Okay, what other highlights were there on our trip …Oh, Meramac Caverns!

So, the day we left Aunt Verna’s home, Kathy and Russ left earlier than us I think. No, wait, one more highlight I forgot. (Well, at least one, that I just remembered.)

The riverboat. One of the days that Taishi and I went to Louisiana, the day we took a lot of pictures, we were at the riverfront when I decided to take Taishi across the bridge to Illinois. He has come to like bridges as much as me, so I knew he would like the ride across there.

I think I have written here before that the bridge is much narrower than I had remembered from my childhood and teenage driving years. It’s nearly scary.

Anyway, we drove across and got to the marina and turned around at the parking lot there. Drove back and happened to look over and see a huge riverboat coming downstream, just north of the bridge! We then parked at the riverfront again and watched as it passed by, with me taking a bunch of pictures. I could make out the name on the front, “American Queen”. That was a new one to me. After it had passed by us, I told Taishi we should go on to Clarksville and tell the others, in case they wanted to see it. And that we could watch it really closely from the observation deck at the lock and dam.

As we drove on Highway 79, we looked for it but I think we had already passed it. The trees were so thick we couldn’t see everything, naturally.

I figured it would take it about an hour to make it all the way to Clarksville, around 9 or 10 m.p.h. I thought. We drove there and told Mom, Kathy and Russ. Aunt Verna and Uncle Lewis were gone, Mom was too tired or something to go, but Russ and Kathy went. When we got there, we bided our time for it to come down the river and “lock” through. Every once in a while one of us would lean over the railing and peek as far around the river bend as we safely could.

There was a couple about my age sitting behind us, and I overheard some of their conversation and ascertained that the guy had done this before, coming to the riverfront just to see the boat. He obviously had a schedule from before.

Finally, the boat came around the corner and started the long process of locking through. Just as the guy behind us had said, because the boat slowly lowered as the water level inside the lock lowered, we were talking to some people for a while and then before we knew it we were talking to some different people who were on a different deck.

It was even beter of an experience than I had thougght it might be. The people on the deck were throwing candy and chocolate to us on the observation deck. I don’t know how old that custom is. It was the first I knew about it, but I had never been that close to a boat before, so it might be old or it might be relatively new, I don’t know.

We were talking to the people on the deck. Well, mostly the guy who had been sitting behind us was talking. I felt kidn of funny making forced conversation, so I performed my role as a listener. It was mostly small talk, first off finding out where they people were headed, stuff like that. One guy mentioned that he had come from California. They were older people for the most part, retirees. One thing about the people throwing candy and chocolate, they often didn’t do very well throwing, and some candy ended up on the walkway below us that the workers use. I thought it was really nice for them to do that, though. They did hit their mark more than they missed it.

We all wished themm well on the rest of their journey as the lock opened up and they went on their way. As the boat was leaving, one young black worker on the rear deck was in between sitting down and laying down, and I think a few kids on the observation platform were just waving goodbye to him and he spontaneously did a little jig while still halfway laying down. For some reason that got a rise out of even some of the adults. It made me realize that some people haven’t seen much dancing in real life, LOL.

As the boat pulled away, we left to go back to Aunt Verna’s house. From up there, I waited to take some more pictures of the boat. I wanted to get some broadside pics, of course, but unfortunately just when the boat came in view (after getting past the trees below the house that were blocking the view) it was headed away from me. I snapped a few pics anyway. The boat looked huge, taking up quite a bit of the ever declining space that is between the trees up there that allow us a view.

I found out later that it is the largest boat in the “fleet”. (The fleet has all of three boats.)

Maybe the very next day, I read in the Hannibal newspaper that the boat I was most familiar with, the Delta Queen, was going to have to stop operating because Congress was ending its safety hazards waiver. That really seems sad. Because it is a wooden boat, it doesn’t pass guidelines set around 1986, and has been getting a waiver since then but apparently Congress won’t be extending it this time. It’s almost enough to make me try to take a trip on it before it is retired. That would be expensive and hard to fit in my vacation schedule, though.