downtown and John Deere

Linda and Neil:  go to my house!  Jan and Eddie say there is plenty of room for you two!  They're looking for you...

There is a most delightful water fountain in downtown Moline, IL! The fountain heads spurt water for a few seconds, then stop and then appear again. On a hot afternoon, adults and small children were having a blast! I only wished I had a towel...














We found the microbrewery scene to be alive and well in the Quad Cities. The IPA we hoped to find at the Blue Cat Brew Pub was out, but the less-hoppy beer we drank was good. And, the logo was nice.The IPA at Bent River Brewery was OK, but the guest-brewed IPA from Fountain Brewery was very good.  As was the BLT I ate with it!



















Another downtown source of entertainment is the John Deere Museum. Yep, John began his business right here. Well, actually a little west of here, but within a couple of years he had moved his little black smith shop to downtown Moline. He began by hammering a new plough, a self-cleaning plow. In 1832 he was making and selling about 100 ploughs a year. By 1882 he was manufacturing and selling 100,000 ploughs a year! In 1917, the company bought a a small business making a self-propelled gasoline plough: a tractor. The next year, they sold the first John Deere tractor, very much like the one in the photo to the left here. It had two front wheels, and one rear wheel, all made of iron, of course. The seat was cantilevered over the hitch, on a spring. Modern comfort, you know. It was not painted green at the time, but this one in the museum is surely John Deere Green!




I very badly wanted to buy this hale baler for my brother. Brother, I sat in the cab of this tractor, and it's nicer than my house! Sorry, they wouldn't take my credit card. It makes those huge, round bales...  You'll laugh to hear I climbed on and sat in every tractor on display. Checked out all the toy tractors in the children's area, too.

The museum did have a video game that every man and child had to try: a virtual backhoe, on a job site. I sat in the seat, and had four minutes to load as much dirt from the site into the waiting dump truck as I could. The game reminds me of the games on the Boardwalk in Carolina Beach.  I'm pleased and proud to say that I loaded more dirt than any other man who tried it while I was there (OK, except for one!). But, there is no worry about me getting a job. I only loaded 3 yards of dirt in four minutes!

We also found a Road Food recommendation (the Sterns, regular guests on The Splendid Table on NPR):  Lagomarcino's Chocolate and Ice Cream Parlor.  We enjoyed the best hot fudge on the planet, poured generously on top of truly delicious home-made vanilla ice cream.  With real whipped cream, not the canned stuff.

Tomorrow, with an eye on Hurricane Irene, we're heading upriver, along the Great River Road in Iowa.  I'm thinking of all my family and friends up and down the east coast, on the rivers and beaches, who are going to have to deal with water in the next few days.  Jan and Eddie say they'll put you all up at our house, not matter how many need a place to stay.  The generator is filled and ready to keep the fridge cold, and the pump working.  The gas cook top is always ready.  I'm hoping for no blue tarps in your near future.

More locks and dams

I am standing above Lock 15, at Rock Island, IL to take this photo. You can see the car/railroad bridge, and the skyline of Davenport, IA behind it.















The first of the barges is coming into the lock, heading upriver....

Some of the containers are open. Coal can't be safely covered; it produces methane, which could explode. The other covered containers are possibly carrying fertilizer. We know that because most of the traffic going upriver is moving coal, fertilizer and petroleum products. The traffic going downriver usually moves grains.

The MS River is 2300 miles long, and runs through 11 states.  It is the drain for more than 40% of the US!   Every tug on the river pushing 15 barges is the equivalent of a 3 mile long train, or more than 700 big trucks.  Each of these piles of coal would more than fill one truck.

There are 29 dams and locks on the upper MS river.  Dams are not needed on the lower portion of the river, because the Illinois, Ohio and Missouri rivers all come into the MS, keeping the water levels high enough for barge and boat traffic.  The first lock and dam built on the river was here, at Rock Island, in 1932.  It took 2 years to complete.  Before the lock and dam was built here, moving through the Quad Cities was dangerous for some and impossible for others, because of the rapids.  The Corps of Engineers dredged the channel here from less than 4 feet, to more than nine to improve navigation.  But, the biggest help to navigation was the dam and lock system.





Once the lock fills, the traffic is almost close enough to touch! These men told us they were looking forward to tomorrow, when their 28-day shift ends, and they begin 28 days off. Hey Mark, does this sound like a fireman's schedule on steroids?!?

Hurricane Irene is keeping weather forecasters in a frenzy of happiness right now.  We're watching.  Jan and Eddie have taken the porch furniture in, moved light-weight things, and tied down the hot tub cover.  We're not concerned!

