohol sales) county. Kentucky is known for all of the fine bourbons and there are still are dry counties. (Fun fact two, the county that Jack Daniels is made in is also a dry county). Anyway that means BYOB to dinner. We had to do that last night, and we packed a cooler bag with wine and beer for the evening.

We all met at the gazebo at the top of the dock for a short Docktails and to make sure we were all gathered into the group. Once we were all there, Sonny (captain of Corkscrew) got Patti’s to send a van and we were off.

The place is huge, it must seat over 400 people. They say they do 350,000 meals a year and I can believe that. On a rainy Thursday in October the place was packed. They put us at a table for 16 there were two smaller tables in the room. One was a couple that was celebrating their wedding anniversary. A Patti’s tradition is to sing “Let me call you Sweetheart”, so of course we joined in to help out.

With wine glasses full (and wine bottles hidden under the table) we toasted the Looper Flotilla on a successful trip. We then toasted the Captain of Diablo for sticking out the adventure on his houseboat and being the most courageous. Roxanne‘s crew was toasted for their towing of Hotei out of the last lock and to the docks. The final toast was to the crew of Moondance for leading us through the trip, even though they were running on only one engine.

Patti’s claim to fame is their grilled items, both Susan and I had the 2” thick double pork chops. They came with a stuffed baked potato. Each of the potatoes are of those ½ lb monsters, full of butter and bacon and topped with ¾ cup of sour cream. Eating the pork chop was interesting, we would cut a slice, pick it up and notice that it was 2”, so we needed to then re-cut each piece to make it a mouthful. The pork was good, very tender and moist.

They have about 30 different desserts, the ones with meringue have about 8” of meringue on top. The others come with multiple layers of sauces and whipped cream and a “cherry on top”. Susan went for the chess pie with coffee ice cream, caramel sauce, whipped cream and of course the signature “cherry on top”.

We had a great time and were pretty loud, I felt bad for the other tables (singing not withstanding) with all of our noise. But lots of good conversations.

I did apologize to the crew of Roxanne for repeatedly cutting them off and running in front of them the entire trip. Susan had noticed their cool one person dink system and there was no way I was going to run 15 hours with her staring at it going “I really like that dink system”.

I also toasted the Captain of Moondance on his ability to speak flawless “Tow Captain”. He would get on the radio and all I’d hear was a long sequence of long vowels and missing consonants. The Captain would answer back with a longer string with a “One” or a “Two” in it, that was my key on what side to pass on. Most of the table then copped to also not understanding what was being said. He accepted our acknowledgment of his skills with the graciousness of a true southern gentleman. But did point out as we got farther south it would get harder as the Cajun dialects got more pronounced. I can’t wait.
We got back to the boat very late, well after looper midnight and approaching looper dawn. Which is fine since Friday is an off day and Susan has spa things planned.

We spent the night in the shadow of the I-24 bridge north of Paducah, KY. We had a full moon so it was nice we could see the six other boats in our Looper Flotilla: Moondance, R&R, Corkscrew, Roxanne, Diablo.

I was up to check a few times and was rewarded on seeing sheet lightning flash across the Paducah sky about 5 miles away. It was very pretty and it was reassuring that the storm was moving away from us and would be gone by morning. I was hoping to see the lunar eclipse in the morning, but there was some obscuring cloud cover. The Captain of Moondance had said he heard some tow captains talk about it, but he only caught the tail end.

Up at 6:30 AM, showered and ready for a new day. Captain of Moondance called the lock at 6:30, and got a response we would be in the first upbound tows of the day. Yay!!! We are on our way!!

When my father lived in St. Thomas he talked about the local time concept of “soon”. “Soon” means sometime, maybe an hour, maybe 2, maybe 3, but soon. “Soon” has crept to the lock system of the Central US. Soon turned out to be 9:15AM.

Actually, we pulled anchor at 9:15 AM. We displayed our vastly increasing station keeping capabilities for the next 30 minutes as we drifted down towards the lock. At 10AM we were tied to the lock wall.

Well that is the next thing, the term “Lock Wall” is misleading. The wall is made for commercial barges, so it’s a series of “cell”s stacked side by side. Think of 15′ diameter toilet paper tubes stood on their ends. Fill them and coat them with rough concrete and make a wall out of them. Tada! You have Lock 52. Through skillful bumper placement by Susan (love those red balls!) we were able to fend off the “wall” for the 10′ lift.

At 10:30 AM the all clear horn sounded and we were on our way! With a light wind from the South West the chop and waves were not as bad as the day before. (There were points yesterday where I thought we were back on Lake Michigan and Diablo took a few over the bow). With Moondance leading the way on one engine, we did 8 kts up river.

We only had a few up bound barges to go around, they were mostly empty and were not tossing off big wakes. We reached the Cumberland River around 12:15 PM, much to the relief of all of us and the tow crews around us. At the turn we met up with My Therapy, they were coming down the Ohio. Our flotilla of 8 sailed up the Cumberland.

We met two up bound tows, both loaded with stone. We passed both of their quarries, they are huge!! One had a spiderwork of conveyer belts and lifts to move the stone around. We watched a giant digger lift stone out of a barge and into an even larger Tonka Truck dump truck.

The Cumberland river is very pretty, but there is almost nothing along side. A few houses, a few very! steep boat ramps and a few bridges, but mostly trees. Not any place to stop and anchor, all of the side streams were about 5′ wide.

