Mississippi River Archives

August 5, 2012August 11, 2022

Geocachers Conquer Tower Rock

A group of determined geocachers showed up at Tower Rock Saturday morning hoping they’d be able to walk across to The Rock. It’s going to have to drop at least two more feet to be able to do that safely. Fortunately, Stan and Martha Koeller brought two kayaks with them and were more than willing to share.

The only catch was that they were boats built for one. Stan explained that kayaks are different from canoes: if you spill a kayak, it doesn’t necessarily dump you out. You sometimes stay IN the kayak while it’s upside down. This is really NOT a good thing. Cats are supposed to have nine lives. I’m not sure how many I have, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have that many left to spare. I opted to stay on the shore.

Video of Tower Rock Challenge

It’s worth a look, even if I have to say so myself.

Photo gallery of the assault on Tower Rock

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

August 3, 2012August 3, 2012

Eyeing The Rock

The Mississippi River keeps creeping lower and lower. On July 19, the Cape river gauge read 11.23. On August 2, it was down to 9.35. That’s not good enough. It needs to be at 7.0 feet in Cape to be able to walk across to Tower Rock, locals tell me. Here’s where you can check the river stage at Cape. By the way, you can click any photo to maker it larger.

Itchin’ to go

Members of the Southeast Missouri Geocaching fan page are just itching to get on top of Tower Rock so they can claim bragging rights to an exotic cache. If you’ve never heard of the hobby, here’s a website that does a good job of explaining it.

I was going to meet Cacher Randy Friday to see if we thought it was safe to make it to The Rock for the rest of the group on Saturday. Unfortunately, I have to swing by LeGrand Bros. Transmissions first. My check engine light came on and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t something serious before being That Guy stuck on the side of the road with his hood up and a mournful expression on his puss. You might recall the sad story of my transmission from last year.

Anyway, a nice guy hooked up a $9,300 computer to my car, went for a short test drive and said I needed a new throckmorton that bolts onto the franjipannni. The good news is that it’s on the exterior of the trannie and shouldn’t take more than two heartbeats and a hamburger to fix. (Once the part gets here, that is.) The best news is that it’s covered under warranty.

So, if Sir Randy gives me the All Clear, I’ll sound the trumpets and a whole herd of folks will be hanging all over The Demon The Devours Travelers on Saturday. If not, they’ll try next weekend. I just won’t be there to see it.

Surely they need a souvenir

Maybe they’ll stop by the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum where they can pick up a souvenir copy of my book on Tower Rock.

FRIDAY MORNING UPDATE

Cacher Randy called around 10 a.m. to say that it’s a no-go. He waded out until the water was waist-deep (deeper than I would have gone) and felt the current “tugging” at him. He decided to turn back. Wise decision. He also noted that the bottom was slippery.

How do I get there?

A reader asked how to get there. This map shows you the scenic way I get to Altenburg on my bike. In my Tower Rock book, I describe the path from Altenburg to Tower Rock this way:

Tower Rock isn’t some place you stop on the way to somewhere else. You have to REALLY want to go there.
You start by passing through Altenburg on Missouri Highwy A.
After going up and down some steep hills, just before you get to what’s left of the German pioneer village Wittenberg (population: two buildings and three people), you’ll see a small sign off to the right pointing to Perry County 460, a steep and washboarded gravel road.
Off to your left, you’ll pass the Texas-Illinois Natural Gas Pipeline bridge, called the longest suspension pipeline in the world. It carries gas from Texas to Chicago.
Not far from there, the road narrows. Now things get interesting if this is your first trip. You’ll make a sharp 90-degree bend to the left and cross over the BNSF railroad tracks and make an immediate right-hand 90-degree turn paralleling the river. There are no warning devices, so Stop, Look and Listen before getting on the tracks.
The stretch along the river is narrow and there’s a steep drop-off to the water, but you seldom meet a car. Eventually, you’ll come upon a parking area at the Tower Rock Natural Area, donated by Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bussen to the Missouri Conservation Department.

August 2, 2012August 2, 2012

Another Full Moon

When you’re shooting your second full moon of a visit, it’s probably time to start packing your bags. The moon phase ap on my Droid showed that the orb was 97% full last night, so I told Mother we better be ready to saddle up to shoot it tonight.

