When we left Paducah we had two routes to choose from. The shorter route goes through Kentucky Lock and the somewhat longer goes through the Cumberland River and the Barkley Lock. All along I had planned to go through Barkley because it was said that they were more welcoming to pleasure boats. But on this day when I called both locks I was told that Barkley was closed during the day and would only open at 5:30pm. Kentucky Lock was…
We feel like we reached civilization. Our path today took us off the Mississippi River and onto the Ohio River. There is a lock in this area but it is under construction and they allowed us to float over the dam, which was nice. The city of Paducah has built an excellent transient dock right on the riverfront so we gladly took advantage of it. It was nice to get off the boat and walk for a while. There are…
Moving further down the Mississippi we had an excellent weather day so we went as far as possible. We passed Cape Girardeau, Missouri. We had no Marina options available to us so we picked this place to anchor for the night. We were out of the channel and tucked behind a bit of land but the current was strong and there was constant floating logs and sticks. There were several other boats there too and we didn’t have any issues…
We had a lot of rain overnight and we expected more rain throughout the day. There was a gap in the rain that allowed us to make some progress to our next stop, so we floated down the river for several hours with rain off and on throughout the morning. Our destination was a spot on a wall next to a lock. We arrived just before the rain really got bad. We spent the rest of the day inside the…
After several weeks away we returned to the boat and some considerably cooler temperatures. We found everything to be pretty much in order and the next morning we departed Grafton. Grafton’s fuel dock was not operational, so we stopped at Alton Marina to fill up and pump out. This was a quick stop and then we were on our way down the Mississippi River. Alton Lock and Dam was our first lock on the Mississippi, and we only had to…
This was our last day on the Illinois River. Grafton sits at the intersection of the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers. Grafton became the home for Blue Sky for most of October. We were happy to be placed in a covered slip. The Marina was nice and the town was interesting, although we didn’t spend much time exploring. The marina had an interesting loaner vehicle that we took on a wal-mart run. It is a 16 passenger van that has…