Friday, Sept. 4th. Last and final posting

This will be the last and final blog of the trip. A few fun facts are that:

#1, we made it all the way to our goal of Pensicola,Florida

#2, we made it home safely!! see us above at the Hubert H. Humphrey Airport Terminal in Minneapolis on Tuesday afternoon - Don and Jan, then Rich and I on the right - and we're still all getting along!!!!

#3, Our boats and motors made it home safely in a little less than two days! after going 1,677 miles in 23 days of water travel, averaging 72.4 miles per day.

#4, we went through 43 Lock and Dams total. First 27 on the Mississippi, then one on the Ohio River, then one BIG one going to Barkley lake in the dead of night with storms all around us, then the Tennessee River. Then an 84 foot one to the Ten-Tom Waterway with 14 more along the way to Mobile, Alabama, the last being three miles south of the infamous Bobbie's Fish Camp. (uk). Total: dropping us 740 feet, lifting us 112 feet bringing us to a grand total of 628 feet below the sea level of St. Paul, Minnesota.

#5 Should of kept count of barges, tow boats,( hooked together, called tows.) But we didn't. Countless. Amazing the transportation system out there on these rivers! Each barge is equivalent to 56 semi-trailers full. the average tow is 15 barges hooked together, being equivalent to a total of 840 semi-trucks full!.... 15 barges is equal to three miles of train cars or 35 miles of semi-trucks parked back to back. We saw barges full of corn, rock of all varieties, scrap metal, coal, etc etc. It takes 300 acres of corn, off the cob, to fill one barge. It takes 1 1/2 miles for a loaded 15 barge tow to come to a complete stop. The towboats have between 4800 and 6480 horsepower. The largest tows we saw were empty barges totalling 42 pushed by one towboat!

#6. We used 311 pounds of ice in our cooler.

#7. We stopped for gas 24 times. Carried six, five gallon extra cans of gas besides the 26 gallons on our Bennington pontoon. Rich would fill the boat on the run, otherwise we'd lose precious running time. Lucky he's big and strong.
Don would do that, too. Totally: we used 404.51 gallons of fuel.

#8. Funniest thing happening? Riding around Fulton, Missouri with Amber who had a car full of "White Folk" The town was abuzz. And she even had a really good time with them! Her sister said, she should have told people "we were family from her Daddy's side!"

#9. Scariest time? Surrounded by storms, no where to park and, having to go thru the Barkley Lake Lock and Dam in the pitch dark. If we used our big lights we would choke on bugs in about two seconds.

#10. Would we do it again? Yes, but with a larger motor, then we could get out of perilious spots a bit quicker.

#11. The best of the trip? tied between scenery, the best being around the Wabasha/LaCrosse area, and North of St. Louis, the white cliffs, and Pensicola/Mobile Bay tied with early, still mornings on the boat, running down the river, nothing but us and the 'summer bugs' singing so loud and also tied with all the people we met, being so friendly and helpful, so many giving us a courtesy car to use at the Marina's and giving us countless information and advice.

and last but not least #12: Family and friends, you probably thought we were a bit goofy to do this but...this experience was absolutely awesome! We are so glad we did it and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. To all, we send our love; thank you for following our Blog, and this is the conclusion of "Our Great River Adventure"! The End. Patty and Rich

Friday, third continuation

Dang, I post pictures, then they decide to change location on the paper, some of this, you must wonder if she (me) knows what she's doing. Nope is the answer, I'm just winging this whole thing........... anyway- here's a few more pictures from along the way. This is "Ruby" - she joined us at times when it may have been boring or monotaneous (spell check where are you?) . Here she was delivering Don a Happy Birthday message and present. She came out for Jan's Birthday also. Anyway, it's good to be silly at times.

We had alot of wonderful scenery along the way. I wish I could post more than three pictures on each blog, but I sure cannot figure it out. Please go to the last and final posting.

Friday, Sept 4th continued.

So here are on Monday..................
It was amazing how easily they can load up boats. So here's our boat in the middle, ready for it's ride home. What a good boat, especially the 50hp Yamaha. That thing ran at 5000 to 5200 rpm day after day after day, never complaining. Good motor.

