Rock Island County

How come when they come from thousands of miles away, we can buy bananas here for 49c a pound when back home, when they come from just down the road we pay $3 or $4 a kilo.
Add a few more thousand miles to that distance and we were paying only 99c a pound in Alaska so I tell you what, those thieves in Maclean aren’t so mellow yellow with their pricing.

With a boot full of bananas and a troop of local baboons chasing us down the road we turned off Interstate 80 onto some quieter backroads to get a better look at the Mississippi River.
What do you say to describe its size? and the part we were at was very narrow across because there was a bridge there, and narrow is the sensible place to build a bridge.

This was at a town called Muscatine where we drove over the bridge into Illinois then to Lock and Dam 16.
Just as we got there six massive barges joined together came up the river to go through the lock.
The Mississippi is like a seaway, this barge had come up from the southern states and was going on to St Paul, Minnesota, a trip of a few thousand miles.

As the barge approached the lock workers came out to assist getting the barge through.
They were friendly so as one old guy walked by he said “hello” and “where y’all from” we say Australia so nodding at the RV and trying to be smart he says. “Australia! y’all drive that thing all the way from Australia”. Being a bigger smart arse I said “no don’t be stupid we put it on the plane as excess luggage”
He cracked up, shook head and walked on.

Next his mate comes along, friendly as and says hello, how y’all doing and goes about helping to get the barge through.
The barge had a couple of deckies. One thing they had to do was secure the barge by tying it to the sides because of the force of the water when the lock gates were opened would have swept it back out again.

We were looking at the river, considering the distances the barges travel and thinking this could be a great lifestyle if you are that type of person so seeing everyone was so friendly I called out to one of the deckhands asking what they were carrying.
“ concrete” he says. I hope he meant cement or they would be in for a bit of a shock by the time they reach St Paul.
“good job working on the barges” I say
“ yeah good job, pays not bad but the place is full of “no goods”
I crack up because I thought he was saying this like we might rib a mate or fellow worker, in that affectionate Australian way because just near him was another deckie but no he never cracked a smile once and then he was off.
“yeah the place is full of no goods they’re everywhere... no goods! yeah can’t say nothing to them, not them no goods! You say something to them no goods and there’s trouble, them no goods is trouble”

This went on and on and as the barge left the lock and continued on he was still going. We couldn’t understand a word of it except the occasional “no goods”.
One of the lock operators heard all this and as he was finishing up he walked back past us and put his hand to the side of his mouth like he didn’t want anyone else to hear and said “a lot of them are just out of jail”.Lue lisää