On the Road. The Rider's Journal

Part 04:
Guttenberg, Iowa. September 21, 2006.

I crossed from Minnesota into Wisconsin on Sunday ...a bleak, rainy day made all the worse by another puncture from yet another industrial staple. That fixed I carried on to La Crosse, then to the weeny port of Genoa, and then on to Prairie du Chien, via a place called Ferryville.

Alas, there are no ferries any longer. Just a population of 265 making their way through life any which way they can.

It was lunchtime. I stopped at a bar/grill for a snack and to put some boost into the eZee Torq's battery. Just for an hour, you understand.

Hah! If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

Three hours later I was still there, enjoying the warmth and the friendliness of the people who inhabit this one-horse town. The owner of the Sportsman's Bar & Grill is someone known as 'Bruiser' - a big, charming guy in middle age who few people are going to argue with. His barmaid, Doreen, is otherwise known as Bug - and every week Bruiser makes out her pay cheque simply with the name "Bug" written on it. Nobody at the bank raises an eyebrow at this, they just count the money and hand it over.

Somehow I cannot imagine the same casualness at the Nat West or Barclays. 

From Prairie du Chien - not a particularly inspiring city, but with an attractive downtown waterfront - I crossed the bridge into Iowa. The first part of the crossing was fine, until ....another puncture from another industrial staple. So I had the dubious pleasure of walking, rather than cycling into Iowa and the lovely town of McGregor.

Puncture fixed, I pedalled some mighty hills (thank God for electric assist) towards Guttenberg, where the river is becoming active at last. A prize fish known as the Walleye, is up and jumping and luring anglers into their boats. Also the tugboats and their barges are coming into evidence in this upper part of the Mississippi.

It takes considerable skill to operate tug-and-barge. They push the barges along, rather than pull them, which according to Mike Mallone, a local towboat skipper, "is like trying to control a slithering snake."

Mike uses his own tug and barges to carry rock to strategic areas of the river, where because of abnormally shallow water for this time of year, he then dumps the rocks into the water until he's effectively created a mini-dam, which pushes the water through a channel where the bigger tugs and barges can glide through without hitting bottom. A fully laden barge draws nine feet of water; but even here, where the river has widened out somewhat, the depth is often much less than that.

I find the towboat industry fascinating. Later on and further down river, I hope to hitch a short ride on a barge boat, to talk with the captain and crew, and get some real riverboat tales flowing.

What I do know right now is that one fully loaded barge carries the equivalent freight of 58 semi trailer trucks. To push 15 barges at once (not at all unusual) is the equivalent of 870 semis, or 35 miles of bumper-to-bumper trucks - a slight indication as to the importance of this legendary waterway.

I'm beginning to feel Mark Twain-ish as I pedal south along its shores. I'm writing this from a riverside hotel called The Landing where the young part-owner told me that "once you've lived for a couple of months beside the Mississippi, trust me, you'll never leave."

I can believe it. Young Jamie Gamerdinger, 31, is unusually relaxed and content for a male of his age - and he is living proof of the Great American Dream. More than anyone I've met so far on this trip, he represents the ideal that you can still be whatever and whoever you wish to be in this country.

A few years ago he was hired as a carpenter to renovate this building from a disused 19th Century button factory into the superb hostelry it is today. A while later, he bought part-ownership, with the intent of eventually owning the place 100%. Between his role as Mine Host and freelance carpentry, he takes out fishing parties, hunts deer, and does the haymaking on his wife's organic farm 20 miles away. He is a hotelier, tradesman, outdoorsman, boat captain, and farmer rolled into one.

And would he swap his life for anything else? "Not a chance" he asserted, sweeping his arm down to the river. "I want nothing more than what I've got - and I believe that I've got it all."

In fact, maybe more than he wants. There is some strong talk of putting up a boat marina just a few hundred metres away. If that happens it will be good for business - but it will also take something of the serenity away - which is why he came here in the first place.

Not everything in America is about money, I'm glad to say.

   Until next time.
Quentin