Bahia Mar Marina has equipment and crew that did a remarkable job. On the left they lifted the boat out of the water and drove it to where the flat bed truck was waiting. We had National Freight do the hauling and Jody did a great job. On the right, they needed to put it into a belly band sling to get it onto the front of the trailer.

Actually, that's Don and Jan's boat on the left, our boat was on the trailer all ready - same principal anyway.

The truck left Monday afternoon about 1:00pm. What a relief. No more boats to take care of. We went to the "Oarhouse".

Tuesday, we caught a plane in Pensicola to come home, stopped for two and 1/2 hours in Atlanta, then arrived home Tuesday at about 4:00 pm.

All the kids came over Tuesday night and it was soooo great to see all.

Wednesday, at 10:30 am, the boats were at Watergate, Marina, in St. Paul, right where we began.

Next blog please:

Fri,

Friday - how could it be Friday already??

Hi all, I will continue where I left off. Sorry for the lapse in time. So here it was, last Saturday, and we leave Mobile Bay in Mobile, Alabama and head to Pensicola, Florida. We went about 20 more miles in the bay, and got onto the Intercoastal Waterway to Pensicola. Approximately 52 more miles and we'd be at the end of our trip.....It was us and every boater out there. What a beautiful day and it was Saturday. It's just that they had BIG boats. One big one with a young cocky man was coming straight at us, turned right in front of us, swamped our boat - everything was sop and wet. Air horns or not, it was like "what the H is he doing?????" What a nice young gentleman! oh well, It was a great ride anyway.

Beautiful sand beaches. Beautiful homes, both big and small. Beautiful marina's and we made it to our destination!!!!! It was a proud, exciting day. l,677 miles to get there! Average speed: 12 mph. That's a whole lot of hours on a boat, but it literally flew by. What a wonderful experience. Anyway, I'm getting off the beaten path. We made it to Pensicola and I'd love to go back there again. It truly is a pretty place with white sand beaches going on and on. We landed at one and met some more nice people who were kind enough to take some pictures of us. We celebrated a bit, enjoyed the water, and needed to move on - dark clouds were moving in.

The water never felt so good. It was SO hot out - mid 90's at least and 100% humidity. we were melting on the boats. This was the first time on the whole trip that we just got off the boats, and went in the water. The rivers were not safe with currents and varmints in there. Mississippi was especially thick and dirty. We did see a water snake once on the Tennessee in Kentucky Lake (that was enough). Saw lots of mysterious fish and stuff from the rivers hanging in places and on walls, or pictures, thereof. Didn't want to swim with that stuff. Heard of a 8' shark (I forgot what kind of shark,Dugan, that you told me about) on the Ten Tom Waterway, so no matter how much I love to jump in the water, there was no way I could for 1,677 miles in the dead of a hot summer down there!

We got on our way again. We were going to the Bahia Mar Marina which was very nice and they would easily haul our boats out. They had a great bar and grill there "The Oarhouse". We were going to be staying at the Marriott Residence Inn, that was great. Anyway, we were about 100 yards away from the entrance of the Marina, we were all a bit excited and sort of left the channell, kind of taking a short cut. (you don't do that) Don was leading and all of a sudden he's yelling over the radio to us "Watch out, there's rocks, stop (too late) @#$%& BANG! We're hitting and going over a BIG pile of rocks and luckily they only bent our prop all to H... That was so shocking! All that way and nothing had happened prior to this. Oh yeh, there were logs in the river all the time, yes hit a few here and there but no damage (luckily) We were so glad that it did happen at the end but why at all?? Anyway, we really hit hard. Luckily we didn't beach on top of the pile - that would have been embarassing - oh what the heck. So on we go, limping into the marina, a person could probably see the boat shaking - we sure could feel it. We Made It!!!.

Lamar, the Yellow Cab driver for the next three days, took us to the Hotel after a while. A storm did move in - so we did not have a chance to even swim in the pool that day. We ate seafood that night, and Sunday night and Monday night........what a great area.

Sunday came and we went to the Marina and got the boats ready for transporting. Time to clean them all out, secure them for a nice truck ride home, pack things up, pack what we needed to fly home and ......please go to the next blog so I can put a few more pictures on............

