Plan B: The Wabash

Part two (even if I never write the rest of it)

The stream of scum seems to end at Fort Harrison. Let me guess that the water temperature normalizes and whatever it was that looked like the beginning of Meerschaum remained collected on the east bank upstream. It can't stay there. I guess it mixes in and becomes less noticeable.

There are few places to take a break and stretch your muscles on this run of the Wabash.. No islands, no beaches. I know of a place, the ruins of the Ft. Harrison boat launch and we find it. What's left of a once grand launch is a broken concrete ramp where boats were put in and taken out on iron rails. There's only a small space where it is safe to beach a kayak so Dean gets his chance to use his rope techniques to lift his kayak up the bank to make room for mine. The cable house is overgrown and only one of the two grand concrete structures has a roof. We can hear the children playing in the Elks Country Club pool but no one at the Elks knows we are there. I call the Vigo County Historian on his cell phone and ask him what these two structures are called. He doesn't know but when I suggest pagodas, he doesn't object. So I will call them the Twin Pagodas (or ruins thereof). We eat lunch in the shade on the south pagoda.

We should have stayed out of the water a little longer and stretched and walked but the river drew us back. After re-launching, I found an eddy and dared to take my camera out of the dry box and directed Dean to face me for one good picture of the approach to the Allison-Rudell Bridge. The courthouse dome is upper left in this picture and a peek of the bridge is below it. We are in the city but, except for these standouts, you can't hear it or see it.