October 11, 2009 Clinton, IA to Faiport Landing, IA

October 11, 2009

Clinton to Fairport Landing

We left pretty Clinton, IA at 9:00, but then had to wait for a RR Swingbridge for 30 minutes. Still though the intent was to get to Fairport Landing to get diesel and spend the night. This would be a normal day of roughly 60 miles with two RR Swingbridges and two Lock & Dams. South of Clinton the Mississippi is wide and the going was smooth until Grateful was rocked by something submerged and in the channel. The good news was that it seemed the keel took the brunt and we did not experience any unusual vibrations.

As we approached Fairport Landing, we called and found out from Tim, the owner, that he had very little diesel and that he really didn’t have a very good spot for us to spend the night. After some discussion, he decided that we could tie up on an outside, uppermost dock. We would borrow electrical from the boat next to us. He would call and order diesel and hopefully it would come earlier rather than later.

This is truly a place one should plan on getting fuel, but probably not spend the night. He had other slips available, but was afraid that there was not enough depth to accommodate Grateful’s draft of 4.5-5.0 feet. However, there was a restaurant on premises, and we found a “diamond in the rough”. It turns out that Tim is a collector of all things “beer”. He had walls of beer cans, and beer signs as well beer taps under glass. He told us later that several of his cans were worth $18,000-$20,000. Who knew??? Very interesting and the food was great. Tim said that 9,000 people pass through the restaurant over the summer season – it has to be a destination because there is nothing else around there. We feel bad that we did not take a picture for our blog.