The Mississippi and Ohio...complete!

One of the wonderful experiences about doing The Great Loop is meeting fellow Loopers and locals along the way. We have seen many of the same boats since we began our trip, we are all heading in the same direction and there really isn't that many options for docking or anchoring so the likelihood of this is great. Since we are traveling with our dog, Crocket, we try to stay in marinas for the convenience of having him do his business. We do have a dinghy to transport him to shore, but we have yet to take it down off our deck. When it is off, it hangs off the back of our boat on davits making us a few feet longer. We have been traveling with the same group of people for a good portion and like them lots, we all seem to be on the same schedule and travel around the same speed. One of the other boats we are with also has a dog, Brandy, and bonus for us, they have their dinghy on their davits ready to go. They have been so kind to take Crocket and me on all the potty runs with them! Thank you Bob and Liz!

Our friends, Bob and Liz...Brandy, the boxer, was sleeping and missed the photo op!

Last I posted we were in Grafton, IL. This is the last stop on the Illinois River, at mile marker 0.0. Yay! We completed the Illinois!! Next up is 218 miles on the Mississippi, with no marinas and few anchorages we are preparing for a long few days!!! We stayed in Grafton for 3 nights to prepare ourselves for the next few days, provisioned, sat at the pool, zip lined (soooooo much fun!!), and made new friends with the locals on C dock. They drove us to breakfast at Pere Marquette Lodge for our anniversary, AND treated! We are spoiled! Thank you Greg and Lisa...your kindness will not be forgotten!

Our anniversary breakfast with new friends at Pere Marquette Lodge

Zip-lining!! I'm so nervous but so excited!!

He is not nervous!

This was the highest line at 250 in the air and 2000 feet long! I still can't believe I went first AND LOVED it!!

Docked on C Dock

Little town of Grafton, the weekends here are out of control. Live music, bars and tons of people...way fun!!

Anniversary cocktails! Happy 12 years babe!

We are traveling with two other boats and decided as a group to make the 60 mile run to the famous Hoppie's Marina. While on the Mississippi we passed The Arch in St. Louis AND saw a guy who is actually SWIMMING the entire Mississippi...what a feat and pretty crazy too!

Look close you can see the swimmers arm, can't believe he was swimming right in the center of the river.

Hoppie's Marina is on the Mississippi at Kimmswick, Missouri and has been a popular stop for river boaters since the 1930's. Fern Hopkin's and her husband welcome boaters to tie up to three 100 foot barges that are tied to the stone cliff with cables. Hoppie's is essential to us Loopers, it is the last stop on the upper Mississippi for fuel for the next 250 miles (This is not a concern for us as we hold 500 gallons of diesel and topped off while in Grafton). Fern holds a meeting of sorts to go over all areas where we should pay special attention along the Mississippi and Ohio, if there are any issues with locks that we may need to know and sound advice about how to communicate with the tows. Funny, she says that females will do better talking with the tows than males as these tow captains may be on the river for a month without seeing their loved ones. I have been talking to the tows and I've been known to go out and give them a wave as we pass. Ben has nicknamed me 'radio'! I'm having a good time with this duty so far! Our stay at Hoppie's was short lived. We arrived just in time for the whole town to close (3pm), and for us to get together for our lesson learning from Fern. A short walk up the street to the old Anheuser home, operating as a riding stable for the disabled and a look at all the old 'stuff' located on the property. We visited with our buddies and set the plan to leave at 7:00am for the more difficult part of our journey. 

This is the Fern Hopkins

Fern watching as a boat comes in, you better listen to her instructions or else! She actually complemented me on my throwing arms!

Hoppie's was in operation when phone booths were the only way to communicate

Ben's favorite thing to do...check out all the old boats

All of us docked on the barges at Hoppie's

I say that the next few days will be the most challenging (so far) because we will be putting in long days, there is some construction delays with the locks we need to get through, the Tow traffic can be plentiful which makes for a bit of stress, there is debris to constantly be on the look out for, and there are no marina's and few anchorages along the way! YAY! Have I mentioned I'm a worrier?
We had a beautiful day on the water, it was a bit hot. We enjoyed the speed the current provided us. We usually travel at 9-9.5 knots avg RPM at 1800, we saw 13.5 knots and only 1400 RPM...we SIPPED diesel! We traveled 110 miles in 9.5 hours to a gorgeous anchorage called Little Diversion. We were anchored/rafted with Knot Sew Easy who were gracious enough to take Crocket and me along on potty breaks. We were told to watch for snakes particularly copper heads...scary! So, we were onshore to do our business and back to the boat in record time! No snake spotting on this trip!

