Rock Island, IL
Monday, May 18, 2015

I have been working at the Mississippi River Visitor Center at Lock & Dam 15 for about three weeks.  And I enjoy the environment very much.  I get to meet new people, talk to people and get to talk about the Mississippi River and barge traffic and the Quad Cities.  I have been able to tour the Lock and Dam with some school groups and beginning Saturday, May 31, 2015, the Visitor Center will begin giving tours of the Lock and Dam to the public each weekend, Saturday and Sunday, until Labor Day.  Tours will run at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.  All you need to do is sign up by calling the Visitor Center at 309-794-5338 and ask to be scheduled for the program.

I arrived in the area on Saturday, April 25th and set up the RV at Fisherman's Corner RV Campground, just north of Hampton, IL.  The campground is just above Lock and Dam 14 near Leclaire, IA.  This location will be home for the summer.

While Rock Island and the Quad Cities is a fairly large metro area, they still don't have enough population to qualify for a Costco.  This was an issue when I went looking for an optical shop to replace the lenses in my glasses.  I have tri-focal lenses and the optical shop gave me a price of $327 for tri-focal  lenses in my own frames.  I had used Costco for my current glasses and that price was $129 for the lenses.  Needless to say, it was cheaper to make 3 trips to the Costco and purchase two sets of lenses (clear and sun glass), 60 miles away, than to buy one set of lenses from the optical shop.

As some of you know, I grew up in this area.  My home town, 30 miles down river from Rock Island, is the splendid town of Muscatine, IA.  Born and raised in Muscatine, I left after the service and have been back occasionally since.  One of my sisters, Anne, still lives nearby in North Liberty, IA , actually near the Costco where I went for my new lenses.  Many of the folks I grew up with still live in this area.

The lock at the Visitor Center is the middle lock in a series of 29 locks on the Mississippi River between St. Paul, MN and St. Louis, MO.  The locks and dams create a stairway on the Mississippi River to allow barge navigation between St. Paul and St. Louis.  The Mississippi River climbs approximately 410 feet between St. Louis and St. Paul, a distance of about 750 miles.  To manage that feat, the Army Corps of Engineers, built a series of locks on the river to allow barge traffic to step up or down every so often while navigating the river.  The size of the steps vary between locks from a high of about 45-50 feet to a low of about 3-5 feet.  And the size of the step can vary depending on the volume of water in the river.  Flooding might lessen the individual steps and low water might increase the size of the step.  While the function of the locks helps the river traffic step up or down, the dams help regulate the flow of water to allow the barges and other river traffic to move between locks.  The dams seek to regulate the flow of river water so that the river channel can maintain a minimum depth of 9 feet.  It might be more, but the minimum depth of the channel needs to be 9 feet to allow the barges, when full, to move without fear of scraping bottom.  The dams create a pool of deeper water above each dam which facilitates navigation.  The rise or drop in the river bed dictates the distance to the next dam.  The next dam upriver from the Visitor Center is 10.4 miles (Lock & Dam #14) and the next dam downriver is 25.7 miles (Lock & Dam #16)

So, one of the questions I have been asked is, 'How efficient is it to move grain or coal or other products on a barge instead of a train or semi-trailer?' Let me tell you...one barge can move the equivalent cargo of 16 rail cars or 70 semi-trailers.  Or, the cargo in a single tow of 15 barges can move the equivalent of 240 rail cars or 1050 semi-trailers.  In end to end distance, 240 rail cars is a train 2.5 miles long and 1050 semi-trailers is a line almost 14 miles long.

Very efficient for movement upriver or downriver.  Not so efficient away from the river.  That's where the trucks and trains come in...

Let me know what you think about the blog.  If you live in the area around the Quad Cities, come visit the Mississippi River Visitors Center.  We are open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday to Saturday.  Sign up for the public tour of the Lock and Dam.  We open 7 days a week beginning on May 31st.  Come visit.