It’s a Big Dam Country — Day 19

Wow. Day 19.

Okay, it wasn’t much of a wow day.

From Louisville, KY to Cape Girardeau, MO via a scenic round the barn tour of Hoosier National For­est and Santa Claus, IN.

I meant to visit the Can­nel­ton Lock and Dam in Can­nel­ton, IN and the New­burgh Lock and Dam in New­burgh, IN.

I never made it to Can­nel­ton. I got com­pletely turned around in the Hoosier National For­est and while I got this lovely shot of the Ohio River at Leav­en­worth I never actu­ally made it back to the river until I was 25 miles west of the dam.

For what it’s worth, the Hoosier Nat’l For­est is pretty and has lovely, curvy, swoopy roads. They just don’t go where I thought they went.

I did how­ever find Santa Claus. Here’s the hard­ware store. It is by far the most nor­mal thing in town.

I did finally find the New­burgh Lock and Dam. Not much to see. Smaller than some of the oth­ers and awk­wardly placed.

This is the top of the tug­boat that was lock­ing through at the time. I couldn’t see what cargo they were push­ing.

By this time the heat was blind­ing. 97 degrees. Even the finest Ger­man engi­neer­ing gives up in the face of that kind of heat and crawl­ing con­struc­tion traf­fic. The AC couldn’t keep up, it was cooler to roll the win­dows down and sweat in the breeze. But I (we?) sol­diered on because we were head­ing for the last point of this trek down the Ohio River. Yup — Mis­sis­sippi River here we come.

Or not.

Fort Defi­ance park is the only access to the actual point of confluence.

and it was *Closed for Cleaning*

Sob.

The town of Cairo didn’t make me feel any bet­ter. Once pros­per­ous now largely abandoned.

I pointed the GPS at a nice hotel in Cape Girardeau and turned my back on the Ohio River Valley.

I did find this sweet lit­tle park-let with a board­walk to to river view on the way.

Made me feel a bit bet­ter.

Today’s Route:

View It’s a Big Dam Coun­try — Day 19 in a larger map