Eventful weekend/How the Mighty Mississippi has changed!

The weekend was nothing as we planned but very nice indeed.  Our Chenoa family didn't make it to the river which was a dissappointment. We were lucky, however, to have plenty of time to enjoy our St. Louis family and the Alton Marina.
Sunday afternoon Rick took Becki, Justin and my dad for a little trip up the river.  It gave me the opportunity to see them travel along as I stayed on shore with my mother.  She truly has no love for water or boats.

This is a shot of all of them going under the Alton bridge to the marina.  We had cool, sunny weather for the weekend and couldn't have enjoyed it anymore. We made plans for my dad and brother to travel with us from Alton to St. Louis on Monday.  Most of the other boaters we met were travelling to Hoppies on Monday, but we thought it would be neat to stay in downtown St. Louis. HA!

Monday included two locks and the Chain of Rocks Canal.  The canal is about 10 miles long and all boats are required to travel through it.

 The first lock was open but it certainly gave us some trouble.  The wind was strong and Rick had difficulty getting me close enough to throw the rope over the bollard.  We ended up floating in the lock which meant we had to keep the motor on most of the time to avoid all the crap floating inside.  Luckily the other lock was much easier for us.  It did give my dad and brother a chance to see how different locks can be from one another.  It also gave us all a chance to see how the river changes in the St. Louis area. 

Once the Missouri joins in, the nice water is basically gone.  There is all sorts of garbage and it becomes VERY COMMERCIAL.  There was a tremendous amount of activity on the water and the wind was very strong.  We heard on the marine radio about how boats were getting blown around and barges were having trouble in the locks.  We were lucky we had gotten an early start.

It was exciting passing the St. Louis riverfront in our own boat and we were anticipating taking a walk in the evening.  As it turned out, this dock was not quite the Hilton of the river.  It is the only place to park a recreational boat in the downtown area and it is certainly not in a "walk around at night" area!  It was a gated area and an easy place for Becki to stop after work and pick up our day riders.  She affirmed our suspicions that we should remain on the boat rather than leave for a downtown adventure.  She also brought us a few more supplies for the rest of our journey.

We did get up early on Tuesday to leave this area and get to Kimmswick where Hoppies Marina is located.  Hoppies is the final marina to have electricity, get gas, ice, etc. for the next 250-270 miles of our journey. When we arrived we were greeted by Fern and Hoppie.  They helped us dock, gas up and told us to attend the evening meeting at 4:30 for information about our future journey.

There were about 6 boats waiting to take off on the journey and most people attended the meeting. 

One couple had been docked since Friday waiting for a part.  He said that he heard the lecture 4 times and learned something new each time.  She gave us all the info. for handling the strong current of the river, how to communicate with the barges, hazards to avoid, places to dock/not dock and basic survival tips.  They have run this marina for over 30 years and Hoppies father ran it before them.

Our plan was to have Tony and Judy ride with us for another day trip.  We had called St. Genevieve and they told us about a ramp we could use to tie up for loading.  Hoppie and Fern couldn't place anywhere that this would work and we should have listened to them.  Instead, we spent a couple of hours in the cars looking for an unloading spot.  We finally called it quits and returned to our boat for just a fun evening of visiting.

We all did pretty good sleeping the boat.  Judy said we all snore, so she must have been the last one awake.  She did enjoy the rocking of the boat.  Rick and I have said that all along the trip.  The rocking is comforting when we are out of the way of barges.







We have now travelled 10 miles since leaving the Richars at Hoppies.  We travel much faster since the current is stronger. We are running at speed of 8 miles an hour.  We have 45.5 gallons of gas ($4.11 per gallon) and our goal is to park alongside the lock at the Kaskaskia River.  It should be a little over 40 miles, so we are 1/4 of the way.  We must keep our radio tuned to channel 13 in order to know about the barge traffic.  We no longer have lots of bouys to mark our channel so we really have to watch our maps.  Hopefully the wind will continue out of the north and all will go smoothly. 

Have a good week.  I'll blog when I can get power for the computer and a decent signal.

By the way, Rick has decided we should name our boat but is at a loss for ideas.  He sure was sorry this one had already been used.  Bye!!!!