Around 4:15 we pulled into the Barkley Lock area. The lock master wanted us out of the channel, so we went and hung out near the dam.

There were people fishing near the dam for catfish while the Asian Carp jumped off and on around them. At 4:30PM the horn blew that they were emptying the lock chamber. We watched in amazement as the fish started leaping out of the water near the lock wall. Wow. The churn of the water and the 100′s of fish that were jumping. The seagulls soon were wheeling overhead and snatching the fish as they leaped out of the water. Dinner on the fly!! This went on for about 15 mins as the lock emptied it’s vast quantities of water.

The lock doors opened and the Mr David, pushed his tow out and the Looper Flotilla filed in. We waited for Diablo to limp in, on of the transmissions was dying. A ninth boat needed space so we hung extra fenders and the crew of A-(Ford)-It was soon tied along our side. The 57′ doors swung shut at 5:45 PM and we were on our way UP!!

Arriving at the top we all filed out and headed for Green Turtle Bay, except for Hotei. Their engines wouldn’t start. Only 2 miles to go to home and disaster strikes. But wait, Roxanne has bow and stern thrusters, so she ties up to the side of Hotei and ties off. Then the two of them glide serenely out of the lock and off to the marina.

The staff of Green Turtle Maria stayed late to see the 9 of us safely into the docks, they rock! We dock at 6:30 PM, two minutes after local sunset. Susan grabbed flashlights and the flotilla met Hotei and the plucky Roxanne heading into the basin. Smooth as silk, Roxanne pulled to the fuel dock and the flotilla crew got Hotei tied off. They then did the same for Roxanne minutes later at her slip. We were all home safe!

Dinner was late, after 8PM and there were toasts to the Looper Flotilla; to Moondance for leading, even while on one engine; to Roxanne for being the little tug that could; and to Diablo for making the 255 mile journey in a houseboat in adverse conditions.

We had a great time at dinner. Lots of stories, lots and lots of laughter. It was after 10:30 before the weary crew of Quo Vadimus stumbled into our berth and collapsed.

We made it! 580 nautical miles (667 land miles), 82 hours driving and waiting for locks from Chicago to Green Turtle Bay. Lots of cool places (well except for you Lock 52) and nice people (except for you towboat at Rockdale). It was a great adventure, but we are both happy to have the bulk of the barge traffic and river trash behind us.

Here is to the Looper Flotilla! May you all have calm waters, short lock times and beautiful sunsets.

Take two on learning patience.

After spending a quiet night in Little Diversion River we were up and ready to go at 7AM.

Well, not a quiet night. We had a log hit and get tangled in our anchor line. It rained twice, but not hard, but hard enough to wake us. We had two Asian Carp smack the boat and wake us up. We were both up and down and up and down. But Belle got with the program, when she figured up that we had not been up (or down) in the last 90 minutes, she came and meowed at us.

The Little Diversion was calm and we got rounded up and out into the Muddy Mississippi. Current ripping at 4kts and more than a little trash. Our “flotilla” of Moondance, R&R, Corkscrew, Roxanne, Diablo, Hotei and Quo Vadimus churned our way through the mud and the floating wood. Only one injury, our lead boat Moondance clipped a log and a prop. They will pull him when he gets to Green Turtle Bay and do a hopefully quick repair.

I was pleased, with the current lift I got 14.9 knots on my regular 9 knot speed (RPM)

But there was much rejoicing at 10:55 AM, 38 nautical miles, 48 statute miles from Little Diversion and two days from Hoppies we made the wide sweeping turn from brown water to the bright green of the Ohio.

To immediately run into a tow that wanted the channel and us to come up on the 2′s and have ½ the group go to the wrong side. Oh well, he seemed to recover from it.

It was very windy on the Ohio, with 2-3 foot waves and whitecaps. Good that there was no trash, and we were able to plug along at 8.5 knots. We past the new Olmstead lock, a pretty major engineering feat. Wonder if they give talks about how it’s being designed and built. It’s to open in 4 years, only 9 years behind schedule.

We passed Lock 53, which they had torn down in anticipation of the new lock being built. Next stop, our second and final lock on the Ohio. Got there at 3:30 PM. Got told at 6:00 PM, once another boat locked through we were next, about an hour wait. Problem is that local sunset is at 6:35. So we moved off to the side of the channel and anchored out in the river.

Susan made grilled Chicken breasts and inspired by the “Blue Owl” Cheesy Corn, she came up with a much better version. She added green beans and it was all wonderful.

Great sunset tonight, and it’s a full moon. So we all look pretty here basking under the Interstate 24 lights.

We will call the lock at 6:30 to get back in line, with a four hour wait, we should be through by noon ad waiting at the next lock by 4PM. Hope the wait is less, there is no place to anchor out in the Cumberland, so it becomes hard.

2.5 hour wait today, ?? on Wednesday. Starting to learn that patience is important. But would like to learn how to put the nose of the Quo Vadimus into a mudbank and pull it off like the tows do.

Happy with fuel mileage. With the big current push was doing over 3 MPG, when we turned up river we worked it down to 2 MPG. Very happy. Sitting on 300 gallons to go 40 miles. 80.6 miles today with the 96.5 miles yesterday makes our two day total 177.1 miles, better than most fortnight periods in the trip. If we get to Green Turtle on Wednesday it will make over 200 miles.

If we can just get through the locks….