Tues, Sept 1st

Hi everyone! Don and Jan, Rich and I are at the Atlanta Airport. We'll be home at 4:00. The boats left yesterday afternoon and will be at Watergate at lunchtime tomorrow. I'll send more stats on trip later. Having to much fun!!! Love to all

Monday continued.

We made it thru the harbor and were to go onto Mobile Bay - yeh, the Gulf of Mexico! Whoa, was this a big body of water! Here we are in our pontoon from Deer Lake going onto Mobile Bay! Salt water and all. The depth ranged from three to six feet deep. Very shallow for such a big area. We were very lucky with no wind, no traffic and about an hour of time to get over to where we were staying. Yay, we were heading to the Mariott Grand Harbor for the night. Day and night from Bobby's Fish Camp.

At 7:09 we arrived at our destination. This was so beautiful. Well the next blog will be about going over to Pensicola, Florida. Bye for now, love to all

Monday, August 31, 2009

Hi Everyone, hard to believe it's month end again. August flew by.

Well, we made it to Pensicola, Florida. That was our goal and WE MADE IT!!

I'll go back here to Friday a.m. We left our swanky accomodations at Bobby's Fish Camp Friday before sunrise and we were getting the boats all ready when coming down the river came the bright, sweeping search light of a towboat with barges. We had gotten up really early to hopefully beat them to the last Lock and Dam three miles down, that we had of the trip. Dang, commercial takes priority and the lockmaster will take those barges, then what comes around the corner but a second tow of barges. We could have gone back to bed but the place was so disgusting! And since we were up we just stayed up. It was Jan's Birthday, so we had a little diddy for her and Well, we finally got thru our last Lock and Dam at 8:30. That makes 43 Lock and Dams for the whole trip.

We had a good 130 miles to go and didn't want to arrive at Mobile after dark so we really had to push. Our boat only has that 50 hp Yamaha on it, and the poor dear really got pushed that day, 5200 rpm for 10 1/2 hours. The highest we ever ran it. Full blast would have been 5600 rpm, so it really ran hard. Good Motor. The last 118 miles of the Tenn-Tom Waterway was the windiest river ever. It was never boring, just a little long.

Thank the Lord we came into the Mobile Commercial Harbor after working hours. Going thru this was incredible. There were sea-faring boats all over. They build battleships there and other very, very large boats . It was hard for little ole pontoons to pass thru that harbor, so we were really lucky not to be there when everything was moving. I'm going to split up our blog so I can get more pictures on, otherwise three is the max. onto the next

Sunday, August 30, 2009

We are in Pensicola, Florida!!!!! It is so gorgeous here. When we crossed the 'line' we stopped at a beautiful beach and made a toast and sat on the bottom of the beach in the water - it was sooooo blooming hot and it was so good. More to come later!!!! Having too much fun. Love to all - WE MADE IT!!!!! We're compiling facts and figures to share with you.

Friday evening at 7:09 pm

Hi everyone - WE MADE IT TO THE GULF OF MEXICO!! It's so beautiful and we're staying at the Marriot Grand Hotel here on Mobile Bay. More details tomorrow. Love to all.

Thurs., August 27th

My, what a day. Met more barges than we have all together on this trip. Got held up at the lock and dam this morning for three hours. Met some people here at the swanky Bobby's Fish Camp that don't like Yankees, nor Obama, nor Bush (either of them), nor anything to do with Government, or anything from up north. Don ended up being a 'farmer' in order to get out of the conversation he was in. He has 1,000 acres you know. Rich was o.k. with being a telephone man. Oh, boy, there are some radical people around, spitting snoose into their beer can. Bobby's Fish Camp is old and very run down and not swanky at all. We've heard from numerous people that we have to stop here. I think we have to stop because it's the only place, and I mean the ONLY place in 216 miles. We needed gas. Oh, well, make the most of each and every day! On to Mobile, Alabama tomorrow.

