the other crew change

so the story goes:

hannah came back up to clinton from the farm peaceful, meet andrew and lindsey peaceful, and eventually andrew back down to the farm, and further eventually hannah and lindsey keep drifting down.

and there was something new about it.

something like about staying and slowgoing deep breaths even more, long pauses, enjoy it now while the enjoying is here, crabapples and pretty little musics, sunshine and breezes.

and since we seem to be addicted to a farm in coal valley and its inhabitants, we decided to break from our pauses and river and hitch down to davenport from camanche for the farmers market. that was pretty fun. it only took one ride and there we were, and then suddenly there was a plan of another crew change,
lindsey gets to go back to the farm and sleep a cold off in a bed and with blankets,

hannah gets the company of one ian (of yon farm), one buddy dog (of yon farm) and one becky (of moline and the soon to be launched and downstream partnering sugar shaker) to bring bernadette the rest of the way to her resting spot in the quad cities. oh man.

the new crew, tho these pictures get ahead of themselves really:

can't speak for lindsey's half except that she sure seems good rested and made a nice shirt,

but on the river there were wonders, adventure surprises.

from the start and we had a ride back up river to the camanche library dock on a 96 foot yacht dinner cruise boat named lady tampa bay (yet another way to see this river my my), complete with dinner, they parked next to bernie for the night and the yacht got more attention than we did, hah.

and then yes, ian and han off and down, breezing, going to meet becky in princeton. it was quite a lovely one, ian caught on quick. lovely but/and crash landed (one paddlewheel came off 300 yards away, one motor ran out of gas 100 feet away, we paddled one wheel and one oar into a public dock next to go fish, met by a dozen denizens, drinks and dinner on them, who). was crazy but the morning was better, becky came, we got on and out, ian and becky even fixed the paddlewheel right on, the mayor even came by 7 times with longsleeves and food for us.

becky caught on fast too. and we made it to le claire that night, policemen happy to see us, residents and their gardens produce, pelo velo our personal sponsor giver of beer and coffee and the best tshirts yet, and the wind was blowing from the east perfectly on our only west stretch of the river. perfect lock and dam, perfect free ice cream from hampton's remember when, perfect landing on campbells island.

and just when we didn't think we necessarily had a place to live in the qc, a friendly boat told us we could have their slip at the island marina. well, becky left that night, and ian and i got to spend one last night on bernie for now, campstove and tent, view of alcoa factory, and buddy on bow. we met dave the marina owner funnily in the morning before the marina and then met him again inside the gates. seems we've got a worktrade for rent.

the qc papers already came, they were nice, and when we woke up this morning at our base here the mad farmer's gardens, the paper had bernie smiling on the very front page of the very paper. (and funny, mad farmer's garden on the cover of the radish, we're a bunch of celebrities here and laugh over breakfast). and that's that about that. lindsey and i are going to go finish moving off today, maybe do a little grinding on a boat, take final proper measurements and desires for the jet propulsion.

and now comes the chapter of that boatwork and this farmwork, it is good.