We pulled in to the parking lot at the base of Cape Rock to find eight or ten cars getting ready for the free entertainment. Just about that time, a long, long, long southbound freight rolled by in front of us. It kept coming and coming and coming, slowing all the time. Finally, with the last three empty hopper cars and a pusher engine blocking our view, it stopped. Dead, put-a-penny-on-the-tracks stopped.

We decided to go to the top of Cape Rock, but feared that it would be parked solid. To our surprise, there was only one car parked there, and it moved on, leaving us some prime real estate to watch.

While I was setting up my tripod, a guy on a bike rolled up. We did all the ritual chicken dances that people with similar interests do and got so involved that I didn’t pay much attention to the horizon. I’d look over my shoulder from time to time and think, “Nope, not yet.”

Well, I had misjudged where the thing was going to come up. On one of my shoulder checks, I looked a little more to the south and did one of those, “Whoa! Where did THAT come from?” Of course, I pretended that I had been patiently WAITING for the moon to get 10 degrees out of the water before shooting.

I shot a few frames with the longer lens on my video camera, but I like this one better because it shows how low the river is now. That’s one BIG sandbox down there. The river’s about three feet lower than it was when I shot the little picture above from Cape Rock last fall.

Checked out the casino

When some clouds covered the moon, we headed toward town. I thought maybe there would be some night working going on at the casino, but it didn’t look interesting. I opted not to try for a moon shot from the floodwall and the bridge because I had done those before. I decided to see what the view was like from the Common Pleas Courthouse.

When I came around the corner, the two women going down the steps were standing shoulder to shoulder trying to get a moon photo with their camera phones. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the puny little flashes built into those cameras weren’t going to do much good at lighting up downtown OR the moon. I didn’t do much better. It was already pretty small in the sky by now.

This view down Themis Street is pretty similar to the one I shot in March of 2010.

I may try this angle for my next full moon shot, but it had better not be taken on THIS trip..

July 4, 2012July 4, 2012

Fireworks and Fishing

Fireworks and fishing are a lot alike: just as soon as you pack up your equipment, good stuff starts happening.

Mother and I cruised down to the riverfront just before dusk hoping that we’d see some fireworks. There was a long, slow freight southbound loaded with coal when we got to Water Street. When the train rumbled clear, I spotted Emily Sheets (Class of ’13) and Billy Leighton looking intently along the tracks. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

“Looking for coins, I bet. I doubt you’re going to find any after a train like that, but if you go to this website (handing her a card) and scroll back a few days, you’ll see what happens when you put a coin on the tracks.”

Emily has good instincts

A woman started to take this picture of this man and little boy. Emily stopped her coin hunt and offered to take a photo of the three of them together. I was impressed. I liked the way she sized up the situation and volunteered her services. I usually make the same offer, but Emily beat me to the punch. (Youngsters have faster reflexes.)

Full Moon

Wife Lila said the moonrise in Florida was perfect: big moon and clear skies. I remarked to a guy standing next to me that it was a little hazy coming up here.

“That’s not haze. That’s a layer of mosquitoes over in Illinos.”

He wasn’t kidding. Moments after the moon came up, we were swarmed by big, slow movers. I had two of them sucking blood out of my left thumb at the same time. That is NOT conducive to making sharp photos at slow shutter speeds. I could deal with their stabbing me, but the flapping of their wings caused my camera to bounce.

Roman candles

I was disappointed that not many folks brought fireworks. This family had no more than two or three Roman candles or what would pass for them.

Mississippi River on fire

The moon was up high enough now to set the Mississippi on fire.

Grand finale

This was as close as we got to a grand finale. Shortly after the sparks died down, the family started packing up. I took that as a cue to collapse the legs of my tripod and do the same. My poor tripod is close to 30 years old and its legs are beginning to collapse about like mine. Just about the the time the shot is all composed, I find that one or more of the legs is gradually slipping down, down, down.

Just as I got to the opening of the floodwall to leave, two young guys with two humongous paper bags walked through it. Like I said, fishing and fireworks: pack up your stuff and things start to happen.

I decided I’d donated enough blood to the mosquitoes. It was time to bail.

P.S. I’m going to try to convince Mother that it’s too dry for her to play with fireworks this summer. She tried to set my feet on fire last year.