We cross The River

Looking upriver, from Rock Island, IL . The bridge in the photo is a double-decker bridge, with cars on the lower level, and railroad tracks on the upper. The red things, to the left in this photo, is the dam.  The bridge appears to be sitting on top of the dam, but it's actually beyond it.
The tug boat, at the right of the photo is entering the lock pushing FIFTEEN barges upriver! This is where it gets interesting. The locks here are 600 feet long. The barges, tied together, are more than 1000 feet long. You might also notice that the tug is pretty close to the bridge and is taller than the bridge. Here's what we learned at the Rock Island Lock and Dam Visitor Center: the tug pushes nine of the barges into the lock. Those barges are disconnected from the rest, and the tug backs out of the lock channel. The locks close, the water level changes (depending on whether they're going up- or down-river), and the nine barges, tied together, emerge at the opposite end. They are pulled out on a roller device connected to the jetty, securing them until they can be reconnected with their tugboat. The tug then enters the now vacant lock with the remaining barges, the water level changes, and it emerges on the other side and takes control of those barges again. We were lucky enough to arrive at the visitor center just before this barge passed through.


The photo above was taken later in the day. Earlier, we had driven across the bridge, from Davenport, IA to Rock Island Arsenal, home of an active Army base where guns and armor are manufactured.  The Army Corps of Engineers runs the visitor center.  This tug and barges had been waiting for several hours to lock through, heading upriver.  Normally, they have no wait, so there must have been a problem with the locks.  Fortunate for us!  This photo is looking upriver, with the tug just out of the frame on the left.  The bargemen have just disconnected the nine barges from the tug-and-six....
Then, the lock closes, and water rises...this all took less than 15 minutes!

This is the first nine barges, before the upper lock opened to release them to the end of the jetty, looking upriver.


It was pretty exciting to see this happen!  more, in the next post...

Summer sights and sounds

As long as people have lived in communities, people have built special communities for seasonal get-aways. The cottage at the beach, the mountain cabin, summer hunting camps, fall hunting camps, winter hunting camps, fishing camps, a cabin at the river. The Kentucky River Campground, outside of Frankfort, KY is a summer camp. Of course, with modern conveniences such as insulation and electricity, it's also a year-round camp. Stuart and I had planned to spend a couple of days at the KY Horsepark Campground, in Lexington, but didn't consider the weekend get-away crowd. There was no room at the inn. The KRC was down a narrow, twisty paved road.  Our host showed us the three sites he had open...all obviously previously occupied long-term.
 
Thursday night, as we listened to the bumper crop of cicadas singing, looking at the row of campers waiting for their weekend tenants to arrive, we realized we were looking at a small slice of American underground.  I have vivid memories of the old cottages at the beach.  There are postcards and photos in family albums and displays at local museums of those cottages.  But, I don't know of a collection of photos, yet, of a summer campground community.  There is one in almost every place tourists visit, mostly out of sight of the shopping malls and fancy waterfronts.  These are the vacation homes of working class people.  And, those working folks make a mad dash out of town every Friday afternoon, for the quiet of the golf carts and conversation  with other travel trailer neighbors.  They live outside, no matter the weather, watching outdoor tv's and walking around the campground to see who's not there.  They are quick to offer advice on everything from what local sights to see, to the location of the closest Walmart.  The best part is they accept us, transients and therefore foreigners, as family and friends.

KRC is on the muddy, ever-flowing north Kentucky River.  They say the fishing is good.  We don't know, we're only here for two nights.  But, here beside the cornfield and the river, it's quiet.  And, they've invited us to come back.
   
US Highway 421 North was a blue road on the map, our favorite kind of road.  It was curvy and steep in places, but took us past fields and small towns.  About 10:30, we drove into New Castle, Ky.  Lots of cars parked on the side of the road, flashing lights from emergency vehicles made us think there was a terrible accident.  But, it was the beginning of a parade!  You know we couldn't miss this, so we found a place to park, and walked back.  The African American Pride Heritage Festival parade brought out everyone in town, I believe.  The high school marching band, a couple of notable citizens, and of course,  beauty queesn.  This photo is the 2011 Queen, being greeted by the hostest of the event.  About a dozen past queens were honored just before the parade began, and sat in folding metal chairs to form the viewing 'stand'. Kentucky State University Marching Band came up from Frankfort to perform, to the delight of everyone!  The three block parade was over in about 30 minutes, 30 minutes of pure delight!

The story of a Kentucky Colonel

Stuart reminded me today of a piece of his history I'd forgotten: he's a Kentucky Colonel. Just like THE Colonel. You may wonder what prompted the reminder of such important history. As you remember, we just spent a noisy night at a campground barely off I-40, in Newport, TN last night. Knowing that we'd just crossed over the most difficult of the mountain roads, the section between Asheville, NC and Newport, we opted to go no further that day. The road is a miracle, according to geologists. The rock supporting and surrounding that roadbed is about the most unstable stuff on the east coast. But, don't tell the vast amount of truckers who depend on that route to get across the mountains! Our host at the Newport KOA told us the repair from the rock slide, which closed I-40, took almost two years.  But, back to the Colonel.  We headed north from Newport this hot morning, chosing to drive on 25E, rather than an interstate.  Good choice!  It's the kind of road that has the green dots on the map, indicating that it's a particularly scenic route.  And, it's a route that took us through Corbin, KY.  The place Colonel Harland Sanders perfected his Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe.

