May 27
We drove into Uniontown at about 6:45 and met Brian for dinner at Hannah’s. We also met his daughter, granddaughter, and Uncle Terry.
May 28 River mile 842.5-883
We were on the river by 6 am with a send off from Uncle Terry who was watching over us. The first day on the river yesterday was amazing. We saw a bald eagle soon into our paddling. We had lots of firsts including that we paddled about 40 miles in one day. That’s the most we’ve ever done in a day. We were also able to use our wind sail which moved us along, although we realize not as fast as when we’re paddling strongly.
The further down the river we paddled, the busier the locks become. We approached John T. Myers Locks and Dam at mile 846 as we had all the others. At about a mile out, Karen called the lock master, but this time, instead of being told to come ahead and enter the chamber, we were told we had to wait for a barge to go through. So, we paddled to the shore to a small creek inlet and waited. The barge was so close to us that they actually called out instructions to us from the barge that the lock master had given them for us. While we waited, we suddenly noticed a rather large water snake on a small log sticking out of the river right next to us!
At 9:30 we stopped for a break in Old Shawneetown, IL. It was already getting hot. We met two men at the ramp who told us that Old Shawneetown was the oldest town in Illinois. Way back upriver on the Allegheny we had visited the nations smallest town! We asked if there was somewhere to eat and they directed us to Nate’s Tavern. We passed a cool old bank and an old Texaco station as we walked up to Nate’s. At that hour, there were only a couple of men in the tavern. We ordered cool sodas and then decided to get a grilled cheese sandwich. There were interesting artifacts on the walls, including a picture of the hanging of Joe Peck Smith, the last man to be hanged in the town.
Later in the day we saw our first sun bow in the sky. It was a prism-like spectrum circling the sun. We still had some tailwinds which we toook advantage of with the sail again. However, the weather forecast was for lots of rain and the locals were saying it would rain until Friday. Up to that point, the weather had been amazing. We stopped for an afternoon break in Caseyville around 1:30.
Around 4:30 that afternoon we arrived at a destination we had learned about some years earlier: Cave in Rock, IL. When we first read about it we were intrigued by the fact that it was a site right on the river, and we could easily see it and possibly explore it. We were not disappointed. It is literally a long, dark, and moist cave into the rock hillside. It ended in a large room with a light shaft coming down from a crack above. It was very slippery walking on mud and cave slime but worth it for the novelty. The cave was part of a state park.
We had had an exciting day with interesting sights and a strong tail wind at times that allowed us to sail really fast. It was almost too strong, but it was a lot of fun. That evening we passed a little inlet as we were looking for a place to camp. It was getting late and rain was coming.We decided at the last minute to paddle backwards a bit and explore the possibilities. We were well rewarded.
There was a private campground with a boat ramp. The ramp was not on the charts so we were really lucky that we had made the decision to check it out. We pulled up, walked to the top of the ramp, and found the campground and a couple sitting under the porch of the community building. They welcomed us and let us unload our gear and set up camp and then use the air conditioned Ice House, their name for the building. Later, others gathered under the porch. We had forgotten the proper phone changers so they gave us chargers to use and then take along with us. Jill, Ryan, and Roy were among those we met. We saw a rainbow that evening andwent to bed. It rained some that night but we slept well.
May 29 River miles 883-920 We were packed an back on the river at 6:05 am, having left a note of thanks in the Ice House. We had once again been gifted the wonders of hot and cold running water and AC! Life was good.
We stopped in the little town of Rosiclare for a break in the morning. After paddling up to the public ramp, we walked into town. Every town, literally every town, big or small, had elaborate flood walls and gates. From the river that is often all you see, and if you don’t walk into town, you never find out about the people, places, or history. We walked through the flood gate (which is an elaborate system that is closed up manually with cranes and sections of walls when a flood is expected) and found a quaint florispar mining town. As with mining everywhere, including the coal mining all along the river, once the mineral or ore dries up, the companies move on, leaving behind unemployment and dying towns. The company had moved to Mexico where there is still florispar to mine.
