Brian (Cedar Valley Saver Publisher) and I enjoyed a wonderful vacation on our boat this summer, traveling from Dubuque, Iowa to Stillwater, Minnesota. It was a trip we have taken many times before, but this time we’d like to share it with you in installments in the Cedar Valley Saver. Hopefully you will get a bit of the flavor of the Upper Mississippi River (not literally), and some of the historic, charming towns along the way.  - Barbara

Click on underlined words for photos, or see the Photo Gallery for more pictures.

Monday, August 31.  Brian and I are about to embark on our 6th annual trip by boat up the Mississippi River from Dubuque, IA to Stillwater, MN, a journey of 287 miles one way – it takes 9 days to properly make a round trip.  By properly, we mean about 5 hours a day of cruising at 25 mph.  Nautical types describe speed in knots.  I say let them.

 Along the way we’ll stay overnight at marinas in a number of interesting little river towns, and sample the local fare at some wonderful eating establishments.  We’ll do a lot of walking, and chat it up with the locals to see what’s on their minds. 

 We’ll be taking photos to illustrate our journey, and posting the whole mess to the CV Saver and cvsaver.com in installments during the weeks following our trip.    

 We leave from our slip at the Dubuque Yacht Basin this Saturday, the 29th.  In preparation we are making two purchases: a small icemaker, and a global positioning system.  We are on the boat every weekend from mid-April through the end of October, and probably spend $5 on ice each weekend.  That’s around $140 a season, and the icemaker costs $161.  That means savings after a year ¼; plus, we’ll never run out of ice.

 The GPS will give us peace of mind.  It is possible to get hung up at a lock and dam for up to 2 hours while waiting for a full barge that is locking through.  A  full barge consists of a towboat pushing 5 barges long, 3 barges across for a total of 15 barges.  To go through a lock, it is necessary for the deckhands and lock workers to “break” the barge in half.   The tow pushes the first 3 barges into the lock, the water is raised or lowered, the gates open so the 1st half can be pushed out and secured on the outer wall.  Then the 2nd half is pushed in and the process is repeated.  Finally the gates are opened and the two halves chained together again.  It is slow going, especially while waiting on a hot day.

 If we have lousy luck and run into a number of locks where we have to wait, we could be out on unfamiliar waters after dark.  This has happened before, fortunately in familiar waters.  The GPS will show us where we are relative to the channel markers, which will be very reassuring.  It can be set to “remember” where we have been so we can retrace our steps on the way back south.  It will show us our depth, backing up our depth finder.

 Channel markers are buoys that come in red or green; they mark the river channel, which is dredged to assure the water is at least 9 feet deep so barges can navigate without scraping bottom.  Of course, pleasure boaters get the advantage of depth as well.  The rule is “red right returning”.  That means the red markers will be on the right (starboard) side of the boat when returning to the river’s source (heading north).  The green markers will be on the left (port) side.  When traveling south, of course, that is reversed.  The red makers are called nuns, because their shape is reminiscent of an old-fashioned nun’s hat.  The green markers are called cans – they are shaped like upside-down garbage cans.  We are dependent on the Corps of Engineers to retrieve errant markers and return them to their proper place.  A maverick marker led us onto a sandbar once.  We had to get out and push the boat, getting sand into the impellor.  Not fun.  More next issue …