Back on the Mississippi

The Shingebiss and her crew of Captain Steve, Admiral Liz and Lucy the Boat Cat are back cruising. We've missed the cruising life so decided to take the boat south and find a place to winter aboard. Currently she is "For Sale" (see trawlersmidwest.com for our listing). Yes, we want a bigger boat and would like to spend more years cruising, but if she doesn't sell, we might as well enjoy the waterways on her. It was great to be back out on the River with the towboats.

The first two cruising days were warm and sunny. This is Red Wing, MN, one of the delightful river towns that are a favorite stop for cruisers, bikers, and tourists.

Wabasha, MN, boasts the National Eagle Center, a gorgeous building on the banks of the river. Wabasha's other "claim to fame" is that the movie Grumpy Old Men was filmed in their town.

The Eagle Center has beautiful landscaping with a waterfall flowing right into the river.

Wabasha was decorating the town for Halloween with these whimsical pumpkin people. We loved them and had post a few in the blog.

After two days, the weather turned cloudy and cool, although not as cold as our trip down in October of '09. We haven't seen many other boats out, but did pass the Wyaconda, the US Coast Guard Buoy Tender that works from Dubuque, IA to the Twin Cities, placing the red and green buoys that mark the channel.

Every now and then we got a break in the clouds. The stretch of river between Dubuque and the Twin Cities is lined with bluffs, thick green trees and lots of beauty. There dozens of inviting sand beaches, possibly left after the exceptionally long (5 months) of high water this past spring.

We've been staying at marinas (so we can run the heat at night), but yesterday our plans to stay at the Dubuque Ice Harbor, one of our favorites, did not work out as the docks are under construction. It was early, so we moved on to this courtesy dock in Bellevue, IA. We hadn't visited Bellevue before, so walked up the stairway to town and had dinner at a local cafe. No electricity at this dock, but we were toasty sleeping with multiple layers of fleece and down piled on. First thing in the morning the generator is fired up, followed by heat and coffee. Then it's up to the flybridge for another day's cruise.

This lovely tour boat passed us by today. More clouds, cool weather and even some rain.

We stopped early today at the Clinton Marina, a great little harbor where we met some of the local boaters, showed them our boat and shared tales of river cruising. We are now about half way to Grafton, IL, where the Illinois River flows into the Mississippi, and then we will be back on the Great Loop. Even though we are not headed for a second Loop completion at this time, we're still Loopers and looking forward to meeting any current Loopers on that great waterway.