Peoria, Illinois to Grand Rivers, Kentucky
September 17, 1999
Mile 202, Upper Mississippi River, Alton Illinois We started cruising again this past Wednesday (Today is Friday) after our long stop in Peoria, Illinois. I had a good visit with family and Carol made a whirlwind trip back to Rhode Island to do some medical and dental things*. She sends her apologies to all those people she did not get a chance to visit with, her time was so short. We are still experiencing some minor engine anomalies but have decided to continue anyway. Mystery leaks....
Loading grain into a barge along the Illinois River
Any way the past couple of days have been fantastic weather wise and the scenery has been super. This southern part of the Illinois River has been just beautiful and this afternoon we entered the Mississippi River and it is just as spectacular. We have met up with other folks who are doing this trip and are traveling with them for a few days. So that's about it for a while, but wanted to let you that the saga continues and we will be thinking of all our friends in hurricane country, hoping that Floyd has not upset too many people or caused anyone harm.
Bridges Passed Under/Through 405.
Locks 51
Miles Traveled 2397
Average speed 7 mph
9 States 2 Countries
109 Days
Another glorious morning on the Illinois River
September 25, 1999
Green Turtle Bay, Grand Rivers, Kentucky - On Barkley Lake
We haven't traveled all that far since we last wrote but we just don't know when we do have access to the internet again. We left Alton Marina went through the Chain of Rocks Canal and passed through the center of activity in St. Louis. There were tows everywhere and a bustle of commercial traffic. We saw several riverboat casinos and a riverboat McDonalds!
Passing through St. Louis
About 20 miles south of St. Louis we stopped at Hoppie's fuel stop in Kimmswick, MO. It wasn't much more than a bunch of old barges tied together but they had fuel and there was a great restaurant in town. The following morning headed on down the Mississippi with a 4 knot current. We are traveling with two other boats, "Shenandoah" and "A Time For Us". Both are from Florida and the folks onboard are just great.0
Hoppie’s Fuel stop, just south of St. Louis
That night the three of us tied to the lock wall on the Kaskaskia River lock and dam just off the Mississippi. We couldn't leave the wall to walk around but we all got together and swapped stories. The following day we were swept on down stream and made exceptional time with the current of old man river. We averaged well over 10 miles per hour (out here they don't use knots) and made it to the Little River Diversion Channel where the three of us rafted together. not more that a hundred feet off the Mississippi. We also could tell what they must have been diverting, just by the smell...ugh!
Traffic on the Mississippi was amazing, which is why you get off the river at night.
Another 48 miles down the river brought us to Angelo's Towhead where we anchored in very shallow and log infested water. This is right at the junction of the Ohio River and the Mississippi River and the commercial traffic was exceptional, Commercial traffic on these rivers consist of Tow Boats (which push everything) that exemplify the character of the river. They are all engine, all power, very stout ships that can push as many as 42 barges filled with coal or sand or grain or cement or whatever. When we entered the Ohio we discovered that this area, (Cairo, Illinois) is the staging area for a lot of tows and the river was jammed with traffic. We made our way through and headed for our first of two locks for the day..we locked right through with almost no delay and headed for the next lock 22 mils away. As we arrived at the next lock there were three other pleasure craft waiting to lock through. After a 15 minute wait we entered the lock and discovered that some of the other boats had been waiting up to four hours to get into the lock. I guess it was our lucky day.
Heading up the Ohio River, lots of traffic, even a train on the bridge. “A Time For Us’ in the lead today.
We spent that night at Paducah Kentucky and really fell in love with the town. We had happy hour with our new friends in a local pub and spent the night at the free town dock - all in a fine evening. In the morning we visited the local bakery and got some great breads.
Early morning fog rolling down the river in Paducah.
That day we motored another twelve miles to the Cumberland River and up stream to the Barkley Dam and Lock. The river was spectacular with steep bluffs and some rugged carved stone cliffs. The narrow channel provided some interesting moments when we met oncoming commercial traffic at blind bends in the river...every one. And when we got to the lock we anchored and rafter with our friends to wait three and a half hours to get into the lock which was our largest to date... a 57 foot vertical lift into Barkley Lake.
Along the Cumberland River, still following Tom and Debbie in ‘A Time For Us’.
