Hello again… As Tom Sawyer remarked on his raft travelling the
Mississippi: “you know Huck, the
internet on this river REALLY sucks”!
Well, not much has changed in nearly century and a half.. The internet
on our watercraft was equally as sucky.
Hence those of you who have been wondering “Where’s the Feeder?” can chalk
it up to the technology near the Big Muddy.
I was able to kind of keep some up by resorting to social media
(Facebook - do you Like me??), and using the “Checking In” option occasionally.
You just can’t fat finger an nice description of a foie gras plate on
the Droid..
On the other hand, the time released by not keeping up the
blog enabled maybe a more enhanced experience.
So enough of whining, we’ll start with a quick overview of our
adventure.
The American Queen is the largest operating Steamboat in the
world, yes, world.
She is 418 feet long, 89 feet wide, with 6 decks resulting
in a 110 foot tall vessel containing 222 staterooms with accommodations for
about 440 passengers and a crew of somewhere around 160. Even with all this mass. the behemoth only
has a draft of 8.5 feet. The physical
dimensions are kind of dictated by the operating environment, as there are
almost 30 locks on the Upper Mississippi (somewhere around 100 feet wide), and
the Corps of Engineers maintains the channel at a depth of 9 feet. Power is mainly supplied by the paddle wheel,
Which can be augmented by a couple of so-called “Z drives”
in the stern and thrusters in the bow.
I did get a tour of the bridge, and sorry, there is no “Mark
Twain” big steering wheel, but just a lever (left foreground over the box of
knobs).
Electronics have replaced much of the legendary stuff of
riverboat lore (no tube to the engine room), but still they control it beautifully. We did scrape bottom occasionally
(acknowledged as a way to keep it clean), and maybe gently nudged a lock wall,
but generally you never knew you were under way. A good bit of travel was done at night (!!)
and sometimes a lock light would illuminate your room for a few moments, but
that was about it.
Our journey of over 700 miles (by river miles) started in
Minneapolis on the 4th of October and ended yesterday (the 11th). We stopped overnight along the way at Red
Wing, LaCrosse, Dubuque, Davenport, Burlington, and finally Hannibal before
ending our journey in Alton, Ill. We
generally spent at least a half of a day in each river town, and the company
had a very nice system of “hop-on hop-off” buses that stopped at various places
of interest (and shopping!) in whatever town we were in. In LaCrosse, we had a chance to visit with
MFO’s sister (who lives there). That was some of the most pleasant weather we experienced.
Over the next few days I’ll pass along some of the more
interesting highlights.
As for dining (what?, you’re going to talk about food?) there
were a couple of options available.
Three meals a day were available in the Front Porch Café (fourth deck
forward), which was fairly informal and ALWAYs had a buffet (which under the
circumstances is understandable, regardless of a Feeder’s feeling regarding
buffets), or a more formal setting was the main J. W. White Dining Room which also
offered a (more extensive) buffet at the first two meals of the day. For each meal they also had an a la carte
menu if you cared to have somebody besides yourself bring you your food. Dinner was by the menu only and was served in two
seatings; one at 5:15 and another at 7:45.
I don’t exactly know how to solve it, but thought the “early” was too
early, and the “late” was too late. There
were also multiple bars, which were open at more generous hours..
There are things to talk about in the food and its service
but we’ll hold that for another time. Besides
food and tours, every afternoon (we were mostly underway by one) there was a
series of concerts or lectures. In short, there was always something to do. Or, as
we often did, you can just sit and watch the river bank go by. With maybe something in your hand from one of
those bars.
I should mention that when you boarded you were given a
little card which checked you on and off board, and was also swiped for one of
those “something in your hand”. Again,
understandable but kind of annoying. Sort
of a “pay as you drink” plan.
Anyway, all it all it was a good trip and a new experience
for us whose only experience with river travel was those 8 person barge trips
in France, which was a completely different universe of course. We were with a group from old reliable Cole Travel
of about thirty some odd, which gave us an opportunity to enjoy old friends as
well as meet new ones. Among which, was
a foodie whose company and conversation I very much enjoyed. He one upped me with the French Laundry, but I had
him on the Inn at Little Washington. All in
good fun of course..
Of course we were not the only craft on the river, as we
were joined by up and down traffic
And those who were working for a living
3402
Although reflective of the season we did see some sportsmen.
So in a nutshell that’s an overview.
Tomorrow maybe we’ll crack some nuts and see what’s inside. Oh yes,
although there was some variation (by the people from Texas for instance)
everybody at least thought that for their culture they were
DFD
