Barge Tour

As some of you may or may not know I live in the southern most tip of Indiana in the small town of Newburgh. Our town is located along the banks of the Ohio River. A couple of weeks ago, my boss had mentioned a "barge tour" and asked if we would be interested in going. I said heck yeah! I see barges on the river all the time and I have always wanted to be in a boat on the river. Upon my arrival at work I had totally forgot, so it was a nice surprise when she reminded me that it was at 1:00. Yippee! Mondays are a drag anyway. So off we go. Of course, someone had to stay and mind the shop. Sorry Patty!

We had no idea it would last 3 hours! This "barge tour" was sponsored by the Indiana Corn Growers. All Aboard. This picture shows people boarding the barge. We heard the earlier in the day there were important people like senators and the like. I didn't care, I wasn't about to pass up the chance to be off of work and to be on the river.

Located just east of Newburgh is the Lock and Dam. We got to go through the locks on our way to Alcoa. That was really cool learning how that works. The picture above shows us going into the locks. Along the way, there were speakers from different businesses in the area explaining how they use barges to get their goods. Alcoa is probably the biggest barge user in the area transporting coal to power their aluminum plant. There is also Mulzer Stone who uses barges to bring their rock down here from the quarry. I didn't realize how much capacity a barge has. If I remember correctly, it would take something like 200 semi trailers to carry the load that a 15 barge tow does. That is keeping a lot of trucks off of the road and saving fuel to boot!

It was a beautiful day for a barge ride and a great excuse to miss work!