We did have the catfish dinner, with french fries, coleslaw, hush puppies and it was very good. I have to admit, I sort of wish I was sleeping on the boat. This room is the height of tacky. Really tacky. And there's a pounding on the side of the building......I made Rich check it out but he said no one is there. It's hard to believe because about every five minutes it pounds again. It will be a long night til 5am comes in the morning. OH, this place is bad. I'm so glad this is an 'adventure' because if it it were a 'vacation' there is NO way I would be in this place. I don't care how good their catfish is! Did not have phone nor internet service today and I have no idea how we have service tonight but we do. Until later, take care and love to all.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Hi everyone, it's hard to get internet service around here so there will be some lapses. We are in Demopolis, Alabama and have hit the 1350 mile mark. Beautiful white cliffs along the river. Having a great time - staying at a Best Western, which has really beautiful rooms. The boats are at a very nice marina, the Demopolis Yacht Basin, (which is much better than Pirates Cove Marina we were in last night. I don't think even Pirates would stay there, teeth optional!) We are in the deep South and there are 36 churches in this town (literally) one of which is Catholic.

We are having a blast - taking a day off of the water and will be back on it tomorrow morning at 6am. Bye and love to all.

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Lock and Dam to the left

Rich and I above, Jan and I
below with hat's Kelly gave us

our boats

This is definately the trip of our lifetime, each day is different, it's never boring even with being on the boat several hours a day (usually 8, 9 hours) we look somewhat 'weathered' don't we. We have met more nice people here in the South, more than I ever imagined. Tennessee was very beautiful. We are now in Amory, Mississippi. It is a run down little town, with a very run down Marina that was written up to be a great place. Jesse, the owner, was a very nice 83 year old with the typical Mississippi accent, with one ear chewed off, he brought us for a mini tour of his little town. I'm glad the hotel he picked out for us a really a nice new place. We asked where we could get some dinner. Tiffany, the front desk girl said her sister would be back soon and she could take us whereever we wanted. So, the four of us piled into her car. Amber is a large person of color who is very nice. We're joking around with her, and laughing up a storm. First we ate dinner at Wendy's then Don asked her to go to the KFC so he could get chicken for on the boat tomorrow. (we're sort of sandwiched out) We went through the drive in and all the staff came to the window to check out who Amber had in her car (small town, they recognized her voice) you could see their jaws drop. Amber had a car full of white folk!! She just said, yeh, I'm a taxi driver tonight. We laughed so hard - she'll be the talk of the town for two days.

In the last 24 hours we've experienced the most gorgeous Marina - the Grand Harbor Marina on the line of Counce, TN and Iuka, MS. This place was superb with great customer service, beautiful buildings, gorgeous spot, slips full of million $ boats to Jesse's Marina, the Smithville Marina, with all rundown boats, a building ready to fall down and I could go on but.....Anyway the best and the worst.

The Grand Harbor was the most beautiful we've seen, the second best was the Green Turtle Bay Marina on Barkley Lake/Tennessee River. The third best was the Alton Illinois Marina on the Mississippi and fourth was Catfish Charlie's / American Marine at Dubuque (Iowa) Yacht Basin on Mississippi. Great helpful people at all Marina's in general and we haven't met a bad townsperson yet.

The trip has not gotten boring in any way, shape or form. How could it? It's beautiful on all the rivers. Around each bend is a new experience, a new place to check out. This trip is awesome. It's so hard to believe we've been gone since the 5th and here it is the 23rd.

So far we've traveled 1200 miles by river, averaging about 9 1/2 to 10 miles an hour, we've used 300.41 gallons of gas, used 275 pounds of ice, gone through 32 Lock and Dams the lowest elevation change being 5 feet, and the largest 84 feet. Double the gas and ice to include Don and Jan's boat.

We are now on the Tennessee - Tombigbee Waterway, more commonly known as the Tenn-Tom. It runs for 470 miles. Telephone coverage is spotty at best and the wireless internet is about the same. That is why there are a few days where the blog is not done. We will keep in touch and we send love to all. Bye til later. Patty and Rich

Thursday continued

Today we hit the 1,000 mile mark on our trip! The trip mileage will be 1,645 when we make it to Pensocola, Florida. We traveled the last two days on the Kentucky Lake which is part of the Tennessee River. It's sort of like the Mississippi with Lake Pepin but this lake is 180 miles long and is 160,000 acres. That's a big lake, it will take us three days to cover it. It's been a challenge with scattered thunderstorms coming and going, winds and heavy rain. Water depths have ranged from 55 feet deep to 4 feet in about 50 yards away from the 55! Had to constantly watch the GPS.

