Back to Clinton

We left Dubuque this morning and cruised the 60 miles back to Clinton, IA. (Only 2 locks today.) The river is a lot more fun on weekdays. It's also a lot more fun going downstream. We travelled 496 miles on the river. Wish it was all downstream. Going up the river our speed was about 6 mph. We dropped the rpm's coming back and still went 10 mph.
Even if there's not much traffic, you still need to pay attention. There's rock wing dams just outside the channel. There's trees and logs floating down stream, and you never know what might be coming around the next bend.
We're back where we started. Our truck and trailer are still here. We'll haul out tomorrow and head home.

More houses

A little south of Dubuque, there's more interesting homes overlooking the river.

Dubuque

We stayed at the Dubuque Yacht Basin last night. It's a nice facility--new docks, nice clean showers, free wi-fi, and a good resturant on site. (Catfish Charlies) Unfortunately, the staff was not very accommodating. The girl who checked us in didn't know where the showers were, didn't know if they had wi-fi or the code to access it, and had no information about Dubuque. She kept calling her boss but he didn't care either. However, she had no trouble processing my credit card.
This morning, we moved the boat to Ice Harbor out behind the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium. We went in the museum at 9:30 and stayed until after 4:00. There are many interesting displays and lots of information about rivers.
I had contacted two different people about staying overnight at this courtesy dock. Both said we couldn't do it. I decided to chance it anyway. Monday night, nobody around. I suppose I'll regret it if the law doggies come pounding on the boat at midnight.

After the museum, we walked over to Diamond Jo's Casino and ate dinner. The place was packed with people pouring money in slot machines. If they really wanted to gamble they should take a ride down the river like us. Wing dams, logs, snags, barges, and 90 mph pontoon boats piloted by impaired drivers.

River Homes

Cruising up and down the river, we saw quite a variety of homes.  As with most waterfront areas there's the really nice homes

And the not so luxurious cabins

In every case, big or small, if you love the river, you'd better love the railroad.  The track is between the river and the first two houses.  And it's just out the back door of the last ones.



Here's a guy who is really concerned about high water.  He built his house on a barge, and then raised it up on stilts.

My grandfather always wanted to build a house on a bluff overlooking the river.  The location of this one would have been good, but I think he would have found it a little too ornate.

However,  the best homes overlooking the river just might not be occupied by humans.

Travel day

We made 72 miles today with only 2 locks to pass through. ( I think the 5 locks in one day yesterday may stay our record.)
The weekend on the river is pretty wild. Tons of boats. Even the pontoons here are fast. We've seen several with I/O drives and stright pipe exhausts out the back above the waterline. They load 15 people on it and go 60 miles an hour. We saw one pontoon boat with twin 200 hp outboards going so fast that when it jumped a wake, the entire boat left the water. Not sure why they want to go so fast, all they do is stop on the beach and set up camp. However, they may be better mariners than I think because the first thing they do when setting up camp is get out the sextent.

A real let down

Today was a real let down. Five of them. And since the high water has receeded, each of the five locks we went through today let us down about 4' each. At the last lock there were 16 pleasure boats exiting as we went in. We went through a total of 11 locks on our northbound leg. The longest we had to wait was an hour and a half.
We stopped this morning at Winona, MN. The dock there is perpendicular to the current. After I got us alongside, I probably didn't need to tie it to the dock. The boat was pressing against the dock so hard that I was worried we couldn't back away. We walked downtown Winona to a Verizon store where I found a USB cable to connect my phone to the laptop. We also found a place to eat lunch.
Also while docked at Winona, I had to do some plumbing repair. Pam told me she was unable to pump water into the head. I knew pretty quick what the problem was. When we anchor off the channel, all the coves and sloughs are filled with seaweed. Lots of vegatation everywhere. Wouldn't consider swimming. When we flush, we pump in water from below the boat. We had sucked up weeds into the intake and clogged the hose. I was able to remove the hose and remove the weeds. (I'm just glad it was the intake that was clogged--not the waste line.)
Maybe because we went 60 miles today we saw a lot of barges. We saw one family trying to win a Darwin Award by towing their children on a tube back and forth in front of a moving barge. All survived.
We're anchored tonight about 100 yards north of Iowa.

photos

Found Wi-Fi in Winona, WI from Godfathers pizza.

Here's photos from the

eagle Center and Alma, WI.