Nature Made

(July 13-16)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENNY!

I’ve discovered a much different river traveling up the Ohio. Gone are all the manmade retentions and the narrow canals, in their place are uprooted and forgotten trees, huge fallen boulders and overgrown muddy river banks that go on for miles. The waters are calmer, deeper and truly greener than I’ve observed before on this trip, and cooler. There are fewer places to stop for the night; marinas or anchorages. One such example would be the Mt. Vernon courtesy dock. After driving for over 10 hours any port begins to look good and we seriously needed a few provisions. Let me tell you, this ‘dock’ was 3 mini-floating docks hooked together with a hand rail running down the middle. It’s really meant for small fishing craft. It was anchored to the shore, so that was good, but for us to tie off and stay here was a treat. Not just for us, but the townsfolk that came to watch, and they did. They watched us dock, tie off (one helped) ride off on our bikes and return, then BBQ on the aft deck. At one point one of the townsfolk dumped his bike and took a running leap off the end of the dock for a swim. An older gentleman pulled up in his truck and unloaded a very anxious and excited dog, Sandy. He threw the ball in the water and in went Sandy; they did this a number of times. We looked forward to sundown when they’d all go home, and most did. Around 10pm the night fisherman appeared; set up chairs right off our bow and fished for several hours. Now keep in mind we are right on the river, so every time a barge went by we got rocked from their wake and the dock moaned and groaned like it was going to fall apart. It was like we were in their front yard and we were just part of the river comings & goings.

The daily river traffic has slowed, only occasionally do we come across a tow pushing barges (all seem to be 15 now), most smaller tug traffic seems to be relocating either full or empty barges from one side of the river to the other. We pass more commercial areas for river transportation and even a dry dock specific for tugs. The river continues to be wide so we’ve had no trouble passing whatever comes our way.

There has to be oodles of heritage wrapped up in this river so each older, smaller town we pass have their own story to tell. More than once we’ve seen towns tell their story via a mural along the flood wall that history itself would tell you was built to protect the town. Unique old buildings and churches peak over these walls or through the trees.

We drove through another torrential rain storm and very thankful for our plastic windows in the pilot house. There are still a few drain holes at the floor level that will need to be plugged once we begin renovations. It will be so nice to have windows with windshield wipers too. I was forced to take my pictures from the less wet aft deck.

We have noted a few places we’d like to see when we make our return trip back to the lake next summer and some that would require a road trip in the motor home. One really cool looking place is a small town called Cave-in-Rock. That’s truly what they have to offer a huge cave in the mountainside at water level. We did not see any place to tie off, but we did pass a ferry right there at the city, so that could be a fun road trip one day.

We did ride past Evansville, IN - it's a BIG city with lots going on around their river front. So take a look at the pictures labeled French Islands if you're curious.

We’ve anchored out for a few nights now, each one offering its own form of entertainment. As I mentioned before there are fewer places to tuck in for the night along the Ohio so it takes planning on our part. Our first spot after our splendid night at Mt. Vernon courtesy docks was the French Islands 55 miles up river. Between the two islands was wonderful, quiet, nice and deep - too deep. After a couple of failed attempts to get our stern anchor to hold we moved up and across the river – not such a pretty spot and much more shallow. Tom actually tossed the anchor on the shore and there it sat in 1 foot of water – but it held, and held nicely all night. It was easy to gather the next morning too. Our next night, after traveling 62 miles, we sounded our way (continually checking the depth) into the Big Poison Creek (great name) found we had a good 2-3 feet under us so we turned around and backed our big selves in just enough to be off the river. We could hear the deep thrumming of the tows as they slowly drove up river and eventually felt their wake as it washed upon the shoreline. Each night I’ve seen many fireflies and this anchorage was especially noisy with critters all night. Today we’ve traveled 57 miles to anchor in Salt River just outside of Fort Knox, KY. Before this stop we were motoring up river when a large (and armed I might add) helicopter flew overhead. I suppose they were checking us out. We anticipated being approached when we anchored, but this stop is a very pleasant surprise. It’s actually inhabited with humans. It’s not fair to say we are anchored, even though the stern anchor is sitting in a few feet of water again, but the bow has been tied off to a tree. This is something we’ve wanted to do the entire trip! Just down the river there are a number of tows working on a RR bridge, across the river is a boat launch and a small campground. We had a young man ride up to the boat on his jet ski – yelling “Hello?” he wanted to know if it was okay for his nephew to practice on the jet ski here rather than in the big river – didn’t want to bother us. This was a first. Of-course we thought just practice driving, but it was more like crazy-man wheelies. It didn’t last very long and they both appeared to be having such a good time.

Today was the first day on the Ohio River we did not have to go through a lock. With each one we’ve an average a lift of 20 feet. Now with more than 50 locks to our credit we’ve each become quite competent at our tasks. Tom maneuvers the boat right along the wall with no scraping and I lasso the bollard on the first try, then we sit back and enjoy the ride.