The above picture is of Captain Bob's "boat shoe tanned" feet....I am encouraging him to keep his shoes off...
The above picture.....if you can see it you are not a duck....It is a duck blind on the river.

• These 3 pictures are a sample of the "marinas" you will find on the Illinois River.....All we needed was a Doberman!.....AND they charged $1 a foot....no bath facilities, but you could use their (the barge workers) shower room.....uh, no thanks!

I felt like we were zooming thru the river.....we are doing 9 to 10 hour days, much longer than Bob and I thought we would do.....but Capt Jim (Jim's Joy) gets the 3 boats going very early....6am... and he knows where we are headed.....so we continue to follow along.  The days are HOT and MUGGY and I feel like the movie "Groundhog day"....as it is the same thing over and over.   We had heard that this part of the trip is "boring".....and whoever said it was correct.  The Locks, and there are several, have proved to be a diversion from the endless muddy water.  

This picture is a good example of the barges we encounter....they are 3 wide and 5 deep being controlled  by one tug boat....an astonishing fact:  one barge is equal to the cargo transported by 16 eighteen wheelers, or 15 jumbo hopper train cars.  An eight barge (above is a 15) moving cargo one tenth of a mile is equivalent to a string of truck traffic 19 miles long!  (I read that fact in a book....Bob wants to blog a little more of HIS knowledge a little later....if he ever gets out from behind the helm!)

Actually I did drive about an hour yesterday.....he got a little shut eye....not too far from me.  I sang all the hymns I could bring to memory (to myself, ease the boredom) and then I busted into Christmas songs!  Last eve.....once we finally stopped (at Grafton, IL) in a REAL marina....we went to dinner at their bar (btw, I had OYSTERS.....from the GULF!!)   they were playing oldies, so now those tunes are in my head in case I get another chance to keep myself awake!

So now as you can see......we passed St. Louis, MO   (the famous arch) Have gone thru 2 locks, the only 2 for today and we are headed to "Hoppies" marina (?)  I understand it is quite an unusual spot....  I am just grateful we have only about 5 hours to get there...."short day"!....After that is is 2 to 3 nights of anchoring, as nothing until we get to Green Turtle Bay....From what I can tell by their website, it will seem like heaven!