Cruisin’ Down the River

Tuesday March 13

Today is a cruising day as we start to head up river towards Baton Rouge. After a lovely breakfast served in the dining room we went back to our cabin and sat out on our deck for a while to catch up on our blog and enjoy the scenery. The river traffic is many and varied, from tugs to barges, cruise ships to cargo ships. At one stage we were 4 vessels wide. Barges parked along the bank, our Boat, a cargo ship heading down river and a barge under tow heading up river. And still room to spare.

Later in the morning we went down to a talk about the stops we will be making and how the hop on hop off buses will be running.

Some info about the river.

The Mississippi River drains 46% of the United States, from the Rockies to the Appalachian Mountains and from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and is 2320 mile long. In this area the river water is silty.

The barges on the river carry 1500 ton each and each tow can vary from 1 barge to 20 barges all connected together. This removes an enormous amount of traffic from the roads. As 1 barge equals 58 large semi truck loads. That means that a tow with 15 barges equals 870 large semis. Pretty impressive really.

The American Duchess, our boat, is 375 feet in length, and the beam is 105 feet. The paddle wheel is 27 feet tall and 36 feet wide. With the smoke stacks up it is 90 feet tall ( they hydraulically fold to pass under low bridges).

Last night we left New Orleans and sailed through a very industrial port area and the further from the city we have gone the more rural it has become. In some ways it’s good that the river is so high because it means we can see over the levee bank to the fields beyond. Cotton, corn, tobacco and grain are among the crops. Also some of the homes along the way, many of which we can only see the roofs as the ground is so much lower over the levee bank. Factories of all shapes and sizes. In one place the water was within feet of the top of the levee.

It’s quite amazing to see some huge homes on the other side of the levee.

4 pm and we are sitting on our deck and the sun is streaming down, a cloudless sky and the river passing by. What more could we want.!!!!

(P- noted in a shop window in the Big Easy – For a lady to go shopping with her husband is similar to her husband going hunting with the Game Warden!)