Our view as we left our anchorage!

This particular Tow was throwing us a wake that reminded me of being on Lake Michigan

Quick lunch while underway!

Moving' On in the distance, they were our lead boat while we called all the Tows, Knot Sew Easy held up the rear.

Crocket and his ball, he is never too far away from it

Our view in Little Diversion anchorage

Moving' On and Sea Moss

We were rafted with Knot Sew Easy

Dinner time!

Every year there is something along the loop that poses a problem. This year it happens to be both Locks 53 and 52. The Olmstead lock is under construction and eventually will replace both 53 and 52. The problem is that both these locks are old and things break down slowing up both barge and pleasure craft (as we are referred, or PC's). We have to be escorted through Olmsted lock before they will lock us through 53. What we didn't expect was to have to wait over 4 hours to get through, which put us at 5:45pm when we finally got through. Let's not forget we left at 6:30am! We sat for 4.5hrs on the hook (anchored) just outside the lock waiting for the green light. We rafted off our buddy boat and made the best of our time. The bonus to this is Ben had some time to relax as the Mississippi can be stressful. As pretty as it is, it also is a very busy river, with lots of barge traffic, (we passed 16 barges this day...16!!) and lots of debris. So, the whole time we are underway, we are constantly looking to avoid tree stumps and looking ahead at our AIS (Automatic Identification System) which allows us to see upcoming Tows so we can then call them to find out where they want us to pass. We are now traveling upstream on the Ohio, greatly slowing us down. 
It's usually not the ideal situation to have to anchor somewhere you are unfamiliar without any light. Lucky for us, there's was an anchorage 9.6 miles from the lock, giving us just enough time to drop the hook before the sun set. We had 9 boats all anchored with us. It was a great spot, we had great holding and got a wonderful night sleep. Another EARLY morning for us tomorrow! 
77 miles complete in 12 hours with 1 lock. 

Out and about before the sunrise...another long day but happy it is beautiful!

Little boy always wanting to play!

The current had this can laid over

We were all anchored here while waiting to get through..looks like they just called us in.

We had to go 5mph and in a single file line

Olmstead lock and lock 53, we were escorted through Olmstead and then tied off in lock 53

This will be the new lock for Olmstead, 53 and 52...expected completion 2020!! One of the lock masters said that it would be another 10 years!

Massive Crane, our friend Jeff, owns a crane company. He would have loved to see this one in person

Up at 6am for a dinghy ride to the mud shoreline...I almost lost my rubber boat! But both dogs (Brandy and Crocket) did great, we were all a muddy mess but that's Ok! All 9 boats followed us out of the anchorage at 6:30 am. We are traveling 61.7 miles (with 2 locks, lock 52 being a problem lock and Barkley lock on the Cumberland) to a marina called Green Turtle Bay Resort (GTBR) in Grand Rivers, KY. I spoke to the lock master first thing in the morning and got word that we should all anchor just outside the lock and it should be at most a 3-hour wait. Well, we waited 4.5 hours for lock 52, we rafted off our buddy boat, Knot Sew Easy, took the dogs ashore for a quick stop, made some lunch, and tried to enjoy our afternoon. We finally made it through and will now be traveling on the much smaller and less commercial Cumberland River! Although this adds 25 extra miles to our trip, we chose this route as opposed to taking the Tennessee River and locking through the Kentucky Lock, because the wait at Kentucky Lock could be 3 hours and Barkley was locking through without any delays. That was a no brainer for us after two very long days. As it was, we pulled into GTBR at 5:30 tired, hungry and ready to have a drink and relax! It was such a pleasure to pull into our slip and have so many fellow Loopers we have met along the way waiting to grab lines and chat about our experience! We decided to stay a whole week! Did I mention they have a spa? and pools? a cute store with Sperry's on sale? a couple restaurants? Ice cream in town? courtesy car? golf carts too?? Well they have it all and the staff here are wonderful!!! Making friends and sharing experiences, it's what this is all about. Someone said that you will make friends with people after only knowing them a couple weeks but they will feel like life long friends...I can say we have found those friends! I am blessed in more ways than I can express!

Another gorgeous morning...even though I wish I was still sleeping!

Going for a potty break...not me, but Crocket and Brandy!!

Trying to burn off some of Crocket's energy

Lock 52, photo courtesy of Movin' On

The Cumberland

Barkley Lock, this is a 57foot lift, the largest and newest lock we have traversed so far on our trip

Knot Sew East locking through

Moving' On in front of us

AHHH! Finally, we can see the marina as the sun sets. Time to relax!