Topic starter
14/10/2008 9:34 pm
Just got off the phone with Judy Patsch at 3:30 this afternoon. She is patiently(?) sitting at the Denver Airport waiting for a 7:30 p.m. flight to the Quad Cities. Her original flight into Denver missed the connection to the QC airport, because of an unbelievable snafu which she will outline much better than I once she is able to post again on the messageboard. But in the meantime, to ease any worry caused by her prominent absence on the lockwall at Rock Island this afternoon and her equally conspicuous absence as the premier chocolate chip cookie provider to the AQ's crew, she IS alive and well, albeit chagrined at having to cool her heels 1500 miles due west of where she would really like to be right now! A fuller report will be forthcoming after Judy returns home late tonight.
14/10/2008 10:12 pm
and where exactly has Miss Patsch been?
15/10/2008 5:00 pm
From the mountains, to the prairie,
to the oceans white with foam.... thank goodness I'm back on the river! I see according to the lock report in today's paper that I missed 407 passengers on the AQ yesterday. Sure good to see that number. Hopefully they'll have a lot of color to see as they go up. Its raining today and of course I brought a cold front in with me, as I usually do to NOLA.
We've chronicled well this summer/fall all the things which have caused the AQ grief on the UMR - like high water, low water, malfunctioning bridges and z drives. But I can top that with my return flights from Eugene to Moline: I missed my connection in Denver because of a bird! Not a vulture or bald eagle or some such large creature, but a plain old garden variety bird! I was on the first flight out of Eugene at 5:48AM, but when that plane landed the previous night, a bird hit it. They had to do an inspection of course, which showed no damage. And of course paperwork had to be filed. 4 of the 5 pages were, but 1 page was missing. So we sat for 40 minutes waiting for that to get done. This of course got us into Denver late, only by 10 minutes, but they gave our gate to another plane, so all 60 passengers missed their connecting flights because we sat on the tarmac for 45 minutes. Then it was 8 hours in the beautiful Denver terminal.... give me a deck of a steamboat and the river water around me, the paddlewheel slapping the water, and I can sit all day...Dave was kind to use the term 'patiently', facetiously I'm sure. Even though I've been meeting the AQ every week since mid July, I have wanted to take every chance to see her since the future for the QUEENS is so murky, and it appears a distinct possibility that there won't be any overnight steamboats on the UMR next year. The mortgage on the AQ is paid through February, so hopefully that will allow a change of ownership without having to go the MARAD six month waiting period routine, which certainly would wipe out next season. The AQ will make her last stop of the season next Wednesday the 22nd, in Davenport, leaving for the webcam at 2:30...