Drop the Anchor!

 KG at the quill tonight: I have spent countless mornings on the Mississippi River over the period of sunrise getting ready to row, or out for a run along the river, but this morning was the most peaceful.  We were awakened by the very talkative blue heron that was hanging around our marina before dawn.  I prepared my usual cup of coffee: hand grinding the beans while the water heated and then making my single cup with my Aero Press.  I sat in the cockpit watching a flock of ducks come alive, mingling & chattering to each other and then heading out onto the river in groups of 2 or 4, some singly.  I couldn’t help comparing it to mornings at the boathouse, people coming together, sleepily greeting each other and getting equipment ready and then heading out on the water for a sunrise row. I do miss rowing but I would still rather be here. Once this beautiful sunrise appeared:

I headed out for my morning run, since I didn’t bring a rowing shell along for this journey.  One advantage of river travel so far has been that in every town we’ve docked, there has been a riverwalk to run along.  The riverwalk in Muscatine was up on the levee and running up there brought me back my runs on the levee in New Orleans when my ship was in the shipyard there.  Luckily it’s far less humid here.

We had a very late underway this morning because I wanted to see the National Pearl Button Museum.  Back in the early 1900’s, Muscatine was known as the pearl button capital of the world - they turned out well over one billion buttons a year; buttons that were punched from shells of the river mussels that had lined the midwest rivers, including the Mississippi.  It definitely was worth the delay in the day!

Since we left the Quad Cities, the river has really changed.  Gone are the broad wetlands. We are now seeing much more industrial machinery along the river and the foliage in the unpopulated areas is heavily wooded.  We are seeing more herons and egrets mixed with the pelicans and gulls This is once such industrial area we passed on the Iowa side.

We had seen only one other pleasure craft on the waters over the past couple of days and were wondering if that would be the norm, but today we were passed by a larger power boat from Stillwater, MN and another one with no name.  We caught up to them at lock 17, however, since we all had to wait for a large tow to lock up.  This was our first time being in a lock with multiple watercraft.  There were the three of us power boats and a two person-kayak that pulled into the lock behind us.  The kayak had started in Itasca, MN and the paddlers were planning to travel all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.

We traveled 30 miles today and decided that was enough, so we pulled off into a side channel of the Mississippi to anchor for the night.  We have stumbled into a paradise.  It is as if we are in the wilderness with no humans for miles around.  We pulled out the inflatable kayak to check out this side channel of the river (the Iowa slough).  

After our paddle we used our grill for the first time on this trip and had a lovely dinner in the cockpit of the boat listening to the myriad bird calls and watching fish trails in the water.  After our nightly round of cribbage and a cockpit Sun Shower (you fill a bladder with water and let the sun heat it up as you travel and then hang it and voila - you have a hot shower) as the  sun set it was time to retire to the cabin before we were eaten alive by bugs.