Thursday, February 28, 2013

Sorry I missed it

The generating units for the hydroelectric power plant at the Cannelton Locks and Dam should have arrived by now after a trip down the Ohio River from the plant where they were built.

If I'd known they were coming, I would have baked a cake, or else staked out a spot by the river to see them.


Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Won't be much to see

This evening I drove along the Kanawha River hoping to see a boat or two and to take a look at what's left of the old Dick Henderson Memorial Bridge before part of it is blasted into pieces Friday morning. I got to see the Iron Duke upbound...



... but when I saw the bridge, I was disappointed.


There's not much left on this side of the river to blow should the explosives go off on schedule at 10 a.m. Friday. I might not even go out of my way to see or photograph it. They're still taking steel down with a crane and such, so I'll probably stay in the office and get some stuff for next week's paper done early.


Sunday, February 24, 2013

Not as painful as it sounds, I hope

Adam is not letting me live something down. I saw on the Corps Locks site to day that a boat called the Leo G. Lutgring was in the Greenup pool, and I thought that while we were out we could spend a few minutes looking for it. As we were crossing a bridge, I asked if he saw the "Gutring."

Later he asked, "How come when you mess something up, it always sounds painful?

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Spam (Updated)

Apparently spammers have discovered my post about the Dennis T. Delaney from May 2012. They would be more believable if they ... no, I'm not giving them any advice.

UPDATE: I just checked my messages. Someone left a comment to the effect of "Is starting a blog expensive? ... Stop by my blog." On the Dennis T. Delaney entry, of course.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Mountain State archives

These were in a folder on my hard drive that I had mostly forgotten about. They were taken of the M/V Mountain State during an open house in 2010.

First these two.




And this one.



With the light on the side of the boat like this, it's like the builders had places where they could have added more windows if AEP had wanted them.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The next Queen of the Ohio

I'm sorry I've been away for a while. Between winter weather, a new grandchild, health problems in the family and working more hours for the same pay because my supervisor left for another job, time for blogging is less now than it was six months ago. But his blog is not going away.

I did take a few minutes to go out of my way to drive along the river road this afternoon when I returned to Huntington from Charleston. Not much on the river, but the sun was nice despite the cold weather. For a person like me, February is probably the worst time to be out looking for stuff on the river. The banks are still muddy from high water, just as the concrete and asphalt areas at parks and boat ramps. We're tired of winter and waiting for spring. If the weather holds true to the past, it will be a couple of months before the trees start turning green. I can hardly wait for that to happen.

By now we've taken about every winter photo there is to take. We usually have a good snow in March just to let us know winter's not over, but the novelty is over by then and we just want the snow gone. At least the days are getting longer, and sometimes I get to drive home in daylight.

This is my new sweetheart. As you can see, she's prettier than the Detroit, the Hoosier State, the Linda Reed and the East End bridge put together. You can throw the O. Nelson Jones in there, too, and they still fall short of this beauty.



Adam and I will be back to photographing the river soon. Right now my photo time is being taken up by this little one.

Will her first word be "towboat"? Will it be "Asian carp"? Or "Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam"? Probably not, but if she any of my DNA in her, she'll be looking toward the river someday. Our family roots on the Ohio go back to the 1800s, so she probably will feel some calling to the river bank when she's older.

And when she wants to go there, I'll probably find a way to get her there.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Cairo bridge

It looks like the days of the Ohio River bridge at Cairo, Ill., may be numbered, but not so soon that the countdown is about to start. Kentucky has announced it's begun the process of exploring options of what to do with the 76-year-old bridge. That's another reason to raise money to make a trip down there, I guess.

Monday, February 11, 2013

Two rivers, two bridges

Last week, while my daughter was in labor, the Big Four railroad bridge over the Ohio River at Louisville opened to pedestrian traffic, although it's a dead-end walk until spring, when the Indiana approach will be finished. The plan now is to find the money to get down to Louisville for a day trip this summer and walk the bridge.

###

A week or two ago I missed the opportunity to watch an important part of the demolition of a bridge on the Kanawha River. The state is dismantling the old, scary bridge over the Kanawha between Nitro and St. Albans. But I went out of the way and stopped by there tonight on the way home to see how the remains of the bridge looked against the evening sky.



The new bridge will be of a simpler design. I hope it has a good sidewalk for watching towboats, although it seems to me that traffic on the Kanawha is down lately. Maybe it's just the times when I'm out looking, but that's how it seems to me.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Big event

My first grandchild was born tonight. She weighed 5 lb. 15 oz. and she's the cutest thing I've seen in a long long long long long time. So you will have to excuse me if I spend the next week taking pictures of things other than boats, dams and bridges.

Saturday, February 2, 2013

The tow must go on

The Ohio River here is kind of high. That pole in the lower right is an electrical service pole, and if I stood at the base, the water would be well over my head. But coal, petroleum products, limestone, chemicals and other commodities must be delivered, and as long as the locks let them through, the boats will run.



It would have been nice following the Jerry Tukey down the river and gotten different shots from different angles at sunset, but neither Adam nor I was dressed for the really cold weather. So we let it go.