We followed our instincts, and a couple of signs, to find the site of the original cafe.  The Colonel moved to Corbin, KY, in 1932.  He first worked for a couple of gas stations, and with the Depression very close in everyone's rear-view memory, managed to buy a gas station on what was the main road from Cleveland to Florida.  He quickly built a small cafe and motor lodge,  serving tasty meals to travelers.  In the early 1950's, with Ike's new interstate road by-passing his town and his restaurant, he took his first social security check ($105), and began traveling and teaching small business owners how to make his pressure-cooked chicken.  In just a few years, he was a millionaire.  And, he did it by telling anyone who'd study his method to pay him "when you can".

The Colonel is one of the originators of American fast food.  His idea of frying chicken in 9 minutes, as opposed to the normal 30 minutes, and therefore giving people hot food quickly, was adopted by others.  The little museum, built to resemble his original cafe,  has a replica of the original kitchen, complete with a 1940-era Hobart dishwasher.  Restaurant owners could take notes about that today.  We ate on plastic plates, with plastic sporks.  He was not only a cook, but a marketing genius.  Inside the cafe, he built a replica of one of the rooms of his motor lodge.  Knowing that the women would want to check out the rooms before agreeing to allow the family to spend the night was key to his marketing scheme.  So, the "ladies room" was actually inside the replica of the motor court room inside the cafe!  The women could see how clean and neat the room was, and would endorse the idea of spending the night there.

I don't know how he earned the Kentucky Colonel honor. I do know that in his younger days he was a politician.  In those days, I believe it was earned through political endorsements or community service work.  Stuart earned his through his ex-father-in-law, who was from KY, and sponsored him.   Stuart doesn't expect anyone to call him Colonel.  He has no clue how to fry chicken, surely won't let anyone pay him "when you can".

Birthday boy

Today is Stuart's birthday. To celebrate, we've chosen to spend the night in Newport, TN. Not familiar with Newport? It's a tiny little town on I-40, north of Sevierville, Gatlinburg and Dollywood. Our KOA campground is not far from the interstate, and sounds much closer than it is. We gave up, came inside even though the night air is cool, and turned on the air conditioning to drown out the noise of the trucks.

We spent the first two nights at Tanglewood County Park, in Clemmons, NC. One memorable November in the early 1990's, we found ourselves in Clemmons the week after Thanksgiving.  I was working, and feeling a little off-balance, as my darling grandmother had died three weeks earlier.  Stuart made the trip with me, and played tourist in Winston-Salem while I worked.  How we got into Tanglewood Park without knowing there was a Christmas light display, we'll never know!  The first night, when I returned to our little travel trailer, I insisted that Stuart get out of bed, get dressed, and get in the car...I had a great surprise for him!  We oohed and ahhed at the lights, and laughed at ourselves for being so unaware.  That evening was the perfect tonic for my sad heart.  This week, we learned that Tanglewood campground has been closed for more than 10 years.  TheForsyth county park is huge and beautiful, and the new-and-improved campground is just as pretty and peaceful as our vague memory painted it.

Tomorrow, Berea, KY.

A dream on the river

For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with the Mississippi River.  Not a Tom Sawyer type of fascination, but one of incredulity at such a huge body of water.  Incredulity.  Is that a word?  There is a scale model of The River on Mud Island, in downtown Memphis, where you get a great sense of The River's enormous responsibility.  Anyway, we're headed for a dream of a trip on The River.  The afternoon Stuart and I got married, 25 years ago, we talked about who/where we'd be in 25 years.  I said I'd like to take a trip on The River sometime before then.  Guess I've waited long enough.

We've rented a houseboat on the upper MS river, in what is known there are Pool 4.  That name has something to do with the locks.  We're picking up our floating home in Alma, WI, just south of Lake Pepian.  The river is so wide just upriver from Alma, it's called a lake!  Everything I've ever read calls this part of the river the most beautiful, with bluffs from 300 - 500 feet.  We will have five days to explore the river, and the small towns close by, locking through to go either up or down the river.  Here's the link for the marina we're dealing with:  http://www.funsun.com/ 
Check out the boat we're rented, the Couples Boat.

After we return the boat, we're headed across the upper peninsula of MI, and down the east coast of MI to see lighthouses.  Doesn't this sound like a grand late summer trip?

To make it even better, we've once again lucked into a house-sitting situation that helps everyone.  Our friends Jan and Eddie finally sold their house.  They've had their eyes on one to buy, but had to sell first.  Their new home needs renovations to the kitchen and bathrooms, and they thought they'd have to rent an apartment.  Well, could timing get any better?!?  And, besides, I now know how to move out of a closet to make room for friends.  So, Jan and Eddie are going to move into our house while they're renovating their new house.  No stinky rental carpets, no noisy neighbors, and a very nice porch (if I do say so!) for breakfast and dinner.  So, if the granite counter tops arrive on time, there are no surprises in the ripping out process, we'll all be comfy on almost exactly the same schedule!  And, if not, there is room for us all when we return.

Stay tuned.  It's going to be a grand adventure.  And, who knows.  We might turn into Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn after all.