​We stopped at an assisted care home to visit Hank’s sister, Eleanor. Angie brought her laptop and showed Eleanor many pictures of the reunion and visits with their brothers, Douglas and Joe and their aunt Jean, who did not attend the reunion. Eleanor was delighted to see everyone. She was also very taken with Angie, who she called “beautiful” and “an asset to the family”. Eleanor was tiring after a 90-minute visit, so we hit the westward road.

We stopped at another Corp of Engineers camp site – Fisherman’s Corner North – on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River at Lock and Dam Number 14. There was a lily pad marsh along the shore of our campground, but a short three-quarter mile walk on a bike trail brought us to a sandy shore where the dogs could play and swim. 

When the dogs were done swimming, we noticed that a couple of tugboats were tending a string of five barges at the upstream entrance to the locks. From our campsite, we had a good vantage point to watch the two-hour process of maneuvering the barges through the locks. 

The barges were about 200 feet long, so they couldn’t get all five barges, plus the tugboat, through in one pass. A helper tug stationed at the locks pulled on the front of the string, while the main tugboat pushed the string into the locks. They disconnected the first three barges from the last two, closed the lock doors and lowered the water level to downstream depth. The helper tug pulled the barges out and stood by while the locks were refilled and the upstream doors were opened. They reconnected the barges when both halves of the string were on the downstream side and off they went. It was very interesting to watch.