River Barging

Travel America, March, 2001 by Randy Mink

On a lazy cruise from Cincinnati to St. Louis, the River Explorer weaves through a tapestry of heartland landscapes

With Indiana on one bank and Kentucky on the other, I was doing what I most like to do on river cruises--watch the parade of people and places while drifting leisurely past the backyards of America. Through my binoculars, I spied wildlife and waterfowl, families camping by the shore and boys fishing from rickety piers, back-porch cookouts and hilltop mansions poking above the trees. Just as eye-catching, in their own gritty way, were the power plants, factories, and river traffic, such as lengthy barges piled with jet-black coal.

Okay, it's not the South Pacific, but the scenery is almost exotic to me, a suburbanite more accustomed to subdivisions and shopping malls than pretty countryside and vintage river towns. And I certainly wouldn't get this perspective cruising in a car.

Rivers actually used to be the nation's highways, and though we've kind of turned our backs on these flowing passages our ancestors traveled, they're still prime transportation arteries--great sources of nostalgia and wonder for tourists floating contentedly on a luxury hotel barge.

For eight carefree days last summer, we ate and slept aboard the 198-passenger R/B River Explorer as it plied the Ohio and Mississippi rivers at 6 to 10 m.p.h. Our week-long "America's Junction" journey from Cincinnati to St. Louis paid visits to three Ohio River ports of call in Kentucky--Louisville, Henderson, and Paducah--before rounding the tip of southern Illinois and joining up with the Mississippi, where we stopped in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

A delightful detour from the fast lane, our River Explorer voyage was the most laid-back vacation we've ever had. There were few onboard activities to clutter our days, so my wife had plenty of time to read her books in a lounge chair, and I was in my glory roaming the top deck with binoculars and cameras, always anticipating what loomed around the bend. Our 12-year-old son indulged his passion for playing cards and board games--things we're usually too busy to do with him at home or on hectic theme park vacations.

Best of all, I never once put on a pair of pants. Dress was strictly casual, so casual, that shorts were standard attire, even at dinner in our barge restaurant, The Galley.

The flat-bottomed River Explorer, built in 1998 for New Orleans-based RiverBarge Excursion Lines, comprises a pair of 295-foot former petroleum barges propelled by the Miss Nari, a towboat operated from the pilot house by remote control. The forward barge contains the dining room and other public facilities, while the aft barge houses 99 identical staterooms on the Royal (main) and Platinum (upper) decks. Guest rooms feature a super queen or twin beds, tub and shower, TV and VCR, telephone, mini-refrigerator, hair dryer, large picture windows that open, and those all-important binoculars. Platinum Deck rooms have balconies.

During the day, passengers gather on the Sky Deck, a spacious rooftop with a jogging/walking track, two hot tubs, exercise room, and lounge chairs for sunbathing. Shade-seekers read books, knit, or make new friends at patio tables by the Under the Bridge Bar. River-watchers like me flit from one railing to the other, so as not to miss anything in the water or ashore.

Dedicated "river rats" can sightsee in air-conditioned comfort in the Guest Pilot House, a replica of the real pilot house one deck above, featuring authentic pilot chairs, radar, navigation charts, and radio transmissions from the bridge. Walls of windows in the adjacent purser's lounge and dining room (a deck below)--and even in the exercise room--also keep the river in view, giving the three-level River Explorer an airy, open feel. Passageways are wide, and elbow room is never a problem.

Our fellow passengers, mostly retirees, hailed from many Midwestern states and from as far away as California and Connecticut. Current or retired teachers travel at half price when sharing a stateroom with a full-fare companion.

We first saw this massive vessel after flying into Cincinnati and arriving at the Public Landing, a concrete levee just blocks from the heart of downtown. At 730 feet in length, it dwarfed its neighbor, the Showboat Majestic, and every other craft that came near. A red-white-and-blue spectacle, the River Explorer draws waves and stares wherever it goes.

After settling in to our cabin, we went out walking, first to Cinergy Field, where the Cincinnati Reds baseball game was just getting out. Along with young local autograph-seekers, we waited awhile at the stadium's back gate for players to start coming out, then headed to Fountain Square, a prime people-watching plaza. At The Dugout store in the Westin Hotel, we bought Reds T-shirts and other souvenirs.

After dinner on the River Explorer, we took a stroll through the riverfront parks, stopping to sit in bleachers at a sand volleyball game under a highway bridge and read historical markers telling about Cincinnati's beginnings as a river port. We brought along a frisbee and played on the Great Lawn of the Proctor & Gamble Performance Pavilion. On this classic summer's night I wished we had time to walk across one of the bridges to Covington, Kentucky.