We stopped and chatted with a woman who owned a florist and gift shop. She sold handmade jewlery made from small bits of the purplish crystal, and we each bought a token souvenir from her. From there we walked down the street that still had the tram rails imbedded in it and found a diner, Smoke On the Water, to have second breakfast. That concept was a regular part of our days. Back on the river, we had a day of seeing many eagles including two juveniles. We stopped for another break across fro Rondeau Island newar Golconda, IL.
Again, seeking refuge from the coming rains and hoping to find a place to camp, we stopped in Birdsville, KY. We pulled up but didn’t see any potential sites. We decided to walk down the road as it started to rain. We found a woman out in her yard and asked about camping, but she said there was nothing. Then we saw a bicyclist had stopped to rest from the rain under a tree. We talked to him a bi,t but he seemed to have an agenda that didn’t including chatting with soggy river paddlers. He went on his way and we went on ours.
Karen called the lockmaster at the upcoming lock again. She had spoken to him the day before. Again, the locks were busier than we had experienced upriver. He gave her instructions for the approach and we set off. The rain had stopped, and we set out to find a place to camp before it got too late.
At 3:45 pm we approached the Smithland Lock and Dam and pulled up on the boat ramp as we had been instructed. The operator wanted us to wait there for up to an hour to let a barge through. When we got there, he came down and met us and, reading our inquisitive minds, invited us up to see how the lock worked. This was a high tech version of what we experienced in our first lock on the Allepheny. We were delighted to see the technology, his office, hear him talk to the tugs, and see the barge workers from above the barges instead of from the canoe at a distance. Unfortunately, Karen was barefoot and the sharp metal bridges were hard on her feet but the excitement of being there overrode her pain!
Once through the lock, we had to paddle to the opposite side of the river to get to Smithland, at the mouth of the Cumberland River. We pulled up on the boat ramp after a 37 mile day. We walked around the town a bit and found the local police dispatch buildling and knocked on the door. We talked to Deputy Brewer and asked if it might be OK to camp on the town land by the river. Apparently there was a neighboring town official who insisted that NO CAMPING signs be put up but he said there should be no problem. One of the no camping signs had additional words painted on it: Fake News, an indication that we were paddling in 2018 when fake news was talked about everywhere.
We went back to set up camp and had to lug our gear quite a distance. As we were doing that, we were distracted for a bit talking to a man who had driven down to the river. For those living in river towns, we came to understand that a regular drive to the river was part of the culture…just to see what was passing by, who was fishing, or what boaters may have washed up! As we talked to him, we did not realize that the waves from the barges comimg out of the mouth of the Cumberland combined with barges on the Ohio were slowly rocking the canoe and pulling it away from shore. Just in time we saw what was happening, and Karen ran into the water up to her waist to fetch it. That was the only time we came close to losing the canoe.
We walked back into town for dinner at Smokey D’s, the new BBQ place in town. It started pouring while we were eating and we stayed as long as we could but finally asked if there was anyone who would be willing to drive us back to the river. A young man volunteered and by the time we got back, the rain was slowing. We made it through a restless, wet night.
May 30 River mile 920 In the morning we went to Thompson’s grocery where we bought a hot breakfast and enjoyed some conversation with the local men who meet there. One of the guys had spent 40 years on the river boats. We would have liked to have heard more of his stories. After breakfast, we once again asked for help. We hoped to find someone to pay to drive us the 25 miles to Paducah. We found Darvie, our driver, who needed some gas money and we needed a ride so it all worked out, as usual. We were tired of being wet, it was too windy, and we were too tired to think of paddling as we ended up spending a night at the Holiday Inn in Paducah, Kentucky.