We had breakfast today in Kentucky, the boats were parked in Tennessee, the state line passing thru the parking lot of the marina. Our waitress was about 21. Just a little cute blonde girl - with a very strong Kentucky accent. She asked where we were from and asked us lots of questions. It ends up she was born and raised in a small town not far from the Marina. We were saying what a beautiful area to grow up in. She didn't really know how to word it but she said no it wasn't. The town only allowed white folk and that she had never seen a colored til she was 18. She didn't agree with how she was brought up and just wanted to see places. Anyway, its just a different world down here. I don't think we'll venture off the river much.

We've had alot of rain, inches at a time. It's been very hot our entire trip and we're either wet from the heat and humidity or the rain. Until today I thought I'd get fungus on parts unknown! This morning the rain finally stopped, we only had to pull in a bay once. It was cooler with less humidity and I think the first time I was dry in 15 days.

Tonight we're staying at Birdsong Resort, Marina and Lakeside RV Campground in Camden Kentucky Lake, Tennesee. When we called on it and made a reservation, it sounded like the Taj Mahal! We went off the river/lake to a channel that was beautiful and very windy with bouys marking where to go because outside the buoys it could be two feet of water. We had to go about three miles to get to the Marina and actually it was very nice with great helpful people manning it. The sun was actually out. Back up to 90 in no time. Anyway, they farm pearls here; the only fresh water pearl farm in North America. They have some beautiful jewelry here and no I haven't bought anything. They even gave us a courtesy car and we thought, hey, not bad at all. Then they brought us to our unit #10 - oh, you'll love your place, we were told. Well, it's a trailer with bushes out front with these God awful webs in them, filled with these wormy things. Well, don't judge the book from the cover. We go in. Well, it's old and yes, it has two bedrooms with two baths. And the only roll of toilet paper we had to share between the two bathrooms. The drawers in the baths have mouse turds, the kitchen, thank God we ordered Dominoes Pizza tonight. 'nuf of that. The country down here is beautiful and actually, we're having a blast, meeting great people and having a wonderful time with Don and Jan and having a once in a lifetime experience. Talk to you later. Love to all. Bye

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Here's a picture of St. Louis Arch as we went past

and a pic of one of our campsites on the Mississippi, I realize there's two of the pictures but I couldn't figure out how to delete it nor why it started typing in italics! Here's the Lock and Dam at Barkley lake off the Cumberland the night of the storm. I will go to a new blog and send this. Please continue to the next one.

Wed night

More storms today, wasn't able to do too many miles but here we are at mile marker 50 something on the beautiful Kentucky Lake. We're fine but pooped. We're nearing the 1000 mile milestone of this great trip. It is an adventure!! Love to all, bye

Wednesday, August 19th

Last night I was in the middle of doing a long blog when lost internet. I was afraid I'd lose all that again but today I actually got it to be published so I don't know if all this makes sense but.......anyway last night we were surrounded by thunderstorms with way too much lightning to be out on water and no where to pull over. We were on the Columbus River and so very lucky It never rained horribly bad, nor become windy, nor lightnening too near usit just surrounded us. Got nto go its poring

Tuesday evening, August 18, 2009

S

To the right: storm in Debuque, Iowa................

