Rollin...Rollin...Rollin on the River
Our journey this week will take us several hundred miles down the Mississippi River and up the Ohio River, from Alton, Illinois to Green Turtle Bay Marina in Grand Rivers, Kentucky.
Our trip to California is now over and we have returned to the Happy Destiny. The quiet, calm days have returned, and I for one am overjoyed. I really missed our days on the water. Being on the water makes me feel free. I can breathe. I enjoy every moment and look forward to each and every day. For a girl like me, who used to not even want to be, this is such a great gift from my God.
Jim and I were talking the other day as we were flying down the Mississippi River about how much it is going to suck when we complete this Great Loop Adventure. I just can’t imagine it!
On Sunday afternoon we took a tour of the Melvin Price Lock and Dam. We will be going through this lock ourselves as we head out of Alton towards St. Louis. It was very cool! Jim and I like to think we have gotten pretty good in the locks. We have now been through 80 of them since we left Floria. This lock, however, is the biggest yet. There actually are two locks. One is 600 feet long, the other 1200 feet long. It can hold and lock through the huge tugs and tows that traverse the Mississippi River.
The following morning we left Alton Marina for our journey down the Mississippi. This is Us as we head into the Mel Price Lock.
There are so many tugs and tows on the river. They haul thousands and thousands of pounds of grain, corn, fertilizer, cranes, equipment and coal. It is a very efficient way to transport the goods we all use in our daily lives. It’s pretty fascinating and it’s pretty harrowing to meet one of these monsters around a bend in the river. We are vigilant and trust me, we keep our eyes peeled and I have binoculars attached to my hip at all times!
As we travel down the Mississippi, our first sighting of the St. Louis Arch appears. This is a landmark we’ve been waiting to see with our own eyes. I feel like I’m in a dream. Jim and I, on our very own Happy Destiny, on the Mississippi River, passing the St. Louis Arch in Missouri. The Arch itself is 630 feet tall. Makes you feel very small. There is an EarthCam webcam which I utilized to capture us crossing. So cool, right!
We soon cleared the urban area and all the parked barges, and had clear sailing to Hoppies Marina at Mile 158 on the Mississippi. Cairo, Illinois, at the confluence of the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers, is at Mile 0 of the Upper Mississippi. So from Hoppies Marina, we have 158 miles to go before we turn up the Ohio River, then up the Cumberland River, and finally to Barkley Lake and Green Turtle Bay Marina.
Hoppies Marina is legendary among Loopers! It is three rusty barges tied to the shore with a fuel station. Transient boaters are put on the outside of the barges,. The current on the Mississippi is pretty strong here, as everywhere, so the way you have to approach Hoppies is to go past it, turn around and approach upstream into the current so you can maintain control and not be swept right past the marina! Jim brought the Happy Destiny in and I threw a dock hand our lines! It was insane! After watching another looper boat sail by, before turning upstream, I was so impressed with Jim’s skills as the Captain of our boat. It’s hard to tell how fast we were actually traveling until I watched the other boat do what we just did. Jim did really good! The current on this river runs really fast.
It was 2:00 when we slid in and one thing in this town has had me salivating for several years. The Blue Owl restaurant and its mile high caramel apple pie! The Blue Owl closes at 3:00, like everything else in this very small town. We hurried off on foot and with 20 minutes to spare sat down for dessert for lunch!
The town of Kimmswick Missouri is just adorable. Small gift shops line the streets, with an occasional other gift shop. Not quite sure why there are so many gift shops. The population here is only 158 people! But, I lucked out! We went in one of them and I came out with a beautiful ankle bracelet! A gift from Jim for our wedding anniversary which is Friday, the 28th. Lucky me!
Hoppies is not pretty. But I’m so glad we stopped. It’s what Loopers do.
After being tossed around by the tugs and tows all night we cast our lines and proceeded down the river. Our destination, The Kaskaskia Lock and Dam where there is a safe harbor, and a wall for us to tie up to for the night. It was a brisk 42 mile trip that only took us 3 and a half hours to get to. That’s how strong the current pushes us. Normally, the same 42 mile trip, might take 5 or 6 hours. We averaged speeds of 13 miles per hour at almost idle speed. We arrived to the lock wall along with 10 other loopers boats. There are slim to none marinas between Hoppies and Green Turtle Bay. Most all loopers are now in the final legs of the River Systems that will take us all down to the Gulf of Mexico. We still have hundreds of miles to go, but we are all headed there
An early start on Thursday. Destination - Little Diversion. An anchorage in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Another 42 mile journey. This day was cold. Like sweatshirt and long pants cold! Like, we kept all the windows closed, cold. Like, Brrrrrrr. The current has not changed. It is still brisk and we speed along at a very good clip. Several tugs and tows to pass, beautiful scenery, green trees on the banks of the river. The sky was gray and had ominous clouds. It never rained, but it sure looked like it might. We arrived to the anchorage and found that there was not enough current in the cut to keep us from swinging in circles on our anchor. We do not have a stern anchor ( that would keep us stable) so our neighboring boat allowed us to tie our stern line to his boat. That held us just fine.
