1. There are quite a few pelicans who spend their summers nesting on tiny sandy islands. They seem to fly in tight formations of 3 but hunt for fish in pairs. This looks pretty cool until your boat gets a little close to an island with a thousand of them and you get a whiff of their droppings.
2. We spotted over 50 bald eagles flying around or sitting on trees, but most impressive is how big a bald eagle's nest looks. Bald Eagles eat fish of course but they have also developed a taste for pelicans, picking off the ones who are still dozing after their buddies have flown off.
3. The Mississippi River has a sandy bottom and dredged sand can make for some very nice beaches.
4. If the sign on the river's edge or beach says "Danger, do not trespass" it is best to follow the rules because there are unexploded bombs or shells still left over from WWII training exercises buried there.
5. Dead Man's Head creek got its name when explorers went up it and found severed Indian heads on poles facing the water, apparently their warning to tribes from the other side saying "Danger, do not trespass".
6. Dead Man's Sluice, a wide body of water just off the river, got its name after an event that happened on Armistice Day. It was a 60 degree November afternoon when millions of migrating ducks and geese came in to land. Hundreds of hunters were waiting for them and had good luck until a historic low pressure system arrived. Temps dropped 40 degrees in one hour, heavy rains poured, winds picked up and it then started to blizzard. Some people made it back home but a couple of hundred people died as well as most of the birds.
7. On a more happy note the chicken we were served for lunch the day we heard that story was glazed with a very tasty huckleberry sauce.
8. The purpose for locks on the Mississippi is to be able to maintain a navigation channel of at least 9 feet deep. Without locks (and dredging) there were and would be dry summers where water levels would be so low that navigation for almost any sizable vessel would be impossible.
9. If you want to learn just about anything about riverboats or the Mississippi River you could do no worse than talking to 13 year old Miles, a true river geek who was seated the table next to us where we ate on the riverboat. It was his 3rd time on our boat, the River Twilight (this time accompanied by his grandma) but he tries to get on the river at least once a month for shorter trips. Miles goal is to get his pilot's license when he turns 19. Hopefully he will wear contacts by that time because he was helping with the mooring ropes on our trip through lock #13 and while doing so his arm bumped his glasses off into the water.
10. Old Older Amish from Northern Indiana don't drive cars after they get baptised into their religion, but they will let other people drive them around, either in cars or in luxury charter buses, one of which pulled into our riverboat's parking area just as we were pulling in. So, needless to say, when half the people on your boat are Amish, and you spend most of 2 days with them, you notice a few things.
A. Most of the Amish were couples who had been married 25 years and every 5 years there is some charter trip available for them to sign up for. It seemed they all knew each other.
B. Most were dressed exactly as you would expect. The men wore dark homemade pants w/out belts, some had suspenders (isn't that really a vertical belt?), lighter solid color homemade shirts, and had bowl style haircuts on heads not covered by hats (it was 92 and sunny the first day out on the decks). The women all wore plain, solid color, homemade, ankle length polyester dresses that looked 2 sizes too big (with an apron the some color as their dress which they would flip us to fan themselves), and they each had the exact same new looking bright white bonnet with tie strings that no one tied. Most of the women liked to sit out in the sun and you could see that the prettier ones wanted to get a little more tanned, which meant pulling up their dress a bit but still below their knee and folding the fabric up on their arms about 2 inches. (Jackie told me a few times that because of the polyester "those ladies must be dying in this heat".
C. I asked a group what they would be doing that day if they were not on this cruise. The men all answered they'd be working on their farm and the women all agreed they would be - cleaning the house - cooking dinner - washing or working in the garden ("beans should be ready just about now").
D. Some of the Amish could tell really funny stories which kept them all entertained. One lady in particular would relate a story which would make everyone laugh and then her husband would add a one sentence comment and the group cracked up even louder. Jackie and I were usually the only "English" sitting with this group and the stories were lost on us because when they talked with themselves it was always in their German/Dutch with a bit of English sprinkled in. It seemed to me English was used for measurements, dates and times, but sometimes a punchline would be like "Can you believe it?". Even though we had no way to know if we would believe it or not it was still a lot of fun for us to watch them have so much fun.
E. There was a bar on the third deck which made fruity drinks with crushed ice and booze. I didn't know until then if the Amish drink but now I know that a lot of those ladies really enjoy their fruity pleasures. Hey, maybe that's why they all laughed so hard.
F. Fun aside, we noticed that a lot of the Amish have missing teeth and a lot of their women have deep worry lines on their faces. One lady had a big gouter on her neck. But like us they were all happy to have a few days without work and responsibilities to just relax. We enjoyed passing shorelines, wildlife on the waters and in the air, good food and a great crew.
The Amish live a plain and simple life but it is also one of legalism and spiritual bondage, without an assurance of salvation. And salvation for them is not about having a relationship with the living God but rather following the law of being a good Amish. My heart is not concerned about people not wearing belts, using zippers or not having wedding rings. It does ache to think that although there can be laughter there is not the joy of salvation and the intimacy with God that Jackie and I experience every day.
