Things have improved a good deal in the past few days. In my last post I was worried about the high water levels along the Mississippi and we were facing some lock and dam closures. This would make for a lot of difficulty and delays on our trip and had me scheming of ways to circumvent the dams in order to keep our plans intact. On Saturday afternoon it still looked like trouble lie ahead but by Saturday evening everything was well under control and all systems were go.
So what happened in a few short hours to cause such a sudden change? A few things that I'll happily list out while being certain to acknowledge who earns credit for them.
My brothers Nick and Denny in Missouri:
They sent me a message indicating their willingness to bring a car with an empty trailer from St Louis to pick Mary and me up at the point where we could no longer proceed. This would probably be in the Davenport or Muscatine, IA area and then they'd transport us back to Nick's house in St Louis. That would but us well beyond the trouble points in the river and set us up for a fun night-over with some floating in Nick's pool to cool off. Then the next day we'd get back on the river where we'd be on our way down to Cape Girardeau. I could not perceive of a better solution and thank you my MO-Bros.
Mother Nature:
Later on Saturday evening I popped open my laptop to take another quick look at the lock and dam closure status in the S. Iowa - N. Missouri area. Much to my surprise the announcements were now showing the expected closures to be short with all of them reopening before I arrive there in the July 10th time frame. Thank You mother nature, and I'll accept you offer, but just remember, my brothers beat you to it.
Wife Mary:
On Saturday Mary said she'd pray for the conditions to improve while she was at church that evening. I suppose she gets credit for this since both solutions above literally dropped into our hands a few hours later. And as a bonus we have improving overall weather conditions which Mary claimed was on her list too. Sunny, warm and breezy days are forecast for as far out as predictions are reliable. This claim on the weather sounds a bit too convenient to me and if she was to be granted three out of three requests then she should have asked for a bigger boat or something along those lines.
Now we're in fairly good shape to get started on Thursday at noon and our hope is to cruise down the Miss with only the minor inconvenience of high water but without the closures. And if you're wondering, I'm still stopping at Nick's house in St Louis to hang for a night and cool in his pool. And I do believe I'll take the opportunity to lay in a supply of Schlafly's brew aboard the ol' Blue Fin too.
Our departing location is still uncertain but the choices are narrowed to Boom Island Park in NE Minneapolis if the Twin cities dams reopen, otherwise we'll go to Watergate Marina in St Paul near Ft Snelling and the MSP airport. A third alternate is Hidden Falls Park about 1/2 mile upstream of Watergate if it re-opens from the high water in time. Standby for more on this.