Now this. This is how it's supposed to be.

We started today in Grafton IL.   We left before sunrise and boy was there a beautiful sunrise.    But first I'm going to go out of order so this starts the blog for the day!  

Pic of the day taken by a buddy boat of us going past the St Louis Arch!
Ok, back to sunrise.  Grafton is a beautiful area with high cliffs and water.     It makes for great sunrises and sunsets and is a cool little town. 

Today we went through two huge locks (our first on the Mississippi) and the lockmaster on both locks let us 'float' in the chamber while they lowered the water.  
We typically have to tie to a floating bollard or hold onto a safety line.   Not today.  Three boats floating free and almost banging into walls over and over.   

And yes, the sun was bright too.  

Between the locks we traveled through the chain of rocks diversion channel.  This channel is there for a reason.  Before they built it the Mississippi was not navigable through St Louis.  In fact St Louis owes it's existence to the fact that boats had to unload their barges in S St Louis and truck, caravan or otherwise drag over land the cargo only to put them back on boats again to continue upstream.  The rocks are treacherous and they put a really big sign up to tell you GO LEFT... In case you are stupid I guess...

After the arch we traveled another 30 miles or so down stream.  The river here moves about 2.5mph so you can literally go 9mph and get 12 in distance every hour.  A 30% improvement in fuel efficiency...  (So we can get 1.3mph instead of 1mpg.   This is not an efficiency operation...
At long last we arrived in Kimmswick MO at a place called Hoppies.   It's a legendary stop because it's really the ONLY stop in this entire area of th Mississippi...  for 230 miles. 
There are a couple of places you can tuck in out of the channel but no fuel, no places to tie up.  Tomorrow and the next day we will be at anchor after very long days.  

Hoppies is essentially a couple of old barges tied to the shore with electric run down to them so we can stay out of the channel and have lights, AC (or an hour later heat).   Think rusty steel, uneven surfaces, sharp things and questionable engineering.  All for a bargain price of $70ish.   

But the people are great and know the river.  We had a good talk tonight about what to do going downstream to try to stay safe.  

Most people know the Anheuser family likes their horses (Budweiser Clydesdales).  The old Anheuser estate is here. It's now a museum. It's open on Thursdays from 1pm to 4pm.   Yes, four hours a week.   It's not Thursday.  Its Monday and of course the whole town of Kimmswick is closed on Mondays.  No mile high pie for me.   Color me disappointed. And maybe 1lb skinnier.  
This little town is all done up for the apple butter festival this coming weekend.  (and Halloween).  These areas in the Miss. River basin really do Halloween, but not just costumes.  They have witches festivals and all kinds of stuff.   I'm sure for most it's just make believe but I can't imagine a town holding a festival for saints or missionaries in the modern age...  apparently the same rules don't apply for all..   anyway.... They leave all of their shop wares they stage outside out in front of their stores even when they are closed for a day.   Apparently the people of Kimmswick are trustworthy.   
We found it interesting that MOST of the buildings here were built in 1870s or 1880s.   That's just after the civil war.   Even their bridges date back to that era.  (And no, they don't let cars over this 1867 bridge anymore).  Pretty cool either way.   Not much left from the 1800s at home....

Anyway.  A nice visit to a little CLOSED town, but a good walk...  ready for bed.   6:45am departure again as we now have to go >100 miles tomorrow do to a closure of our next step (the Kaskaskia lock) which has no place to stay because they are tearing things apart and rebuilding.     We will be anchored in the Mississippi channel behind a bridge tomorrow - if all goes well....    til tomorrow...


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