The Ohio River -- on it, in it, over it, beside it. No politics.
I'll get back to boats at the Big Sandy soon. Meanwhile, here's my last river photo of 2024, taken this evening as darkness took over the landsape.
That's the M/V Canton of Marathon Petroleum passing under the East End bridge between Huntington WV and Proctorville OH with empties headed for Catlettsburg KY.
Happy New Year, everybody.
Time for more pictures from a day of a dozen boats at the Big Sandy harbor. These were taken from West Virginia, looking over to Ohio.
The City of Chicago eases in to tie off its barges at Virginia Point.
More to come.
I'll get back to photos from the Big Sandy area soon. My day job has kept me busy with end-of-year stuff.
But I did want to take note of this while it was fresh in my mind. Today the mailman delivered by year-end issue of the Waterways Journal. In the list of boats taken out of service this year it said the M/V Senator Stennis was scrapped. Here's a photo from August 2015 when I saw it shoved up against the bank at Huntington WV.
The Senator Stennis was one of those boats that I saw in the area every now and then. I guess its usefulness had run out.
The WJ also listed the American Queen as "Out of service, fate unknown."
Here are some of the dozens of boat pictures I got today at Huntington, Kenova and Catlettsburg.
First, I went to Chesapeake, Ohio to see Crounse's Lynne Cissna. The river was calm and reflective when I got this shot. You might see a little fog on it.
The thing is, I wanted to get a closer shot of the boat in the remaining fog when it came past my position. For some reason, the camera's autofocus and exposure control both went out of whack when the boat got close. I couldn't get it to work. After the boat passed, I turned the camera off and on again, and it worked OK. Go figure.
So make up for it by going to the Big Sandy or going home with what little I had? Big Sandy.
As I parked at Virginia Point Park in Kenova at the Big Sandy's mouth, I heard a boat coming. It was the Dave B. Fate of Florida Marine coming out of the Big Sandy pushing an empty.
Here's another shot I spent a little more time with.
The MAP Runner heading up the Big Sandy.
The Dave B. Fate across the river as it dropped off the empty at the Marathon Petroleum fleet at South Point, Ohio.
Superior Marine's Stephen T coming up the river.
Left to right, the Nashville, the City of Chicago and the Dave B. Fate.
As the Nashville passed me, I got this image of two guys out near the tow knees.
And the Nashville with the Norfolk Southern bridge in the background.
To be continued.
I had a work thing in Lawrence County, Ohio, tonight. I got there a few minutes early, so I figured I'd go to Lock and Dam 27 and with luck I would see a boat. I did, but I didn't expect it to be this classic.
A few years ago we had two or more swan geese at Harris Riverfront Park here in Huntington WV. Then we had none for a while. Now we have one again.
Swan geese are native to China and Mongolia, not the United States. I assume this was a domestic bird that got loose, or its parents did.
Earlier this year, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine visited old Lock and Dam 27 on the Ohio River in Lawrence County, Ohio, to talk about his plan for water-related recreation projects. That was in May. In the seven months since we've not heard a lot about whatever plans he has for this spot, which happens to be one of my favorites along the entire Ohio River.
My big question is what happens here at Dam 27. It's a nice, peaceful spot that could use a few improvements. It's one of the few riverside esplanades left from the old dams, and one of the few of those that is a public park.
Specifically, I wonder about the concrete that formed the lock walls and guidewall at the old dam. The locks opened to river traffic in 1923, making this concrete more than a century old. As it has worn away, you can see how it was made in layers. It's an interesting site for industrial archaeologists, if that's what you call people like me who like to expore old workplaces and imagine how people earned their livings there.
By modern standards, some sections aren't safe to walk on, although that doesn't stop fishermen or curious people. I do ask myself what parts of the old concrete will be kept visible and what parts will be covered up. I guess we will see soon.
Another time when I'm going through some pictures from a while back and find one that's more interesting now than it was then.
The morning of Feb. 6, 2024, when a Crounse boat was tied up at Catlettsburg, Kentucky.
I thought a wide, narrow crop would bring out the size of the barges better than a tighter crop.
It was about 40 degrees outside today. My body is still on summer standard time, so I was pretty cold trying to get a few pictures in Catlettsburg and Huntington. Maybe by the end of January this will seem like shorts and T-shirt weather, but my body's not there yet.
Anyway, here are a few pictures I got today. You can see six boats of varying degrees of clarity based on distance.
Here is the John Greet, with the Pocahontas in the background.
The Jean Akin, with the MAP Runner coming closer so it can turn up the Big Sandy.