Another mile into the lake brought us to Green Turtle Bay where we are sending this from. We arrived just after sunset on Thursday and are leaving in a little while (Saturday AM) to find an anchorage for the evening. We spent the day yesterday doing chores, provisioning engine maintenance, washing the boat and most importantly we drove the courtesy van back to Paducah to buy some beer and wine as this is the first of may dry counties that we will be traveling through in the next few weeks.
Our new friends Tom & Debbie from ‘A Time For Us’ - still friends 23 years later.
Marie & Don from ‘Shenandoah” at Patti’s - we have lost track of them over the years.
Last night we ate at Patti's Restaurant and had the finest pork chops ever cooked..we all agreed that they were the best and highly recommend them to anyone in the area of Grand Rivers, KY.
Bridges Passed Under/Through 431.
Locks 56
Miles Traveled 2692
Average speed 7 mph
11 States
2 Countries
117 Days
NOTES & MEMORIES
Henry, Illinois - Dad was on the boat from Starved Rock to Peoria. We spent one night tied up at the old lock in Henry as mentioned. Dad had to pee in the middle of the night and walked to the rear deck to pee over the side. Just as he was ‘doing his business’ a tow boat was passing on the river and turned a floodlight on him. He was quite surprised…he told that story for many years.
Peoria - We were tied to the dock quite a while in Peoria as this is only a few miles from my family. We got to see Mom and Day quite a bit, and friends down in Decatur where I grew up. Our son Jason came for a visit on his way westward with friends. My brother Dan helped with engine and electrical stuff. We even went to a hot air ballon festival in Lincoln.
Hardin, Illinois - It was here when we stopped for breakfast that we met up with the two boats we would travel with for quite a while. ‘A time For Us’ and “Shenandoah” were pretty good traveling companions for the many miles south on the river system, Tom and Debbie aboard A Time For Us have become life long friends and we get together with them as much as we can. You may remember them from blog posts last winter when we camped with them in Florida.
Mississippi River - This is one busy and treacherous river. We made it down with little incident. From Hardin the three little boats took turns leading the flotilla. Don, from Shenandoah was in the lead when we left Alton IL and heading for tSt. Louis. Just north of St. Louis in the Chain of Rocks Canal. There is a huge HUGE sign on the left bank with a large arrow saying ALL BOATS MUS ENTER HERE. Don, who was leading us missed it altogether. He was continuing down the Mississippi into the rapids and rocks that the canal was designed to circumvent. Tom got on the radio and very politely said ‘Oh, hey Don, don’t you think we should go through the canal?’ - I was about to say something nasty but Tom always keeps a cool head. Tom lead the rest of the way down to Hoppies.
Hoppies Fuel Stop - We had heard about Hoppie’s since somewhere on the Great Lakes. We were told that Mrs. Hoppie holds court each evening for cruisers and has an abundance of local knowledge. As I made my turn to come back upstream to dock alongside of the barges my 7 knot boat could barely make headway against the flow of the river. I made my approach at about 1 know…a very gentile landing. We had supper at the Blue Owl Restaurant where Don embarrassed everyone with his false ‘Billy Bob’ teeth. Mrs Hoppie did share an abundance of local knowledge about the river.
Kaskaskia River - The first night off the river was tied below the dam on the Kaskaskia river on the Illinois side. I helped Don change his raw water impellers on his engines - something you are supposed to do about every 50 hours of run time - he had NEVER changed them. Idiot. And that night Marie was surprised by a mouse in her toilet.
Patti’s Restaurant - We had first heard about Patti’s Restaurant from a ‘looper’ on the Erie Canal who sait it was a must visit ‘and be sure to have the pork chops’ - and again and again form other travelers so we were obligated. Patti’s lived up to its reputation and comes highly recommended. And they had great pop-overs too.
This was an interesting time as we were getting to know our traveling companions. It was always good to meet other ‘Great Loopers’ along the way, to share knowledge and swap stories. We figured that the 1999-2000 Great loop travelers amounted to about 25 boats in total - we met a total of 9 - and from what we gathered, the total could not have exceeded 25 and may well have been lower as several of the other travelers had only each seen a few. we collected a total of about 15 names of boats, and figure we missed some that went un-noticed.