Winter is coming (oh, that's so original)

Today was wet, cold and gray -- the kind of day some people live for, but not me. Most of the color is gone from the hills, and down by the Ohio River it looked kind of like one of those old sepia photos.

I did see some leaves in the water that looked interesting.

But other than that, the landscape reminded me that warm times and green hills are over, and it's past time to get ready for cold weather. It's a task I rarely perform adequately.

A bridge photo before the polar vortex arrives

The weather man says warm weather ends tonight. I could see the clouds move in right around dark. I figured it was as good a time as any to get a new photo of the Huntington East End bridge. So ...

This bridge was the first in this region to be lit at night. Perhaps if it were done today, they would have used something other than orangish sodium vapor lights. But what's done is done. At least the cables look good.

There are many good angles for getting pictures of this bridge. I've discovered maybe half of them.

(As a reminder, unless otherwise stated, all photographs on this blog are copyrighted by me and are not to be copied, downloaded or used without my permission).

Oops. I missed an anniversary.

Lucky for me, not anything involving my wife. Instead, I was thinking that I needed to get ready to mark the year the Dravo Viking class of towboat turns 40. You know, when it hits middle age.

But I thought, am I talking 1975 or 1974. Then I did a little checking, and I missed it by a year. There were Vikings on the river in 1973. All of which means I need to find a library that has 40-plus-year-old issues of the Waterways Journal so I can track down when the first Viking was launched.

Soon enough the Omar and the Erna E. Honeycutt, which I still think of as the Omega, will reach 35. Maybe I'll remember that one.

Not a great day for river photography

I had this great idea last night. Why not go through my hard drive and highlight some of my best Ohio River photos from November 7 of years past?

When I looked, I didn't find many such photos. I guess part of it is that when the leaves fall, I tend to lose interest. Unless there is snow or something to hide the drab hillsides in this area from early November to the middle of April, taking pictures of boats or bridges loses a lot of appeal for me. Fog or rain helps, but a landscape without green leaves is kind of dull.

However, I did find four pictures that I could share. The first three are from 2010, when Campbell sent the Bill Stile and the D.A. Grimm down the river together. I thought one of them was deadheading, then I saw a small amount of prop wash behind the Grimm.

The Stile and Grimm were followed closely by the Caleb Lay.

Then in 2011, I went to a favored boat ramp to learn how to use the camera on an Android phone. This was one of the pictures I took.

And that was about it. Some days you get a picture. Some days you don't.

R.I.P. M/V Warren

What's left of the old towboat Warren has been on dry land at the Tri-State Fire Academy and Inland Waterways Academy just outside Huntington, W.Va., for several years. From the looks of things, it has been used to train firefighters in enclosed spaces. today Adam and I drove by there, and the pilothouse has collapsed. Why, I don't know but I will try to ask.

I don't know when the Warren was built, but it was already old- and not-so-good-looking when I got some pictures of it on the water on July 4, 1985, in the lower approach of the Gallipolis Locks and Dam. According to my 1993 Inland River Record, it was owned by G&C Towing of Point Pleasant when it was taken out of service and off the official records in 1991. Such a sad ending.