[David Tschiggfrie]

For those readers who usually look for Judy's postings when the AQ is on the Upper, just a note of explanation. The Quad Cities area was hit with a severe storm Monday morning which knocked out power in Rock Island and Moline. Judy called last night to tell me she has been without power at her house since 6 a.m. Monday. She said the streets are littered with fallen trees, and I assume, downed power lines. The AQ is slowly, but surely, making her way upriver on a stage still several feet above normal pool, with lots and lots of traffic at the locks still backed up from lock closures up here weeks ago during the worst of the high water. For an example, the AQ typically locks through #15 at Rock Island sometime in the early evening (8:00 or 9:00) when she's running her normal UMR schedule. This morning the boat arrived at Lock 14 and began her lockage at 6:10, which means she probably cleared Lock 15 around 4 a.m. today, 7 hours "behind schedule." The early hour and lack of electricity in Rock Island probably account for Judy's lack of posting the boat's whereabouts. The AQ's schedule calls for a 1:00 p.m. stop at Dubuque today. However, at the progress she's been making, a 9:00 p.m. arrival here is not out of the question. In fact, it's also probably not out of the question that she bypasses Dubuque entirely and keeps heading upstream for her scheduled La Crosse stopover tomorrow. This, of course, is conjecture on my part. But we'll try to keep interested posters updated. Poor Judy was not even able to bake her traditional batch of cookies for the crew due to the power outage! This has indeed been an unusual and wild spring and summer on the UMR.