We just love riverboat cruising in the towns we visit and we are especially fond of the Missisppi River. From New Orleans to Natchez to St Louis to La Crosse to St Paul. If we can find 'em, we cruise on 'em.
The sky was blue and the temperature was perfect for our 4 hour cruise from Harriet Island in St Paul, MN upriver a few miles past Lock and Dam #1 and then returning.
Padelford Boats, there are 3 of them now, have been working on the Mississippi River for 45 years now. The Jonathan Padelford has a paddlewheel on the stern and can carry up to 200 passengers. The Anson Northrup that we were on is a sidewheeler and can feed 225 people on their lunch cruises. They also have an unpowered party barge that can be towed or coupled with the Anson Northrup and it seats 175 for meals or 300 people with just drinks in their hands.
We were assigned a table before boarding and when we got on we dropped off our backpack and started exploring and staking out a spot in the sunshine with a view of the water from the second deck.
The vessel is two floors high for passengers with the 3rd floor reserved for the pilothouse. Lunch would be on the second floor where tables and silverware bundles were setup, while the first floor had tables only along the wall and would be for inside site-seers only.
As we were getting ready to leave, 10's of kayakers were paddling our way from the marina just upriver of our dock. It was a steady stream of them as we blasted our horn for a good 7 seconds to let them know we were on our way away from the dock.
Most of the information we got while underway was from a recording from some retired news anchor guy that the locals knew. While not as much fun as a Jungle Cruise captain from Disneyland, it was helpful to get to know the river nonetheless.
Along the way we saw pleasure boaters, speed boaters, wave runners, fishermen, birds, rock climbers, and beach walkers. 75% of the shoreline was undeveloped with trees or rocks down to the water.
Lunch was called about 20 minutes before we got to the Lock and Dam - poor timing to be sure. While we waited our turn to get in the buffet line I took some pictures of our approach. We ate hurriedly so we could get out and experience the locking procedure.
Our biggest thrill WAS going through Lock and Dam #1 - the same one we had visited and photographed earlier in the week. This perspective was from INSIDE the lock and let's hope you don't get claustrophobia as the gates close behind you, the water pours in and you are lifted 35' to the upper lake created by the dam.
A few miles upriver we turned around and returned through the lock with a bunch of kayakers and a small pleasure boat.
As we headed downriver to our dock everything looked different - until I went to the other side of the boat and then I recognized everything!
Arriving at the dock we saw their sternwheeler paddlewheel boat, Jonathan Padelford, out on the water. Next to riding these boats we like taking pictures of them.
We reluctently left the boat and headed out for a leisurely drive along the east River Road along the Mississippi River back to our RV in Minneapolis. Crossing the Wabasha Bridge Karen spied ANOTHER paddlewheel boat on the shore downriver - IT WAS THE AMERICAN QUEEN!
Evidently we hadn't done our research well enough and we had missed that she would actually be in town while we were here.
We found our way down to the waterfront and I dropped off Karen so she could take some pictures of the stern while I went and parked the truck a 1/4 mile down the road in the parking lot.
What a great find! In past years Karen and I shadow these boats from city to city taking pictures of them along the river. Seeing and photographing these paddlewheelers between cities was like finally finding a collectible you had been searching for.
We probably spent an hour there watching the passengers arrive via their special bus and listening to the jazz band play songs as they boarded. It was so exciting it almost made us want to forget the $6,000 a week it would take for us to cruise her and just GO! Someday, we will go, again. We love river cruising too much not to go.
Our talk on the way home was about dreaming how and when we could go cruising on a paddlewheel boat in the future and then these smiles will really be worthwhile.
No comments:
Post a Comment