Comments on The PapaGolf Chronicles: Autumn River Run

I'm with you. I love the river traffic. There's a ...

2006-10-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

I'm with you. I love the river traffic. There's a spot in St. Paul where the Mississippi takes a hard 180 turn, right around the St. Paul downtown airport....with the main rail spur to Chicago and Kansas City and points south running along it...and a real nice scenic road next to both.

Sometimes you're in your car and there's a train chugging the othre way, a plane landing overheard, and a towboat pushing 12 barges ...all at the same location. It's a cool spot.

My youngest son and I used to like travelling down the Mississippi...finding trains..and then "strafing" them on a bombing run.

Good times.

Well, if nothing else, if my writing helps keep yo...

2006-10-07T19:53:00.000-04:00

Well, if nothing else, if my writing helps keep your motivation up for building, I consider it part of my RV penance for having taken the short cut and buying mine already built.

Speaking of the plants, I was surprised at how many of them there are. And I was surprised at the number coal-bearing barges too, until I put 2 and 2 together and figured out that the coal barges were probably feeding the power plants. I'm fascinated by river commerce for some reason, and I'm always curious as to what kind of products are shipped that way, and what types of things go down river versus what comes up. I've always thought it would be fun to hop a ride on a river barge some day. Must be from reading Mark Twain so much when I was a teenager.

There are only 2 nuke plants in Ohio, and both of them are up in the northern part of the state, so other than some other areas that have permanent restricted zones around them, there isn't much to worry about down on the river except for large radio/TV towers on hilltops. There was at least one of those that we saw that was higher than 2000'. Wow!

Oh, I forgot. One barge can hold more grain than 2...

2006-10-07T19:43:00.000-04:00

Oh, I forgot. One barge can hold more grain than 20 railroad cars. It's a pretty cheap way to go. That said, I've never seen grain -- and a lot of it leaves the upper Midwest here -- in those things.

Your blog is the next-best-thing to actually flyin...

2006-10-07T19:31:00.000-04:00

Your blog is the next-best-thing to actually flying. Since I'm not flying right now, though, it's the BEST thing.

Don't get to close to those nuke plants.