How's the river? High or normal?

Check: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lmrfc/forecast/rva.shtml

Thanks Pete, now how about a translation?? Lotsa figures there, but I haven't got a clue what it means to the March 17 DQ cruise! 🙂
S'
David

David, you're worse than I was as a 14-year-old kid, and ain't it great?!? I have been following your questions, etc., but must confess I can't remember if you are cruising out of New Orleans or not....assume you are.

The river is up right now, and the Ohio is still rising. The Upper at St. Louis is at a fairly good stage, too, so there is "extra" water. It should not cause you any problems whatsoever in N.O. I see Cairo will crest on 3/10/07 at 41 ft. 40 feet at Cairo is flood stage, but by the time you get on the DQ in NOLA, that water will just about be down to you. However, it has a lot of spreading oout to do before then, and, again, should not affect your trip.

Well, I was 16 or 17 when I started writing Garmatz & my representives to save the DQ! (And plastered my High School with homemade posters to "Save the Queen"--securing my reputation as being "odd.") So, guess that's where I'm coming from. Is 37 years a record time to wait to ride??? Thanks Bob for the translation. I am guessing then that the crest will be going by about the time we board, and the water should be going down on our way up (wait a minute--that sounds like a bad pun starting). Now if the tickets would just get here!! We leave home on the 14th, as we are staying in NOLA a few days before, so y'all will be blessed with no posts from me for a while!! OTOH, when I get back it'll probably be worse than before!!
We now return you back to your regularly scheduled posts. . . . 🙂
Steamcerely,
David D.

One thing you have to realize about the river around New Orleans: what is a flood up here on the UMR or over on the Ohio doesn't translate into such terrible terms down there. As Bob said, there's plenty of room to spread out, and when you consider that the NOLA harbor is 60-180 ft. deep, adding 5 or even 10 feet of water isn't that much. I haven't checked any gauges around NOLA, but I imagine the Ohio water that Bob is talking about might take the NOLA river up to 12 or 13 ft. at worst. Flood stage is 17, and when they approach that, they have the option of opening spillway gates into Lake Pontchartrain above NOLA to prevent a height of more than 17 feet. What effect the higher water could have on you in NOLA would be boarding on the Main Deck instead of the second on both the NATCHEZ and DQ. Obviously the current will be swifter, so on your upbound DQ trip you wouldn't be making as good as speed as normal. What and when are your shorestops? Unless there's a huge volume of water coming down, and a foot over flood in Cairo doesn't sound like it, the landings should be ok. So about the only thing that could affect your DQ trip is the upbound speed of the DQ against the current...

I just checked Pete's URL, and the river's only 5.8 today in NOLA and predicted to 7.8 on the 11th. As Bob said, the crest should be about the time of your trip, but its not going to be any problem, I'd still guess 12 feet at most, and that's no big deal in that harbor. The eddies really get going near Algiers Point at 13 feet or so, and even that isn't a problem to the experienced crews down there. Robin St. is a couple miles above that swirling area anyway. I know what you're going through worrying about all the possible things that could screw up your trip - I was never relaxed until I set foot on the DQ, and then it didn't matter what happened, as long as I was aboard already!

Oh, you guys, Judy and Dewey. How true!!!!! The many things that can happen between now and boarding the boat!!!! It's down right nerve wrecking! I've still got 7 weeks and 3 days before my first trip this year. I've only been counting since I got off the last time in September! Dewey, I've got you beat about time waiting to ride the boat. I fell in love with her when I was a little girl growing up on the Ohio River and didn't take my first ride until I had turned 50! I guess makes it that much sweeter! I'll have lots of friends on that first trip out and will anxiously await your posts when you get back. We want a detailed account! Some of us just can't get enough of it!

I was thinking that the typically higher, faster river in the spring may be the reason that MAL decided to not stop at Oak Alley and St Francisville on this first upbound DQ trip? Is this possibly a fuel saving thing, or is it possibly a go slower, be safer, choke a stump thing? And no, I'm not trying to stir up the pot...just curious. I mean, come on, no Oak Alley? And they're stopping in Helena on this cruise instead? Doesn't seem like an equitable trade.

They always stopped in Oak Alley and St Francisville even during past March upriver cruises...or am I all wet here.

