Deadheading?

Adam has been disappointed of late because it's been a year since he's seen a towboat deadheading, that is, being pushed alongside another boat, with the deadheading boat not running. In my daily check of Ohio River traffic, I noticed the mv. D.A. Grimm of Campbell Transportation might be deadheading with the mv. Bill Stile. That meant we had to leave for Adam's Lego group appointment an hour and a half early so we could look for the Stile and the Grimm.

We found them north of Huntington as they were about to overtake the mv. Caleb Lay. We got several photos. I insisted Adam shoot some with my camera, too.

We started shooting after the Stile and the Grimm had overtaken the Lay.

First, here's one I got of the Lay after I got my camera back from Adam. I told him to take maybe a half dozen photos. He took 33.

This was taken from the Guyandotte boat ramp. You can see the Stile, right, and the Grimm head-on, with the empty barges of the Lay's tow immediately behind.

Here are the Stile and the Grimm passing Proctorville, Ohio.

Here they pass under Huntington's East End bridge.

And now they head down the river, with the bright autumn sun shining hard on them on a cloudless day.

It looks like the Stile was doing most of the pushing, but the Grimm's propellers were turning, too.

We would have gotten more photos, but Adam had to get to his Lego group meeting.