Riverboats and the Lock at Keokuk

Most of the traffic that we see on the river are the barges.  But once in a while a riverboat comes by.  They are really beautiful. 

The riverboat with what remains of the American Lotus plants

A riverboat on a sunny day when the American Lotus was just starting to fade.

A riverboat

Riverboat on a stormy day

A dam was built at Keokuk in 1913.  Keokuk is about 12 miles from Nauvoo.  The engineer who designed the dam was Hugh Cooper so the water that is backed up behind the dam is Lake Cooper with the Mississippi River running through it.  There is a formation of limestone that goes out across the river from Nauvoo which caused the Des Moines rapids.  Before the dam was built, the riverboats couldn't get past here without unloading their cargo.  Main Street in Nauvoo goes straight north and south.  The upper landing is on the north end of Main Street and the lower landing is on the south end of Main Street.  Nauvoo is kind of on a peninsula that the river flows around.  Whatever the riverboats were hauling would be freighted overland up and down Main Street and reloaded at the opposite landing. 

A barge tow is generally made up of 15 barges that are tied together with cable and chain.  There are 3 wide and 5 long.  This picture only shows 2 sets of 3 barges. 






This photo shows the dam and the power plant and the gates going out of the lock on the south side of the dam.





This is a picture of a barge tow coming through the lock.  It is probably carrying mostly grain but it has barges of coal and scrap steel also.  

We're standing over the railroad track bridge.  The part of the bridge that turns so the barges can get through is shown in this picture. 



 

The control room in the middle of the railroad track bridge that is now turned sideways so the barge can get through..


 

The barge on the left is full of scrap steel.




 

The front end of the barge going under the highway bridge.



 

This photo shows the tug pushing the barge tow out of the lock.  The end of the railroad bridge, the dam, and the power plant can be seen. 



 

The tug going past the railroad bridge. 





The control room on the tow.

 

The last of the barge tow going under the bridge.



 

A barge tow hauls as much as 870 semi-trucks or a freight train that is 3 miles long.  They can move 1 ton of freight 616 miles on the river with 1 gallon of diesel fuel.  




Autumn Leaves, New Horses, and Birds

Our leaves are mostly gone now but they have been so beautiful.  We took some photos of them to show you.

We are approaching Main Street

more leaves

Beautiful



This is the mission doctor's house.



This was taken along the horse and carriage route

The carriage route

Sunset on the Mississippi

Another sunset



Thelma says that a family's wealth is determined by the number of sunsets they have seen.



The moon on the Mississippi

The mission purchased four new horses in the last few months.  We took photos of the newest team, Chad and Champ the other day.

Mark with Champ and Chad in front.

Me with Champ and Chad

 These horses are the largest team we have.  They are Belgiums and they weigh app. 2400 pounds each.



Another thing of interest lately have been the migratory birds.  Sometimes the sky is just full of them.  It is amazing to watch and their songs are so noisy.

The birds

The birds kind of form a coil when they reach the river.





Boo-ti-ful Nauvoo

The town of Nauvoo celebrates Halloween in a big way.  We experienced it last night.  There are about 1100 people who live in Nauvoo.  People come from all of the surrounding towns for this celebration and it was big.  The streets up in the commercial part of town are lined with jack-o-lanterns--about 400-500 of them.  That is one of the things that we missionaries do--carve the pumpkins.



Here are Elder Johnson and Mark carving.

 Some girls who grew up here come home to take charge of the pumpkin carving.  They draw the designs, tell us how to do it, and bring us pumpkins to do according to our experience level.  We used little saws that you see on the table.  It is really fun.

We carved in the mission green house.  It was a little on the chilly side.

Some of the pumpkins waiting to be put on trailers.

Our good friends, the Calls.



I carved too. 

 The building was open for two days and missionaries went and carved whenever they had time.

Here are some shots of the finished jack-o-lanterns sitting around town.

It was still kind of light for this one.

They had some large jack-o-lanterns that they auctioned off later in the evening.  These were some of them.  You can tell the display wasn't on church property.

More for the auction

Some of the local organizations sold slices of pie, hot chocolate, hot dogs, etc.  My new friend, Marilyn Candidos is in the hat and shades.



Main Street with jack-o-lanterns.  The temple spire is at the left. 



A "cat" jack-o-lantern

About 6 in the evening, there was a parade.  People dressed up in costume, some costumed their dogs, and etc.

A couple of characters in the parade.  The lady who cuts my hair is Minnie.

There was a cute train in the parade.  I couldn't get it in one shot, but had to get it for my grandsons.

More of the train

The caboose

 President Obama and Governor Romney walked in the parade.



Here comes the missionary band.

 The missionaries had a crazy band in the parade.  They rode on a carriage pulled by horses, Mike and Ned.  Mark is at the right driving the horses.

Another shot of the horses and carriage.  Elder Endter is the teamster on the carriage with Mark.  Elder Poulsen at left and Elder Rodgers at right are walking along to make sure no one gets in the way of the horses.

Mark was sort-of smiling

Some of our talented band members

Sister Endter is waving

Elder & Sister Openshaw and Elder Wise

Mike and Ned

Elder Endter backed up so we could get a good shot of Elder Dahl

Sister Heaton bagging kettle corn for the folks

The mission furnished Elder & Sister Anderson's kettle corn for everyone.  They gave out about 1300 bags of kettle corn.

Sister Anderson.  She and her husband make the kettle corn.

Elder Newman with a kettle of kettle corn

Elders Christensen, Andersen, Newman making the kettle corn.



 As the evening got darker, the designs showed up better.

Jack-o-lanterns

They look better lit up.



Here's a great one.



I like the animals on the second one from the left.

The one on the left has card shapes and the mouth spells Bridge.  Elder Call carved it.

We had an enjoyable time at the Boo-ti-ful Nauvoo.  The missionaries were involved in order to support the community.  We had a good time and made some new friends.