We just spent two weeks sludging our way down the rivers. We’d heard tell of many boat nightmares in these parts: propellers and anchor chains snagged on submerged branches, hulls torn up by wingdams (man made rock walls in the river to push the current to the middle), Asian Carp jumping into your boat then flopping and bleeding till you capture them (ewww!), endless hours waiting to get through locks, mean-spirited lockmasters, terrifying tow boats, and more…

Even though aspects of the rivers are more to be endured than enjoyed, we’re happy to say we didn’t experience any of the reported horrors (thank you, God!) Just HOT days drenched with sweat, long runs spent dodging large logs and other flotsam, all with little reward at the end of the day. Not much to see. I think Charles Dickens described it best after taking a river boat cruise…

“What words shall describe the Mississippi, great father of rivers! An enormous ditch, sometimes two or three miles wide, running liquid mud, 6 miles an hour: it’s strong and frothy current choked and obstructed everywhere by huge logs and whole forest trees.”

Me in a lock with tow in background

Towing wind turbines

They get HIGH water and logs aplenty

Lots of eagles!

Queen of the Mississippi passed our anchorage

Morning anchorage quiet

Strong current!

Sunrise on the Ohio river

Barkley Lock and Dam

In retrospect, we should have waited till October to come down but there are two locks under construction on the Illinois and we didn’t want to take the chance that they may not reopen. No Fall colors yet, just brutal heat and humidity. Did have a very nice night at Heritage Harbor Marina in Ottowa, IL and captured our one drone video worth sharing:

Marinas are few and far between so we had to anchor actually ON the Mississippi one night. Didn’t sleep much but did see some rather eerie tow boat traffic, with their blazing spotlights shining right into Joy Girl like a UFO looking for someone to abduct.

Tug coming under the bridge

Huge spotlights lighting up the woods

Can see the spotlight in this one

PBS did a brief, eye catching video on these nighttime tow operators. Sorry I can’t embed it but it’s worth a look: https://player.pbs.org/viralplayer/3029441129

Craig very much enjoyed chatting with these tow captains and arranging whether to “see you on the one whistle or the two”. Before radio, they communicated with whistles and still use the terminology today. In “tow boat paradise” one whistle means our boats will pass each other port to port (like driving a car in the US) and two whistles means starboard to starboard (like driving in England). Mind you, there wasn’t always a lot of room and it was up to us to get OUT of the way of these massive ships but still not run aground. All the tows were polite and quick to answer our radio calls but many sounded like they were raised in the waaaay deep South, somewhere near N’Orleans, and spoke some inexplicable language. Our radio talk often went something like this…

The classic song “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers kept running through my mind. “Ol Black Water, keep on rolling, Mississippi Moon, won’t you keep on shining on me?” So, in Kozak tradition, I made up some new lyrics to make me laugh. That and The Adventures of Huck Finn have kept me smilin’.

We ended up in St Charles, Missouri because we blew yet another alternator (more boat units down the drain!) But to our surprise, we discovered that Lewis & Clark stopped there in 1804 and the town has the longest historical street in the nation. Very cute with a taste of Charleston, SC about it. Our one tourist attraction!

Historical Main Street

Original stone structure

Lewis & Clark demo camp

We did have the opportunity to visit our nephew Paul in Peoria, IL where he’s attending Bradley University. Great to see he’s doing very well! And had a fun visit with friends we met last year in Door County, WI, Nola & Dave (no photo of these great folks) 😥

We survived these Midwest rivers: Chicago, DesPlaines, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Cumberland. Okay, that’s enough for now. I’m tired.

We are now docked at Green Turtle Bay Marina in The Land Between the Lakes in northwestern Kentucky. We’re taking a break to watch the Fall colors and enjoy visits from family and friends. Never thought I’d be so happy to be back in Kentucky, lol. We can’t travel down to the Gulf of Mexico before Hurricane season ends (November), so we’ll be here for a few weeks. Then, more rivers…the Tennessee, Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the Tombigbee, then the Mobile river to Mobile, AL. Then, we’ll cross the Gulf of Mexico to Florida.

For now, where’s the pool?!?