Hi all, we've put on 106 miles today, let me go back to Sat. afternoon and Sunday to fill you in on what was 'erased'. We were just north of St. Louis and waiting for Lock and Dam 26 to open - something was broken on it and after waiting for a couple of hours we found out we could not get thru til evening - so we went back to Alton Illinois at a nice marina and spent the night at the Holiday Inn. That was fine but we wanted to make miles and didn't do many at all Sat. I have to admit though that north of St. Louis is very pretty on the Illinois side. There are these huge white rock cliffs with a tree or bush coming out here and there. Really nice to look at. River traffic was heavy - it was in the 90's with matching humidity. We did have entertainment when we were waiting for the Lock to open. Flying fish were around! We tried to stir some up with the video cam on but we haven't viewed it yet. So Sunday we were at breakfast at 6am and got on the river nice and early; only to wait again (that's with Rich calling the Lock about it)until noon. So we lost a whole day of traveling. St. Louis was something. Lots of traffic and waves galore. The arch was impressive. On we went 59 more miles to Hoppies Marina, the last 'oasis' for 270 miles. Fern, the marina 'mom' with, as she put it the 'salty' mouth was about 70 with a smoke in her hand or mouth hanging continuously except when fueling the boats (we were wondering). She sat us down and gave us a good 1/2 hour speech about the different river we were about to encounter. Larger barges, whirlpools in the river and where to find them, where to stay at night, plan for three days groceries, fuel for 270 miles because there is NO fuel on the river for that long. We've been getting approx. 4.3 mpg, figured we'd stop at Cape Giraldeau and take a taxi to fill gas cans, we bought four or five more so we're carrying seven five gallon cans and have a 26 gallon tank on the boat. Well, that's what we did; prepared. Yes the tows were much larger with as many as 42 barges with one big a** towboat, and the wakes were pretty impressive. We camped out with the boats a couple of days and its been high 90's with 100% humidity so we are in MUCH need of a bath - we're definately in the south now so absolutely no swimming in the river. Coyotes sing for us at night along with the Japanese beetles going all night - wow! Tonight we're going to try to get to Green Turtle Bay Marina on the Columbus River where we can shower and hopefully cool down but it will be after midnight and we were up early today again. It's been good though, no mishaps, no boat problems, we haven't been on the river with a big storm (even though one is sort of chasing us now with lots of lightning and thunder) Anyway, we made a three day trip in two long days.

Tues, our 14th dayhI

Hi everyone, Sunday night I started blogging and finished up yesterday morning. It was a long one too, only to loose it! never to be found again. Well, that started out my day just ducky! Love these computers. Anyway.........It is now Tues morning and we are about to take our 'left' off the Mississippi. We hit the 800 mile mark of our trip this morning!! Boats are running great. We are fine and approaching Cairo, Illinois which is south of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. We're going to go onto the Ohio River now, then to the Cumberland River, onto the Tennessee River which turns into the TomTen Waterway which will bring us to Mobile Alabama, we'll go out onto the Gulf, then come back up to the Intercoastal Waters over to Pensicola, Florida (weather permiting).
So there you go. I'll keep writing til we ge to Cairo, no maybe I'll sign off now, two miles beforeCairo will be Whirlpools in the river and they can be a little challenging to get thru them and I better not let this machine I'm typing on get wet -----even though it ALMOST got thrown in the river yesterday when I couldn't find my blog. Stay tuned, I'll hopefully be writing again very soon. Love to all. bye.

Sunday, August 16th - our 12th day

Yesterday, we made it almost to St. Louis. Just north of there is very beautiful with stone cliffs going straight up. Very nice.

It was a great day and we were waiting to go in to Lock and

dam 26. They wouldn't give us an estimated time and we waited about two hours. Then we found out the Lock was broken in some way and it would be about three more hours so we went back to a nice marina in Alden, Illinois and stayed at a Holiday Inn. We got up nice and early today and went back to the lock. Rich had called ahead and there shouldn't have been a problem but they put two tows with barges through before they'd let us through. (waiting three hours again) but we finally got to St. Louis and went to

Saturday, August 15, 2009

OH MY GOSH! LAST NIGHT WE WERE PULLING INTO A PRETTY SANDBAR TO SET UP CAMP, DON AND JAN were leading the way when all of a sudden they were surrounded with hundreds of FLYING CARP!!! None landed into their boat. We're scrambling for our cameras and dang did we get any pictures? NO! (the only one I got was one landing back into the water by our boat) They were BIG fish, smallest about 10 pounds, up to 20 pounds. It was incredible! We've seen them on Ron Schara's show, and other wildlife shows - and you hear of people getting hurt by them (broken noses or broken jaws) and I can see where that could happen. Amazing.

We didn't stay at that sandbar but went down river some more and stayed
at a pretty little one (pictures later). The Japanese Beetles were deafening! It sounded like we were in the jungle! They went on and on throughout the night and ended at sunrise. Incredible. Had a good night though, mattress was firm, not flat, no bugs inside our inclosure this time and it was gorgeous out. We got up at 6:00 (no sleeping in on this trip), we've been thru Lock and Dam 25 this morning already and on we go. We're about 70 miles north of St. Louis. I'm going to sign off now, the sun is making it impossible to see the screen. Oh what I'd do for a sunscreen! Love to all. Bye til later.