The staff at the hotel let us check in early so we could have warm showers and dry clothes, thanks to their laundry room. We then headed out to spend the afternoon and evening in the city. The weather turned out to be quite nice, and we could have paddled, but our bodies needed the midweek break and we enjoyed being tourists. We had a nice meal followed by a stop at an ice cream parlor. A visit to the River Museum was really interesting. We both had a chance to practice on the tug boat simulator, helping us understand how limited the captains are in being able to see, much less stop for, small recreational vehicles like a canoe!
May 31 River mile 920-942 After a cozy night in the Holiday Inn in Paducah, Kentucky, we called for our first ever Lyft ride to take us back to Smithland, Kentucky, where we had trustingly left our canoe and some of our gear for the night. We learned that our new friend Deputy Devin Brewer had been watching out after our gear, wondering what had become of us. He left a note for us with his phone number so Karen spoke to him on the phone and filled him in on our previous day and night.
We loaded up the canoe with the wet tent and the other dry gear. By about 7:30 am we were on the river. We were anticipating rain and pretty strong winds much of the day. However, the winds never got unbearable, and we were able to find shelter in some channels along the islands. One thing we are noticing as we get to the lower part of the Ohio River is that there are a lot of bars and a lot more islands, undoubtedly due to the build up of silt along the way. In one of those channels we saw a very unusual line of Asian carp with their mouths open, just waiting for food to flow into them. There were also many eagles. We had to maneuver around more towboats and barges when we got back down to Paducah where the Tennessee River empties into the Ohio River. As we approached Lock and Dam 52, Karen called ahead and learned that the dam “was under water.” While that sounded kind of scary, it turned out that it just meant that we didn’t need to go through the lock. We could paddle right over the dam and, in face, didn’t even know when we had done that as it was well submerged. However, it was different and required us to follow the buoys and the instructions from the operator.
We arrived at Fort Masioc State Park around 2pm. The visitor center was closed but we saw a man on a tractor and went to talk to him. We asked him if it was ok to camp along the river. It turned out that he was a park employee, and he said we could only camp at campsites–which were not near the river. However, he agreed to meet us with his truck after we checked out the campsites. Then he picked us up and we went to get the canoe. We put the canoe and all of our gear in the back of his truck and he drove us back to the site. We had just set up the tent and walked across the park when the rains hit. We ran to the nearest shelter and tried to stay out of the rain as it whipped around us. At one point we were huddling under the picnic tables with rain water filling the floor as well as the park valleys around us. It was truly a flash flood rain with some hail thrown in! As soon as the rain stopped, we walked into Metropolis, Illinois, on a mission to see if we could find the Superman Museum. As it turned out, it was three miles into town. We were exhausted when we got back to the campsite. There was another storm in the night, but we stayed mostly dry.
We had hit the 100 mile mark for this trip and realized we were only 39 miles short of the Mississippi! One of the highlights today was seeing an eagle’s nest and two juvenile eagles with a parent.
June 1 River mile 942-973 We stopped for a morning break in Joppa around 10 am and then again short of the Olmstead Dam at 12:20 for lunch. The Olmstead Lock and Dam has been under construction for decades though people still refer to it as the “new dam.” It is supposed to be completed in 2018. Calling ahead, we learned, as with the previous dam, that we would not need to be locked through. While we had always enjoyed the locks and their amazing feats of engineering, we were happy to save the time and paddle on past, again minding the buoys and the dam construction traffic on the river. Once past the dam, we took a quick break and headed for our final destination of Mound City, IL.
The end of our trips are always sad and exciting. We were now only 8 miles from the mouth of the Ohio, saving that journey for the fall of 2018 and a celebration with family and friends. We paddled 130.5 miles on this trip. Coming around some moored barges we found the ramp where Bryan and his friend Stevie were waiting for us with Karen’s car. The timing was perfect, we greeted them with enthusiasm, loaded everything up, and headed to Cairo, IL, for a look at where we would go in the fall. From there, we found a restaurant for dinner and then headed back to Uniontown to drop off Bryan and Stevie and head back to Cinncinnati for my flight home.
Paddle With Us 