St. Louis Arch and Mississippi River October 2nd – 3rd

Leaving Alton we travelled down the Mississippi River and saw where the Missouri River joined into the Mississippi. We would soon be crossing in front of the St. Louis Archway — so we notified all our family to watch the EarthCam. Just before the Arch is the Eds Bridge built in the 1860’s, it is the oldest bridge on the Mississippi River.

Eds Bridge – oldest bridge across Mississippi River built in 1860’s

Cruising by the St. Louis Archway – pictures from our boat

Niece, Kristin Weinzetl, was able to take this screen shot from the Live EarthCam as we went by. We are the lead boat in the left side of the picture — Thanks Kristin!!

Living the Dream crossing in front of the St. Louis arch

Our night stay was at Hoppies Marina — it was really just a barge that did have power to tie your boat to overnight. It looks much worse than it was — and it beat anchoring out which we have not done yet on the Loop. We arrived just before sunset, ate on the boat, went to bed early and got up early the next day to start our longest day on the boat.

Back on the Mississippi, we saw this floating hotel go by — the American Duchess — which would show up again a couple days down river at Padukah, Kentucky. This looks like a great vacation idea for the future.

We started to finally see some trees and mountains as we moved further down river.

At Hoppies, we learned that our next planned overnight stop at Cascaskia Lock wall was foiled as they had just started dredging operations in that area — so we went back to the drawing board to figure out a place to stay. There are very few marinas on the Mississippi River, and not many anchorages either. Since Cascaskia was now out, we decided to try our first single-handed anchoring at the Little Diversion Canal in Cape Girardeau. We understood the Little Diversion Canal is not the place to anchor if there is a storm. There was no storm, so we took the anchorage. The day’s trip came in at 107 miles.

Cascaskia lock wall where dredging was happening — decided to keep going down river

It took a couple of tries to get the anchor set, but we did it! After setting the anchor alarm and turning in, this was the most peaceful night yet. The next day we headed out early for another long day to take us 98 miles to Kentucky. Did I mention there are not many marinas on the Mississippi….

Today we saw the largest number of Tug boats on the Mississippi – lost count after 15.

Also transitioned from the Mississippi muddy river to the Ohio river, that was more greenish. Going up the Ohio river meant going against the current — first time since getting on the rivers in Chicago. We would now be going upstream all the way to Knoxville, Tennessee. Just north on the Ohio is where we saw the majority of tub boats and barges as it was a work tow area on the Ohio.