Listing Through Life

After getting kicked off the William M. Black, we walked the length of the not-very-long River Walk, dodging wedding parties and enjoying the pleasant weather. My wife found a quiet place to relax while I walked across a parking lot, around an ongoing Octoberfest, up over a railroad embankment and down into a rail yard to see the shot tower.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about it: The tower was built in 1856 to provide lead shot for the military. The invention of the shot tower enabled economical production of many nearly perfect lead spheres of the right size to fit in a musket. To make the shot, molten lead was poured through a grate at the top of the tower. The droplets that fell from the grate were of relatively uniform size, and the fall provided enough time for the liquid-metal droplet to form into a sphere before landing in the water below. The water cooled the lead to its solid state, retaining the spherical shape.

There wasn’t anything to do there except see it, so I didn’t stay long. Oh, I did take a photo of the chair on a train.

And I paused on my climb back over the railroad embankment to take a photo of the Dubuque Rail Bridge.

My path took me past the Dubuque Star Brewery where I got this shot.

Earlier, on the cruise, our southernmost reach had been next to a bluff with a small castellated structure on top. We were told this was the grave site of Julien Dubuque, a French-Canadian who received permission from the Spanish to mine lead in this area.

We followed GPS on a roundabout path that led us to the Mines of Spain State Recreation Area, where the monument is located.

The bluff provided a pleasant view of the Mississippi River and Dubuque.

After a light supper and a Blizzard at a local Dairy Queen, we ended our adventure and began the long drive home.

The William M. Black Steam-Powered Dredge Boat is docked in Ice Harbor and is part of the museum. I’d made a quick visit earlier in the day with the chair while my wife walked through a part of the museum I wasn’t interested in. I asked at that time how late the boat was open and was assured it was open until 5:00, like the rest of the museum. That meant we’d have time to see it after our cruise.

This is Joseph. When I walked on board with the chair, he said this was a first. He’d never had a “passenger” bring his own chair before. I explained briefly what I was about and he said it was fine. As I left, he started telling me about a friend he had who had a garden gnome that she took about with her. He seemed interested, so I asked him if I could take his photo in the chair. He wasn’t sure if he would get in trouble for doing it, but he agreed. He picked the spot because “the floodgates and bridge in the back are exclusive to Dubuque.”

When we went back at 4:30, there was a chain across the walkway. I could see tourists walking about on the boat, so I climbed over and convinced my wife to do so too. The lower deck engine room door was locked, but we could see in through the windows.

We went up to the second deck and saw the galley.

Dining Room

We walked down the passageway past the crews’ quarters into the operations room and the captain’s cabin.

We walked around the outside of the second deck.

There were some displays to explain what a dredge boat does.

This is the “dustpan” at the front of the boat that brings the gunk off the bottom.

As we walked down the other side of the middle deck, we ran into Joseph who was clearing the boat of tourists and locking doors. I asked if I could take my wife up to the pilot house and down the other side. He said no, and proceeded to tell us a story about a time he let some slow people take their time getting off and found himself locked in the museum compound. He had to call somebody on his cell phone and have them come rescue him. Since then, he kicks everybody of the boat by 4:45, which explained the chain we stepped over. Of course, it took him a couple minutes longer to tell us this story than it would have taken us to climb a ladder, walk the ten feet through the pilot house, and climb down another ladder.

For lunch we skipped the museum snack shop and walked to the nearby Ice Harbor Restaurant because IT WAS ON A BOAT!

This turned out to sound a great deal more exciting than it was. The dining room was tiny and crowded. The one waitress was over-busy and not very competent. And the food was mediocre and over-priced.

But we had a nice time chatting and gazing into each others’ eyes while we planned the rest of our day. Which turned out to involve a ride on the Spirit of Dubuque, a stern-wheeled paddle boat. We were told about thirty times that this is the only paddle-driven excursion boat on the Mississippi or Missouri Rivers. I don’t know about that, but I do know we’ve taken rides before this on “paddle wheel” boats that had wheels for decoration only. This boat had a diesel engine, and the wheels actually turned and moved the boat.

Which was kinda funny because all the people who thought they’d scored great seats on the rear deck scrambled for cover when the boat backed out of its birth and the wheels threw water all over them. In fact, everyone, us included, were soon looking for seats near the front of the boat to escape the diesel fumes.

The Dubuque Rail Bridge that crosses from Dubuque to East Dubuque, Illinois. Shortly after the tracks cross the bridge, they enter a tunnel on the Illinois side. The tower on the Iowa side, visible in the photo below, is a shot tower where lead was dropped into water to create shot for ammunition.

We sailed north first, with Iowa on our left and Illinois, and then Wisconsin on our right. The state line is marked by a tiny sign on the shore, just barely visible in the photo below.

Our furthest point north, with Eagle Point and Lock and Dam 11 in the distance.

This guy was paddling around in the river on a surfboard. When our boat passed, he quick paddled over and rode the wake for a bit. It looked like it might be fun for a few moments, but probably not worth the effort.

The Dubuque-Wisconsin Bridge that carries Route 151 across the river.

The Dennis Ross, pushing two petroleum barges upstream.

Our pilot gave a running explanation of a lot of what we passed, including the details on the towboats we saw. He must have had a book handy in which he could look up the details. His delivery was so halting and dry, however, that it took a great deal of concentration to summon up the energy it took to listen to him.

The large brown mass in the tree with the split trunk is an active Bald Eagle nest. I spotted two eagles perched in riverside trees. I tried to point one of them out to a guy at the next table, but he only spoke German and replied with I don’t know what. I think I got my point across to him, but he didn’t seem overly impressed.

The Julien Dubuque Bridge that carries Route 20 across the river. It was opened in 1943 and painted gray to disguise it in case of enemy air attack. The towboat is the Aaron F. Barrett.

We sailed past Dubuque and headed south for a while. The riverbank here was less developed.

As we returned to Ice Harbor, from which we’d come an hour and a half earlier, we noticed two wedding parties on the levy having their photos taken. Here, and later when we walked along the river, we saw a total of five.

An assortment of small craft lined the entrance to Ice Harbor (so called because ice used to be harvested in the inlet).