"It's all about the journey."

Tonight's View from Miller's Riverview Park

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018

This day really didn't turn out at all like I'd planned, but it was a good day anyway. How can it be BAD when you wake up on the Mississippi River, and go to bed later in another state but still on the Mississippi River?

We woke up at about 7 this morning, and while Joe ate an "emergency breakfast" (i.e. his blood sugar dropped suddenly, which woke him up), I went to use the shower at the campground. It was a very nice facility, clean and modern, but one drawback-- the water used one of those buttons where you press it, get water for maybe 40 seconds, and then it turns off. I was the first one to use it this morning, I guess, so it was COLD coming out, and took 5 or 6 presses to warm up enough for me to take a fairly okay shower. When Joe heard about it, though, he decided to pass on it.

He was busy, anyway-- he was fixing the tire pressure monitor which was loose, and then he got under the RV, because he'd discovered a small leak in our fresh water tank. He was unable to fix that, however, because it was too hard to reach. So... at least it's fresh water, and not black water, right?

Joe and Cassie near Fishermans Corner, IL

At 10:00 or so we left the campground, with the destination of a museum in Dubuque, about and hour's drive north of us. However, I'd picked up a brochure listing all the Corps of Engineer campgrounds along the upper Mississippi, and it told me that there was a visitor's center and observation deck at Lock 15, in Rock Island, IL. For some reason, I thought it was north of us, and got excited to stop there. About 5-6 miles later, I realized it was SOUTH of us. So then we decided to go back to see it. Then (after we'd turned around), I realized it was a full 25 minute drive south, and would delay my "itinerary". And THAT is when Joe said, "I'ts all about the journey. It doesn't matter when we get there, let's just go." So we went south (passing our campground from last night). We stopped again just a few hundred feet down the road, to walk out onto a concrete thing stretching out into the river. [Edit next day: I think this may be a wing dam, which is designed to encourage the water into the middle of the river to increase the depth there. It's part of the way they manage the river to facilitate shipping.] There were people fishing all along it (hence the name of our campground, Fishermans Corner), and at the end, it was a dam, which was channeling water through it. Beyond THAT was what was obviously a lock, and we were wondering why there were locks on the river. So we headed to Rock Island to find out.

Boats leaving Lock 15 on Rock Island, IL

We drove through Moline, IL (following our GPS) and saw the bridge going over to Rock Island, which is in the middle of the river. But the GPS said to go further. There was a sign on the bridge which said "U.S. Army", and so we thought it was the wrong bridge anyway. We continued another 10 minutes and GPS sent us over another bridge. Whoops, at the very end of THAT bridge was a sign that said, "Vehicles over 11' use right lane," which was NOT the direction the GPS was sending us. But we are 11'8", and so we went to the right lane-- right up to the Army checkpoint booth. The lovely young man on gate duty explained that we needed to go to the OTHER entrance (the bridge we'd passed) so we could get a visitor's pass-- all of Rock Island, we then found out, is a military installation. (I'm just looking for a "Mississippi River Visitor's Center"-- a military outpost was NOT what I expected!)

So we turned around and went back upriver yet again to the first bridge. We went over that, up to the Army checkpoint booth, and the second nice young man on gate duty says, "you are in the right place, but you need a visitor's pass." Alas, we were supposed to turn before his booth to get the pass. (Keep repeating: "It's all about the journey.") So we had to turn around AGAIN and take another small road to a small building where we filled out official forms which allowed them to check our criminal records, and finally we got a visitor's pass to Rock Island Arsenal, which is what the whole thing is called.

Military Cemetery at Rock Island Armory

Well, wow, we had NO IDEA. It is a fairly large island, and has been under the control of the US Army since 1863, when it was established as a national arsenal. But the first fort there was Fort Armstrong, which was built in 1816. Hence, there are historical buildings and installations all over the place. The first thing we passed was a very large military cemetery, and then went through the base area-- housing, the PX, the commissary, and especially, the huge Arsenal building. According to my brochure, "The arsenal today serves the warfighter as the home of U.S. Army Logistics, and the manufacturing wing remains active as the only federally owned foundry in federal inventory." There is a museum, and many buildings which can be toured.

We didn't stop, however; we went directly to the end of the island to the visitor's center for Lock 15, which was the first lock built by the Army Corps of Engineers on the river. We learned that there are 27 locks on the upper Mississippi, to facilitate water traffic and the movement of goods through the midwest. The visitor's center had an observation deck as well as an interpretive center. We watched a very interesting movie which told us a lot about how the locks were built, how the tow boats were set up, and all kinds of other really interesting information. We enjoyed our visit very much.

On the way out of the building, we noticed a poster for an event called "Floatzilla", just two weeks from now. It involves a large group of kayakers and canoers going through the lock at the same time, trying to break the previous record. We were thinking, maybe we should skip dealing with wild fires out west, and come back for Floatzilla-- we have our kayak in our RV!

Howitzers

On the way back off the island, we drove through the main street again, stopping at Memorial Field and its display of howitzers. There were a LOT of them, plus some tanks. I'd never seen any of these things up close. They had a tank which was the main tank used in Vietnam, howitzers from WWI and WWII, guns from the Civil War, and a lot of experimental prototypes (these things were actually designed at the Rock Island Armory.) So we were suitably impressed with our entire visit. And at the bottom of the bridge as we left the island, we stopped at a shop called Shameless Chocoholics-- THAT can't be bad, right?

We finally cross the Mississippi

The ranger in the river visitor's center had been very helpful, and gave me an idea for the rest of the day. It was long past time when we could have gotten to the museum up in Dubuque, so instead we decided to drive up the Iowa side of the river, passing through Le Claire, and just get to a campground at a reasonable time for a change. Le Claire is a little touristy town (so the ranger said,) but interestingly it was on my original itinerary for the trip back eastward, because it is the location of Antique Archaeology, the home base of the stars of American Pickers, a show on TV which Joey and I really enjoy watching. So we drove up to Le Claire (it was only about 20 minutes upriver), and went to Antique Archaeology.

Alas, the stores were about 90% promotional stuff (AA t-shirts, hats, etc) and 10% actual antiques.

Not that I expected to buy any antiques, but really, I was disappointed. After that, we drove straight up to Dubuque, to tonight's campground, Miller's Riverview Park, I think it's called. I believe it's owned by the city. It is on yet another island in the river (there is also a hotel and a casino, but since we wanted the shower house here, we passed up the free camping in the casino parking lot.) The campground is kind of basic-- and we were too late to get a riverside site, but the price was right, only $18. So we are averaging inexpensive campgrounds so far on this trip!

Tomorrow's plan is to go to the museum here in town, which is only 10 minutes away, and then continue west through Iowa. It was nice to have a day like today, without being on the highway non-stop. It was fairly low key, but we learned interesting things and saw places we'd never known about, which makes a good day for us!

Map showing tonight's campground. The blue dot on the island is us!