The Bill Stile passing Huntington.
And the D.A. Grimm, the twin to the Bill Stile. The pilot came out to give me a wave. The clueless person I was, I should have gotten his beauty shot during the wave, but instead I waved back. Sorry about that.
This has been an excellent year for river photography for me. I wouldn't have expected it, though. Unlike most years, I haven't ventured very far from my home near Huntington, West Virginia, in 2024. I've been to Portsmouth, Ohio, and maybe to Pomeroy, Ohio. If I've gone beyond those towns, I don't remember, and my folder of 2024 pictures doesn't show any evidence of it.
I did go up the Kanawha River as far as St. Albans, West Virginia, on one photo expedition when the J.S.Lewis came down on a cold January day, but that's about as far as I went with my camera up a tributary.
There were plans to go to Cincinnati or Sistersville or places like that, but they never came about. Instead I was stuck at home along maybe 110 miles of river, if that many.
As with many things in my life in recent years, I didn't go where I had planned and I didn't get what I wanted, but I got better than what I had hoped for.
It was a good year for boat photography. I don't know that I had been as close to a Crounse boat as I had several times this year, such as this photo from August.
I got photos of weather and wildlife that I hadn't gotten before. Or if I had gotten them before, I got better ones or different ones. Here's one example. It's a heron flying off after I had scared it. I tend to do that with herons.
Even if I didn't travel far from home, I made frequent trips to the river to shoot a variety of things. When the year ends, I'll probably make a small book of my best river pictures of the year, just as I will make books of my kids and grandkids. I order a lot of prints of varying sizes, usally from 4-by-4 to 8-by-10. Now and then I will order one-time photo books. As much as I like photo prints, my images tend to look better on a book page.
Maybe next year I'll make it down to Paducah or Cairo. I do want to visit Golconda to see a couple of things there. Or I'll head up beyond Wheeling to look for a new baskethandle bridge there.
One thing I learned this year is that you don't always need to drive far from home to get a lot of memorable photos.
Huntington Tri-State is the name of the airport near where I live. Huntington Tri State is what you would call these two Marathon Petroleum boats meeting each other early this morning. This is seen from South Point, Ohio, looking across the river toward Kenova, West Virginia.
From Sunday, Oct. 20 ...
When I got this picture, I didn't see the guy waving at me. I was looking at this image a little while ago and saw him. So whoever you are, forgive me for not noticing you until now.
Oh, yeah, this was the M/V Stacy Lynn exiting the Kanawha River after dropping off one barge.
I've been feeling a little under the weather the past couple of weeks. Or maybe I've just been feeling my age. Around the time I turned 60, I had to give up climbing trees to get good pictures of boats. Climbing up wasn't so bad. Coming back down was. About a year before that, my youngest son told me I was too old to climb up on guardrail posts. And today I remembered why I gave up climbing on rocks and riprap earlier this year. My sense of balance just ain't what it used to be.
But I didn't want people to forget I'm here, so I dug into my archives and found this photo from May 24. It was a Crouse boat pulling out of Kenova WV at sunset. You have to love that golden hour light. Here are two edits. One is color and one is monochrome. I like them both.
I hope to make a trip or two to the river this week and maybe get some new pics, my body and my schedule willing.
Actually six passed Harris Riverfront Park in downtown Huntington today, but I wasn't there in time to get good ones of the Elizabeth Ann and the Laura S.
I did, however, get the Ginger Moller, Debi Sharp, Larry Drummond and the Chief Bill Brown.
Four out of six is OK, I guess.
Yesterday, Sept. 25, I woke up feeling awful with this bug that's going around. It was not enough to knock me down, but it did make me question what I can and should do on a given day. I needed to get out of the house to determine how I would function that day, so I drove over to Lock and Dam 27. It had been a few weeks since I had been there, and I was due for a visit.
I wrote about that visit in a column on the Opinion page of this morning's edition of The Herald-Dispatch. If you can't get past the paywall and don't want to pay to read it, I'll summarize it for you here:
I'm no expert on concrete, but it looks like there were two kinds used in the construction of the locks. There was a very rough mixture that formed most of the lock walls, and there was a smoother layer on top of it. You can see what I mean in one of the pictures below.
Speaking of which ...
I also got a few shots of the park's flora and fauna.
After visiting the park, I decided I was strong enough to work, but I worked from home just to be safe.
I look forward to seeing the plans for the park once I can talk someone into letting me take a peek.
And today, I got an email from someone who grew up near Lock & Dam 27. He sent me a link to his web page, which has the only photo I can recall seeing of the powerhouse at the dam.
