River World Field Trip, Alton, IL to Lake Charles, LA and back on a working towboat, 1956
October 24, 2015April 9, Monday
With the clanging of Mr., Todd’s bell, I was up and surprisingly wide awake by 5:30, and out into a lovely spring morning. We were passing the greening forests of Fountain Bluff, cool -and rocky in the dawn. Towheads and shores were getting green, a pale, tenuous new green of willows, much farther along than they were at home. New leaves were coming on the woods-trees on the bluffs, with a blur of white which could have been new dogwood or might have been shadbush. The river was rising, and much drift was coming past. Shortly after a pink sunrise, clouds came over the sky and the sky and the river turned grey as ice.
Breakfast — grapefruit segments, eggs and bacon, biscuits and coffee. Since breakfast each day was pretty much the same, I shall not repeat the menu. As the captains said, “Mrs. Todd sure bacons us to death!”
We passed the massive sheer heights of Hanging Dog bluff with redbud pinkening on it, and a quarry down below. The river was in such a state of hurry, fed by the rise from the north, that the buoys were bobbing and tearing about, as if they were trying to get away, sometimes ducking under, sometimes leaping high. On shore farms were greening, and fruit trees were pleasantly in bloom as picture after picture, in each hollow of the hills, came into view. Below Fountain Bluff the cliffs are on the Missouri side they seem to alternate along the way, near on one shore, far on the other.
Devils Island Field Light, and boils and churning brown eddies and foam marked the river…. and a sundog grew near the clouding sun. There were cormorants near Gape Girardeau, with us from that moment on, hardly a time when there were no cormorants in view, — or the usual argument aboard as to whether they are water turkeys or nigger geese …
We got to Gape Girardeau considerably ahead of our Estimated Time of Arrival,, known as ETA. Whitie got off on vacation, shaved and dressed elegantly, and was replaced by Bill Johnson, no kin to the other Bil1 Johnson on the LaCrosse trip. This one is young, used to be in the clam-shell business near Paducah. Sam got off; we picked up his replacement down at Helena — no that was the relief for Vess; Sam was replaced by Roy Carlton, mate. We went into the shipyard to pick up our repaired barge from March 20’s accident. With us were the KESTREL, the CHILLI SIMPS0N, the BAYOU PEROT, and the CAP’N BILL STUMP, while up on the ways, high above the river, a new towboat was being built.
While we were here I went down to the galley to watch Mrs. Todd make a pair of chocolate pies, and we talked. Finally we were on our way, past sandbars and dikes, past the big yellow CORAL SEA. We left Cape Girardeau at 2:20, south with three barges, two 300-footers and a smaller “box” barge.
Dinner was
roast pork loin and gravy, buttered cabbage, chopped salad, navy beans, sliced onions, mashed potatoes, cornbread, and chocolate pie. Practically every dinner and supper had the eternal mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, and chopped salad. Meats and desserts varied, but not much else.
South the rest of the afternoon, past the rocky woods of Missouri, past redbud and tulip and sassafras and willow, under the Thebes railroad bridge. Scaups in the backwater, and red maple keys were vivid. We passed the LOUISIANA on a grey river under a brooding grey sky.
Rain began before suppertime —
veal steak, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots, cauliflower, navy beans, salad, peaches.
And we came to the mouth of the Ohio at dusk, but light enough to see the massive junction of the two great rivers, with the point of Illinois thrusting south, and the lights of Cairo up on the Ohio shore. This was one of the things I especially wanted to see on this trip. The river was extremely deep here, a 35 foot stage, whatever that means. It looked deep and extremely broad here, and was very impressive.
We could still see the contrasting characters of the two rivers — clear water where the Ohio came in, muddy water from the Mississippi. In the grey dusk and driving rain, we passed the PORT DEARBORN, the MARY B., the tiny NANCY JO. Then it was night, and the rain, silvered in the searchlights, slashed at the windows and made visibility poor. The radar was on, and the GAPE ZEPHYR shoved doggedly on into the stormy night.