Great Loop Adventures Aboard Next Chapter: Last Day on the Huck Fin Waterway

Olmsted Lock

Our ride on Thursday would be a long one with most of it on a following current. This would be our last day on the mighty Mississippi. About 15 miles from our final destination at the lock we would turn up the Ohio river and start the fight against the current. It started out about 2 miles per hour causing us to only make forward progress at 6 mph. That is pretty slow even for us. After a couple of miles the current let up so we were able to make a bit better headway. I must admit I was a little sad to leave the Mississippi. I found it quite peaceful. Makes you ponder how a young boy and his buddy made it down the river in nothing more than a raft even if it was fiction! I would bet back in the day it had been done.

The cruise was quite beautiful along wide sand banks and very smooth water. It was another totally sunny day. It has been so long since we have seen clouds let alone rain we started to prepare ourselves for the payback when Mother Nature realizes she has doled out too picture perfect days to us. Oh well we enjoy it while we got it. The anchorage at Olmsted lock was quite nice except for the roll. When we got there the current held us in a very tight pattern. However later in the night for some reason we were getting hit on the side of the boat by these rollers. One such roller actually woke me out of bed at midnight as I found myself hanging onto the bed. Fortunately that was the worst of it. So back to sleep.

Peduca

In the morning on Friday we left at 7:30 am to hit the lock and make our way to Peduca which was 30 miles up the Ohio river. The river lingo is when going against the current it is up river. Then you have the right and left ascending banks. I know so much lingo. It’s almost like another language. We were looking forward to getting back to civilization and enjoy a dinner ashore.

We arrived nice and early sometime around noon. But unfortunately we did not get off the docks until after 3pm. There was a snafoo with the boats they had scheduled leaving one of the boats we had traveled with without a space to dock. After circling around for over an hour I managed to broker a deal with the city employees to let him stay on the fuel dock. Greg on “This is It” was quite grateful he got in.

Peduca is in Kentucky and is named after a famous Indian chief from the Chickasaw tribe. There is a lot to do in Peduca. They have a flood wall that protects the city from extreme rises in the river. On the inside of the wall they have painted beautiful scenes of local history. They actually stretch two blocks. Peduca also has the National Quilt Museum.

Yes, I reluctantly went with Sue but I am here to tell you it was incredible. These are not your grandmother’s old quilts. These things are works of art. On Broadway there is numerous higher end shops and restaurants. The architecture of the buildings is really quite nice. That evening we met up with a Looper couple we had not seen since the Erie Canal. We went to dinner at a local Cajun restaurant and later to a brewery to listen to some music.

The food was quite exceptional. The temps dropped quite a bit that night making for a chilly evening on the boat. Nothing an extra blanket couldn’t take care of. We really enjoyed the town and actually wished we stayed another day but we were booked the next day at Green Turtle Marina which is a highly desirable place and very hard to get into so off we went.