We woke up early and prepared to depart. We held our breath while I turned the key to start the engine. It fired right up! Whew! Now we feel we’re back on track, and can breathe a little easier now that we understand ‘power management’. There is still work to do to understand this completely, but I won’t bore you with it right now.
We left on a warm morning, pulling out of the dock and turned down river. We have to pay close attention to the channel markers and ensure we’re staying inside of these, as well as watching out for floating and submerged logs/trees or other debris. Our trip was uneventful, passing a barge coming up river, and other than that, not much else traffic. There were a couple of train bridges we had to call on the radio for a lift, but they were polite and immediate in their openings.
Around 2:30pm we passed our last draw bridge. According to our charts and notes, there is a place to dock around here at the Logsdon Tug Company. We passed a small shipyard with barges and tugs, but continued past it a bit not sure if this was the spot or not. We went about a quarter mile before turning around. I was confused, as this did not look like a place to tie off a pleasure boat. We found a phone number and called them. They told us they were indeed just past the draw bridge, and she would let me know where to tie up at. In the mean time, we are now working our way back up river, against the current. What was an 8 knot trip down was under 5 knots trying to go against it. The woman on the phone told me to tie off of the ‘material barge’ at the end. I clarified where she meant and we worked our way there.
Upon approach, there was a large tug boat and barges rafted out into the river. We found the end barge, and again approached with our bow upstream. There was about 50 feet of space in front of the parked tug to get into the spot they wanted us to tie up. Going upstream helped, as this slows our progress yet I still have control. We came in and docked without incident. Frank is usually quick to want off, but here he might have been intimidated by the barge and couldn’t actually see land. Once secure, I had to go across a few barges, filled with equipment, a crane, lines and tools everywhere, literally hopping from one barge to another, to a steep, open slotted set of metal stairs leading from a work barge to land. Here I found the office, which I had to pay a dollar a foot cash or check only. The office ladies also gave me a map of town and some recommendations for dining.
Paperwork out of the way, I returned back to retrieve Frank. We took him across the barges and up the stairs. He wasn’t too thrilled with the ascent, but did it anyway. He was rewarded with lots of grass to explore and mark. We returned him to the boat and I took the bikes up one by one. We had researched and found out this is where President Lincoln spent some time, and there is a courthouse and museum dedicated to this. Before he was president, the town was the sight of the Lincoln/Douglas debates, as well as “The Almanac Trial”, in which Lincoln was the defending attorney.
The trial resulted from a nighttime brawl, and the resourceful Lincoln produced an 1857 almanac, which was the year the incident occurred, to argue that the state’s witness could not have seen Armstrong kill the victim. There was no moonlight at the time and he was a long distance from Armstrong, so theoretically he could not see that far in the dark. Lincoln also produced a witness who helped acquit Armstrong. On August 12, 1858, a few months after the trial, Lincoln appeared in Beardstown to speak as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. He spoke on a platform in the city park, a site marked by a plaque across from the courthouse. His opponent, Stephen Douglas, spoke the next day, and later that month they officially began their famous series of debates. The jail is still there as well as the courtroom where the trial took place. A judge holds court there once a week, so it is still an active courtroom.
After we had done the tour, we rode around and stopped at a Mexican bakery for some treats, as well as a Mexican restaurant which we shared a bucket of beers and some burritos. We continued around town a bit, then went back to the boat. We got to see the tugs moving barges up close with guys working around us. We brought Frank out again and let him have some more land time, then retired back to the boat. We fired up the generator and let it run for an hour and half, as there is no power or water available tied to a barge. We are still keenly aware of power management and want to make sure we are doing everything we’re supposed to be doing.
Tomorrow we have another long stretch, as well as another wicket lock and dam to pass through. We will be going another 60 miles to Hardin, Illinois and making our way farther south. Hardin is one of the last stops before we hit the Mississippi River! The marinas and fuel stops are getting farther and farther apart, and soon we will not have any options but to anchor out once we get past the next couple of stops.