Friday, August 15, 2009

Yesterday was a beautiful
day on the river but it was

windy - we were against it

all day so it was a little tough. It was a busy barge day also, so we had to wait

at two of the locks about three hours total. That's still really not too bad but between the wind, and locks, we only went 56 miles. One thing a little strange is we tried anchoring outside one of the locks to wait and the wind was blowing us North, the river current was flowing South but it reversed with the lock and the descending anchor got in the current, went North and was flowing faster than the boat was going. It shows the strength of the current!

We ended up in Mark Twain, Huck Finn, and Tom Sawyers' town of Hannibal, Missouri. It's a quaint, nice little town and this morning we are going to sightsee a little before taking off. We ended up staying at a Best Western (which is just fine) and going out to eat at a great place called LuluBelle's. It was an active brothel til the 1950's (very active) and is now a restaurant, actually a Bed and Breakfast too which we didn't know. We probably would have stayed there if we had.

Well another day is here and we need to do more miles per day in order to finish our trip in the allotted time. On we go!! til later, love to all, bye.

Wednesday, August 12 - Been gone a week!

Things are going really great. We've been going about 80 miles a day and that seems to be the magic number: any more than that and it seems too much. Weather has been wonderful the last two days again and that makes it so much better. I have to admit it's really hot though. Well in the 90's.

No matter where we go, we meet very nice people. All are helpful and full of information.

Tuesday night we stayed on the boats overnight - it went well but we learned a few things: put up the enclosures before the bugs come out! Our place was full of mosquitoes and these little moths. As least the moths don't bite. Also a no brainer is make sure you know where the flashlights are before it get's dark! Believe me, we do now.

Sunset was beautiful on the river (hopefully when I'm done here the picture attachment will work - I know it's operator error but......) and with it being August the meteor showers are active so there's lots of shooting stars to watch for. What more could a person ask for?

I have to tell you they grow stuff big down here - just before dusk the 'Japanese summer beetles' began buzzing and it got louder and louder surrounding us in the woods. We all looked at each other and said 'holy s...'. They didn't bother us though, they were just really loud.

During the night, about three or four times, it sounded like a log coming out of the water and splashing back in - it was some BIG fish jumping out . I wouldn't want to meet it;them. Two barges went thru during the night. They just purr by even though they're sooooo big. They have one mighty bright light on the front of the tug that goes back and forth from shore to shore continuously, that's the most obvious way you know it's coming. Not much sleep but the bugs were keeping me busy anyway.

Wednesday night we slept at a Fairfield Inn in Keokuk, Iowa. It was laundry day too. Well, here we go into a new day and a new state: Missouri. We'll be sleeping under the stars again tonight.

Talk to you all later. Love to all. Bye.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

We finally figured out to add pictures! I'll try to add some onto previous days blogs. This is leaving Clinton, Iowa, we stayed at the Best Western. Early to bed, the days are full with leaving by 8:00 and on the water til about 5:00/or as late as 7:00. We're going to sleep on a sandbar tonight.

Monday, August 10,2009 Day 6

We had a very nice time in Dubuque with visiting the Mississippi River Museum and Aquirium. We certainly learned much about the river. One of the interesting things was that a normal barge tow has 15 barges connected together infront of the barge tow boat. Those 15 barges can haul the same as 840 semi trucks! That's a bunch. The horsepower on a tow boat ranges from 4,800 to 6,480 hp and it can take them a mile and a half to come to a stop when the barges are full. You do not want to get in their way!

We met some very nice people at the Marina by Catfish Charlies (very neat place) Thanks for letting us park amoungst your beautiful 50 ft. Express and the 65? ft. Carver. They certainly are gorgeous boats. Wish we could have spent more time with you!

Al Kracke, thank you for letting us know of Catfish Charlies. It is right with the American Marina. We heard your message after we were already parked there! Again, thanks for the help you did give us - we stayed at the Hilton the last two nights (really roughing it!!)

Storms hit when we were at the Museum but the boats fared well. It was a good day to take off from being on the water (preplanned) so that worked out well because we would have had to take off the day anyway.

Now we are on the way to Clinton, Iowa. We celebrated Don's birthday today (10,080 minutes late, his birthday was last Monday) right after we went thru Lock and Dam #12. Memories in the making!