Or does it maybe have something to do with the timing of the Natchez big Spring Pageant do, that the boat has to get there by, I'm guessing, Monday, March 19th?

Bruno

And I had to wait 42 years after I read Saga of The Delta Queen and said someday I'd ride that boat. And yes, no doubt the wait made me much more grateful.

I first stepped on board in the winter of 1955 when she was hibernating in Cincinnati. I'm still looking for my first cruise on her. I've cruised on the MQ and the AQ, but never the DQ. Not often do the vanues, the $$ and the time all come together at the DQ. I was on the waiting-list for the Derby/Race Cruise for at least ten years back in the 60s-70s, but it never happened and I gave up! But, one fine day...

It was summer 1958 in Pittsburgh when I walked on board the DQ with my family on a freebee walk on board tour. I was five and excited, my sister was nine and bored, and I remember my dad turning to my mom, "Marge, someday we gotta do this, this is absolutely beautiful". That and the paddlewheel is all I remember, and I remember the paddlewheel as black or possibly very dark green, any truth to that? I remember a picture of me back by the wheel that day, I haven't found it yet in all my dad's stuff. I also remember that I thought the boat was very, very cool (were good things "cool" back in the 50's?), and someday, maybe... Anyways, my dad never got his wish and it only took 43 years for me and Deb to come on board as first time DQ passengers, a Chattanoga to Memphis Civil war cruise, May 2001. Capt Gabe, tiny winding river, Shiloh, beautiful scenery, and wonderful weather. We were hooked...

I tryed to encourage my Dad and his second wife to join us on a cruise in his last years, he was very interested, but somehow it never worked out.

But I am very proud that his second wife and her friend are joining me and Deb for their first DQ cruise this September, a cruise I gave to her as a thank you. She's soooo excited, enough to give my buddy David Dewey a run in the excitement category.

And Joanne, looking forward to seeing you again on that September, Cincy to Cincy round trip. I believe you're one of the dot.orgers on board, right?

Bruno

Egads, I've been totally outclassed in terms of waiting. Ah well, happy to give up THAT spot!! Tickets arrived today, one little glitch on our flight home (they forgot to give us a days layover in Memphis) but Oh boy Oh boy!!! We're really going this time!!!!!
Bruno, I hope I'm not bouncing off the walls when I get onboard!!
S'
David.

Yep, Bruno, I will be on that round trip Cincy to Cincy the end of September. Funny thing about that trip, is we come to Louisville, the area where I'm from, but it doesn't matter. I'll be on MY boat!!!! One time I did that trip and missed lunch on the DELTA QUEEN as I took an afternoon cruise on the BELLE of LOUISVILLE!

And David, BOUNCE off the walls all you want. The crew is used to it out of some of us! My cousin went with me a couple years ago. She said I started smiling the minute I got on that boat and never stopped smiling until we got off! That says it ALL!

Oh David, how you are making me think about my first trip. I LOVED it from the minute I stepped on, just like I knew I would. And Bruno, my sister went with me. Her comment when we got off (as they carried me down the stage kicking and screaming), "I'm glad I went, but I don't care if I go again". Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get on again, and again, and again, and again........... You get the picture.

My DQ chronology: I first saw her on her first UMR trip in 1954, when she ran through herself and sat here at the RI levee for 8 days. My family went down every night to sit and look at a boat doing nothing...every year after that, my dad and I would race down to the levee when we'd hear her whistle signalling the Crescent RR bridge. After our floodwall was built in 1964, she could no longer stop here and I was away at college so didn't see her for a few years. In 1968 my dad and I drove down to Muscatine and we were able to go aboard on the free tour. I remember the calliope playing as we approached, and it was of course Doc Hawley, then Mate and whom I wouldn't meet for another ten years. I remember the Greene Line grayishgreen paint on the railings the most of anything. I was impressed, but not overcome by that visit. A friend, not I, booked my first trip for Aug. 20-23,1973, and that was it.... I rode 39 times between 1973-83 and two more this decade with my 'granddaughter' Leonie and her parents, and have been baking cookies since 1977 for all the QUEENS' passes through here, which sometimes was 10 consecutive weeks. In the last decade I've been doing more hospital/dialysis/airport/drugstore/Harley-Davidson runs for them too. So while my cruising days have probably ended, I still am able to keep in the flow of things - or at least have up to this point, who knows what the new regime will bring?