On the road with Buddy and Cally Cat too!!

OK that is a bad impression of Ike and Tina Turner, but you get the idea anyway, as it is time to head to the river.

I left Oshkosh on Monday morning with Cliff and Barbara Vaughn following close behind, but when we get to Madison, Wisc. We part company as they will head south on their way back to South Carolina and I head southwest through the back roads on my way over to Thompson, Ill where I will stay at the Thompson Causeway US Army Corps Of Engineers (USACOE) campground for a couple of days. I found an excellent spot there right on the rivers edge, with the main channel of the river over near the Iowa side of the river, makes watching the river traffic limited but I did manage to catch a beautiful sunset on the river, that I have placed in the photo album, but it doesn’t do justice to what it actually looked like.

A few days later I head south and then across the Mississippi River into Clinton, Ill so that I can do some shopping at the Wal Mart there, as I cross the river they are working on the bridge and it is shaking somewhat as I sit waiting for our side to cross over the limited one lane that is being used, this is a little spooky as it is just shortly after the collapse of the I-35 bridge that has collapsed in Minnesota, just 300 miles up the river from here. After doing my shopping I head south on US 67 that runs on the west side of the river, to LeClaire, Iowa where I cross back over into Illinois on the I-80 bridge where there is no shaking going and then just a mile south of there I arrive at one of my favorite campgrounds Fisherman’s Corner another USACOE campground near Hampton, IL.

This part of my trip is one of my favorites, as I guess that I’m a river rat at heart. Growing up in Rock Island, Ill gave me the opportunity to enjoy the Mississippi River in my own way, I wasn’t much of a fisherman as I never have had the patience for that, but I have always been fascinated by the boats of all types that venture up and down the river. Rock Island may be better known as the place that the first railroad crossed the Mississippi River headed west and of course you all have heard Johnny Cash sing about the “Rock Island Line She’s a Mighty Good Road” in one of his famous songs. Rock Island is where I grew up and our house was located just a few blocks from the main switching yard and depot for the Rock Island Railroad sometimes referred to as the CRIP, or Chicago Rock Island and Pacific railroad.

It was from my bedroom window high on the hill looking down over the switching yards and the railroad trestle bridge crossing over the river onto Arsenal Island and then over the Arsenal Bridge into Iowa, that I could hear the sounds of the Barge tows entering and leaving the locks and dam on the Mississippi river that helped control the river levels, with the sounding of the horns on the barges and the return of the sounding of the horn from the lockmaster, as the barge and tows worked their way through the locks as they headed up and down the river and then there was also the train whistles of the steam locomotive in my early years followed by the air horns of the diesel locomotives as the entered the switching yards after crossing over the top of the arsenal bridge across the Mississippi.

There was also the sounds of the calliope being played on the back deck of the Delta Queen, that would twice a year head up and then back down river and pass through the locks , where while it was being raised or lowered in the lock, they would play music on the calliope and the sound would drift up the hill to our house, it is memories like this that bring me back to my childhood fascination with the river. Last year I drove down The Great River Road on the east side of the Mississippi River to Fisherman’s Corner and now on this trip I will continue down river on the west side.

I had a good time visiting with my sister Aggie, sometimes known as “Grandma Ag” and her extended family. I know one thing for sure my grand nieces, all three of them would wear me out in a heartbeat, they are a handful when they get together, but since I have never had any children of my own, I’m just not geared for their speed and action to say the least. I managed to also get my fill of Harris Pizza a local favorite for years and I visited most of the local Maid-Rite sandwich shops at least once and some of them more than once to get my Maid-Rite fix that should last me for a while.

I had a good visit with Harry and Kathy Galley, when they came out to my campsite for a visit, I really think that their main purpose of the visit was to visit with Buddy and Cally and they were just being nice, by including me in :o) I got to visit with the Smith brothers both Ron and Terry and Ron and I tried to attend a national AMA motorcycle flat track race in nearby West Liberty, Iowa, only to find that due to heavy rains earlier in the day that they had canceled the race just after we got there, but we didn’t feel too bad we only drove 50 miles to get there and there were race teams from as far away as Texas and Pennsylvania and they didn’t have a rain date either, so we came back to the Quad Cites and just enjoyed our extended visit with each other.

I stopped out at the Iowa 80 truck Stop at Walcott, Iowa to see their antique and classic truck collection, it wasn’t until I got there that I found out that the museum is not open all of the time, but when you go into their corporate headquarters behind the worlds largest truck stop on Interstate 80 and ask about the truck collection, then they will send someone to open it up and give you a guided personal tour, they have quite an extended collection that viewing was very interesting. They are planning on eventually making it open on a regular basis to the general public, but for now all you have to do is ask to see it.

I stayed a week at Fisherman’s Corner and then moved just across and down the river to Clark’s Ferry USACOE campground at Montpelier, Iowa for a couple of days. This campground puts you right up close to the main channel of the Mississippi so that you get a close up view of the river traffic as it passes by, the only draw back is the main railroad line that passes up and down the rivers edge, is directly behind the campground, but the old ‘Bird is so well insulated that I hardly noticed the trains, unless I had the windows open. The campground is only 25 miles from my sisters house so this is also going to be a convenient spot to stay and as you can see in the photos it is a very clean and spacious campground too.