This is a beautiful spot in what is know as a drainage ditch. The sun came out and we had a delightful, quiet day. Jim is making us a shelving unit to go in our forward shower where we store our stuff like tools, paper towels, cleaners and other things that we don’t use every day. He is a jack of all trades. Woodworking is one of his specialties! Nothing like hearing a circular saw on a boat😂
MR. & MRS. 💍
September 28, 2018
Happy Anniversary to us! 5 years ago Jim and I said “I do” in the presence of our children, grandchildren, our brothers and sisters and our Tribe. What a great adventure it has been. I’m the luckiest girl in the whole wide world!
♥️💚💛🧡💜💙♥️💚💛🧡💜❤️
ok- back to our adventure 😂
Saturday, the 28th, we awoke to intense fog. Our plan was to leave our anchorage very early beacause we have a 95 mile trip to our next stop in Paducah Kentucky. We don’t travel in adverse weather when it can be avoided, so we sat and waited for the fog to lift.
Interesting fact. I’ve talked about the numerous spiders that make their homes on our boat practically every single night. They spin webs in most every nook and cranny they can find. In doorways, on screens, and they really love the stainless steel safety rail that encompasses the boat. I don’t know where they come from, nor how the hell they manage to get on the boat, but none the less, every day they make webs like this, and in most cases, the spider is nowhere to be found. See the small dots of black on the deck? That is spider shit. It too can be found all over the boat. Every day I wipe it off, because if you don’t it stains. Bastards!
As the fog lifted we untied our line from the boat that held us in place all night and stuck our nose out into the River. We were good to go even though there was a bit of fog left. If it would have gotten worse along the way, we would pull over to wait it out, but to our good fortune, our last leg of 45 miles of the Mississippi River was brisk and uneventful other than the huge tows and tugs we had to maneuver around. We travelled alone today, so Jim had to contact the tug captains, who by the way sound like gravelly voiced, good ol’ boys, from the deepest parts of the south, would tell us which side to pass them on. One whistle, port, two whistles starboard. This is very important information for us because the channels are small, and they can’t turn. Trust me, they could hit us and never even feel the impact!
Interesting fact. The Mississippi River is the border between Illinois and Missouri. As you go south, the right bank is Missouri the left bank, Illinois. At one point today we crossed through the borders of Illinois, Missouri and The state of Kentucky. As we reached Cairo, Illinois, we were reminded, once again, of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Huck and his pal, Jim, who was attempting to escape slavery, floated down the Mississippi on their raft, in hopes of catching a North bound steamship on the Ohio River where Jim could become a free man in the North. Cairo Illinois is at Mile marker 0 and as we made our sharp left turn we left the fast moving Mississippi and entered the uphill slog of the Ohio. You can actually see the confusion in the water. It swirls in all kinds of direction and I could hear the sound of our engines change as Jim had to throttle up to keep us moving forward. So much for the 2.5 miles per gallon we were getting along the Mississippi! The entrance to the Ohio is jam packed with commercial traffic. Huge tows just parked and anchored in the middle, with others in full motion. We navigated around this area and kept our eyes wide open for anything under way.
We went 95 miles today and ended our day in Paducah, Kentucky. The city has a beautiful new transient dock where we had a reservation. Lucky us, the Paducah Barbecue Festival is in town. We wandered on up and mingled with 26,000 other people! There were at least 50 different bbq joints and the smells were amazing. This is a community event, very much “fair” like with proceeds going to charity. We picked a place, stood in the line and bought us a slab of ribs, a half a chicken, Mac and cheese and bbq beans. We high tailed it all back to the boat and enjoyed it on the boat.
We left Paducah around 9:00 on Saturday morning. We have a reservation at Green Turtle Bay Marina And Resort. We are going to take a small break and relax for a few days. This is a pretty big resort with many nice amenities.
Our trip today was 45 miles. We slogged up the Ohio River for awhile and would ultimately hang a right and head across the Cumberland River. We ran up against our daily tows and tugs, dodged a lot of trees and debris in the water and as we got to the Cumberland, it was pretty darn cool to see the two distinct rivers flowing together. The Ohio, brown and muddy, the Cumberland, blue waters like we haven’t seen since Lake Michigan.
The trip around the winding river was really pretty. The sun was shining and I was able to enjoy it out on the bow. The current is still running uphill, so our trip took most of the day. We had one lock to go through at the end of the river which took us up 57 feet and dumped us into Lake Barkley. The Marina was just a hop, skip and a jump from the lock and we got in around 5:00.
So, here we are. It has been quite a week. New adventures as we found out how fast the Mississippi River runs, Lock walls, anchoring, the Ohio River and it’s uphill current, our wedding anniversary, a bbq festival, a whole bunch of tugs and barges. We have now traveled 3,843 miles and still say to each other often “are you kidding me right now” and, “who does this”! We still say I love you everyday and we both know we are blessed. We are having the time of our lives!
Kim and Jim’s Great Loop Adventure
