Rainy River

Thursday 10/22/09 & Friday 10/23/09     Rain, Rain, Rain! Both Thursday & Friday we travelled in rain. Not bad travelling except when it's time to lock thru. Get out the foulies, hang the fenders, and hold onto the lines. We caught a break on Friday however when 3 out of 4 locks let us float in the chamber while the water went down which of course means we get to stay inside & dry!

Of course all the rain causes everything sitting along a stream bank to flow out into the main channel of the river creating an obstacle course for Tourist. At one point below Lock 20 I swear you could walk across the river on the debris, it was so thick.

One of the interesting sights we passed on Thursday was the remains of the Kiethsburg, Illinois RR Bridge. I can remember watching the news back in the early '80s and seeing them explode a section of the bridge and drop it into the river. Last night I learned the rest of that story. It seems the original bridge was built in the 1880's and later replaced with a new bridge in 1909. Over the years it was owned by several different railroads the last being the C & NW which closed the line in 1971. On June 30, 1981 some of the local kids decided that the bridge would be a good spot to set off their fireworks. Well one of the shells landed in the bridge tenders shack catching it on fire. The fire in the shack started the grease on the bridge mechanism on fire which caused the lift span to fail and drop into the river blocking the main channel and stopping navigation. The section I saw on the news was the section next to the fallen section which was removed to make a wider navigation channel.

Shortly before we arrived at our Friday night destination we passed this guy in a kayak with sail and outrigger all bundled up against the elements. Can you say NUTS!