We just hit our 300 mile mark! We've used 65 .591 gallons of gasoline, With the eleven of twelve locks we've gone thru, the river has dropped 94 feet and last but not least so far we've used 88 pounds of ice! (these little facts are for our boat alone)

One of these days, we'll be loading a bunch of pictures!

Love to all. Talk to you later. Bye

Saturday, August 8, 2009

We found the Best Kept Secret on the Mississippi last night - accidentally even! We were looking for this one Marina and more or less gave up, ending up in McGregor, Iowa. What a great little town! Most of the shops were like an old Western town, the streets were brick but should have been dirt with horses on them. If we can ever figure out how to put pictures on here (which we will) we'd show you - anyway, McGregor Marina had some spots for us. The first hotel we saw we would not stay at but we ended up at the Pocket Pub with Melissa the bartender who led us to Bethwhohad the greatest twobedroom Bed and Bath suite. It really was great,just newly redone withg a wonderful kitchen, great,comfy beds, living room and the works. The guys went there first, Jan and I stayed at the bar for awhile. It was raining out. Anyway, Don and Rich were sitting in the living room when here flies in a big bat - good thing we were at the bar - They just let it fly around a while and it went down the stairs to the basement. The guys went to bed, Jan and I come in, she went to bed and I stayed up and read. Nope the bat did not come to visit me and I'm really glad cuz I didn't know about it til morning - I would have not liked that.

The river is beautiful, the skies are partly cloudy, the sun feels good, we're drying eveything out because we got several inches rain over night but all in all everything is VERY good. We are now entering Lock and Dam #10. Talk to you later as we head to Dubuque, Iowa. Love to all, bye.

Third day - Friday, August 7, 2009

It decided to rain and rain it has. Actually, when we left, it had quit and we were quite thankful but then it started. Until Rich got the enclosure up, it was pretty nasty, but this enclosure has made travelling quite pleasant. We cannot go the usual 12 miles an hour, but 10 today. Fueled up in the small town of Lansing, Iowa and are heading for Prairie du Chein. We'll stay there the night and - got to go now - entering Lock and Dam 9. Talk to you later. Love to all.

Thursday, August 6th - Happy Birthday, Jocie!!!

Hope you had a great birthday, Jocie!! 32! hard to believe already.

This computer has been more than difficult, but I think I have it sort of figured out now.

Thursday was another picture perfect day with perfect weather, water, sunshine and friends. We had a great day traveling, going about 70 miles, today, 80 miles yesterday, and staying in LaCrosse tonight at the Best Western Hotel on the banks of the Black River, just off the Mississippi. Locks are going well, waiting the longest of 1 1/4 hour. Quite the 'road system'. Seeing many eagles all along. Here we go into Friday...........

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The day is finally here. Much planning in the last 14 months. We'll be leaving on the 5th from the Watergate Marina in St. Paul, Minnesota at 9:00 a.m. We changed departing time to 8:15 and here we go..........

Yeh!!!! We're on our way!!! What a send off party with family (Jocie,Marcus, Kelly, Christopher, Jade, Louis)and friends (Bues, Joann, Debbie, Gracie, Jane and Mike, and from the lake, Dave and Neva) Don and Jan (are partners in this adventure) and their son, Tim were there too. Jocie brought us Momosa's and reading materials on the mighty Mississippi, Kelly brought us Captains hats and Sailor hats for the Capt's One and Only Mates, Friends brought wines and signs and a banner for me stating "Miss Issippi" Vickie and Jennifer gave me a "Huck Finn" fishing pole (tree branch with fish line and hook) a sling shot (tree Y(homemade cute) to kill squirrels and 'possum for the grill, a corn cob pipe, snoose (beef jerky) and last but not least a bottle of hooch (strawberry Margaritta's)

We had a great travelling day with beautiful sunshine, water as flat as glass, and beautiful scenery! A person could not ask for more! We stopped in Red Wing at the Harbor Bar (Jamaican food and atmosphere) and stayed in Pepin, Wisc. that night and stayed in a motel, we also visited Jan's sister Sharon and her husband Roger. What
nice people. We 'dined' at the Pickle Factory and had a great time. Pepin has the most beautiful Marina, very nice. On to Thursday..........