Mississippi River cruising 38◦21'532 N 090◦21'613 W

   It was a scorcher day. I thought yesterday was bad, but today the indoor thermometer at the helm read 123◦F. That is not a typo! Now to be clear it was not actually 123◦ outside, but I was sanding the railings outside and I asked Jim to close the helm doors so the sanding dust would not get inside, I did not realize how hot it was getting until I came in for lunch and Jim pointed it out. That was the end of my sanding for the day. Doors open it took about 1h to get back down to the 80's.

   We left Grafton Harbor at 7am today and got on the Mississippi River almost immediately. The current on the Mississippi is a bit faster than the Illinois river so we hit a whopping 12.9 mph. Jim of course took a picture of the GPS again. 

The route had us go through St-Louis Missouri and we got to see the St-Louis arch and the really neat Bridge. Both Pictured below.

 

We ended our Day at Hoppie's Marina. This Marina is not a class act. It is actually 3 barges tied together and you get to tie up to them. Everything is very rustic but the people here are amazing.  Hoppie, the owner told Jim to come tie up between two boats. See pic, however the boats only aloud for about 5 feet clearance. Docking this boat is a tough job, Docking this boat in 4 mph current is very hard, Docking this boat in 4 mph current with only 5 feet of leeway between the other boats is darn near impossible. My Captain however did a fine job of docking it, without touching either boat in the process. I must say I was quite impressed. Small wonder I feel so safe traveling with him.  

   Once we got in and hooked up to power, we went for a walk into the town of Kimmswick. This is most definitely a tourist town. Every street has a shop or three and they all sell the same stuff. I added a picture of a street sign that shows all the shops in these two streets. It's incredible. There is one place here called the Blue owl. It was listed in Oprah Winfrey's top 100 places to eat.  Their main claim to fame dish is the mile high apple pie. We could not possible eat a mile of apple pie, so we opted for an ice cream cone instead. 

The town is a bit of a walk away, but there are some interesting houses (see Pic) and we had to walk through country to get there. We walked over a wooden bridge and I got a shot of Randy and Jim on it. We also walked through some horse stables and I got a pic of one of the horses thinking the grass was greener on the other side. By the way the horse was right!  

   Once we got back to the marina, we got a boater's safety session with Fern; the owner's wife; who gave us lots of tips on how to get out of here, dangers to watch for and how to deal with Tow barges in these tight and fast waters. The Mississippi has a number of wing dykes. These are 100 to 300 ft long rock walls built at 45◦ angles to the river. Their purpose is to slow the water down and direct it to the center of the river, but sometimes the water level is so high that you cannot see them. She advised us to watch for signs of wing dykes by watching turbulence. There are 5 boats here who are all heading down river tomorrow. The big issue is that there are no other marinas for 150 miles or more, so we really need to understand where and when to anchor; to stay out of the working boats way and out of the strong currents.  

   After our talk with Fern we were all invited to a potluck dinner that the seasonal marina slip holders hosted. The food was phenomenal and the talking and joking at the table where a really nice end to a very good day. Tomorrow, we expect to travel 110 mile. I should get lot's of sanding done! Nighty night.