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.