Monday August 29: Melting on the Mississippi

After calling the nearby lock, we left Alton marina pretty early and headed toward St. Louis.

Our destination today was Hoppies Marina. It's kind of a strange marina in that it is really a number of barges tied together! But it had power and water so that's all we needed ....

Fern and Hoppie have owned this place for many years. I tried to find the history but was not successful. In my mind, her father (or his) used to go down the river to light the buoys so the tows could find their way in the dark. Good story but I'm questioning if it's really true!

It wasn't long before we could see the arch at St. Louis. I was struck by the suspension bridge abutment (foreground) as it compared to the arch itself. Too much to just be a coincidence. Good architectural design!

















The closer we came the cooler the arch became! We've been to St. Louis several times in the past and thoroughly enjoyed the visitor center (which is underground and has an A+++ movie of the building of the arch) as well as the ride to the top of the arch as well. (Picture from 2000 - do we look younger??)

At the top of the Arch

 At the top (not visible in the picture) are a row of windows from which you can look down - really fun! We were 630 feet above the ground!

Looking back, the sun was shining on the arch and made it look as though it was made of silver - really beautiful :-)


The tows are growing larger! I think this is actually a dredger. These rigs move massive equipment from place to place and are used to clear out the silt that continues to clog parts of the waterway.

Hoppies Marina

It wasn't long before we spotted Hoppies and turned in to dock. Interesting. She gives very good direction for getting in. The current was about 3 knots so to dock we had to go past the marina a bit then turn into the current and travel back to the marina.

With several great dockhands (Steve included!!) we made it in and tied up with no issues. Su Sueno had followed us in.

Steve was up early again - as usual. Su Sueno had already shoved off by the time I rolled out :-)

This would be another 43 mile day to a lock just off of the Mississippi - the Kaskaskia lock.

We didn't want to go up the Kaskaskia - we just wanted to tie to the outside of the lock to spend the night. No problem - the lockmaster said it was fine. Many loopers use this as a first stop after Hoppies Marina.

But it is HOT and first night without power for 3 nights.

The views along the river continue to change. Our speed is typically over 11 mph and we are definitely getting spoiled ....


We passed this really fun rock that sat along along the shore but I can't remember the name of it. Totally surrounded by water!

Fern at Hoppie's holds a meeting every late afternoon to give guidance for traveling the remainder of the Mississippi River. Her suggestion was to anchor next at Little Diversion Channel - about 70 miles downstream. So we did!

Little Diversion

Very quite anchorage (except for a few locals which were headed ???

One stopped by and asked why we were there! So we explained the idea of the loop - they were very surprised that we had left from Florida in late March and how far we had traveled so far.

They probably think we're crazy :-) Sometime I think so too!!

Again VERY hot. We ran the generator so we could use the new air conditioner but eventually shut it down for the night. Still hot ...

The tows are still around - either going our way or the other. Some of them are REALLY intimidating :-)

But crossing paths is always easier than trying to pass them. Once we reached the Ohio River (and going upstream at 6.5 mph if we were lucky) we ended up just following them! In fact one of the tows actually passed us ....

Once we left Diversion Channel Sunday morning, the destination was again an anchorage and again VERY HOT - you know - the 95 degrees feels like 100?

Su Sueno had pulled in behind one of the cells that are used by the tows if they have a need to just hang out - waiting for a lock or if the fog would roll in during the night.

We followed suit and first thing had the generator running for the air conditioning.

So hot.

The Asian carp are so strange - for the past two nights they just kind of begin appearing at the surface of the water - hundreds of them! So weird and kind of spooky.

Steve found a hitchhiker from the Diversion Channel - the cutest little frog! What to do with it though?

Steve ended up putting the little guy into a container and when we anchored at night he sent the frog on it's way toward shore. Hope he made it .....

Monday morning was early - our goal was to NOT be anchored out again in this heat!

The Corps of Army Engineers (they run almost all of the locks we go through) are building a new lock and dam on the Ohio just before it joins the Mississippi. It will replace 2 of the old locks.

Weird thing is that every boat needs to be escorted through the new lock structure (not yet used as a lock per se). Luckily we were permitted to just follow a tow ahead of us - no problems!

HUGE on shore equipment

The equipment being used was crazy large! We decided this was a staging platform that would be used to float some of the dam structures to position but who knows what it really is? Other than huge .....

All was well until we hit the next lock (#52). It had been closed from the previous day because of issues with the wicket dam.

We again were very fortunate as the lockmaster put the two pleasure craft (Su Sueno and us) through before they started with the tows.

We passed numerous tows who had pushed their barges ashore to hold them there until it was their turn to go through the lock.

As we were leaving the lock, the lockmaster was giving the waiting tows their order of approaching the lock. First there would be TWELVE tows locked up and then NINE tows locked down!!

Not sure they all ever made it through that day.

The Kentucky Lock.

But we were on a roll and on a mission -- no anchoring out for us tonight -- we needed a marina to plug in!!!

It was a roll of the dice: take the short route and hope we could go up the Paduca River and through the Kentucky lock (which is notorious for making pleasure boater wait for hours on end) and have enough daylight to get to a marina OR go the longer route up the Cumberland River and anchor out again as there wasn't enough daylight to make it to a marina.




So we went for the Paduca River. Made it to the lock at 4 pm. Waited 3 hours (anchored below the lock) and made it through with just a bit of daylight to spare!

In and tied up by 8pm - air conditioners running all night. Finally - some decent sleep .....

Tomorrow we move to Green Turtle Bay - a mere 5 miles away. We may stay a week ....