The Mississippi River

Last Wednesday, we completed our LOOP where the Illinois River meets the Mississippi River — & then we went to Port Charles Marina north of St. Louis for a little R&R. It’s a great, friendly marina (we were there last year) – especially since they have a courtesy car! Mark, Hank & Queen Ann drove into the quaint town of St. Charles for a delicious celebratory dinner at Louis & Clark Restaurant. We’re so thankful to have had Mark with us for the past week – he’s just the best crew ever!!!

Thursday morning we said goodbye as Mark’s friend, Jim, from their days at the Air Force Academy, picked him up. Hank & I ran errands (Walmart, grocery, hardware store, etc), got back to the boat for laundry & some cleaning. A large weather front dumped tons of rain in the area for Thursday, & also on Friday, we stayed a couple extra days at the marina. So, on Friday Mark and another friend (Bob), also from the Air Force Academy days, came so Bob could see QAR. We all went out to lunch and then we got to say goodbye once again!

The rain has finally stopped, but it was very cold last night (in the 30s) and foggy this morning. We left St. Charles Marina at 9:15 and traveled 48 miles to Hoppie’s south of St. Louis where we’re tied up for the night. The river is rising because of all the rain & you wouldn’t believe the junk in the water! We dodged limbs, trees, & all sorts of garbage all day. The water is so muddy it’s hard to describe – it’s not like chocolate milk or coffee with cream – it’s so disgusting & not attractive at all. We really have to keep our eyes trained on the water to avoid all the debris. But, there’s lots of current so we’re making really good time & conserving fuel as we travel at 10 to 11 knots!

Hoppie’s (the last marina until we get to the Tennessee River), consists of 3 barges tied together with a walkway to shore – pretty basic, but they have fuel & shore power so I’m happy. It’s going to be cold again tonight so we like shore power for heat (which means we don’t have to run the generator). Tomorrow we have about 40 miles to go – to the Kaskaskia Lock at the Kaskaskia River where we can tie up for the night. We’re now repeating our passage down the rivers of last fall & are hoping that this trip will be as smooth. Right now a very large tow with 15 barges passed & we’re still rocking from their wake (this is not a very protected dockage). After our night at the lock we’ll anchor for a couple of nights before we reach the Ohio River & then the Tennessee River.