As the sun is shinning from her highest point of the day, the computers shut down.  We pulled up our anchor to head back down the river. Nearly 4 miles from our anchorage in Caruthersville was our first highway bridge Interstate 155. She stood tall probably 80 feet as we passed under her shadow. Beauty would have no issues with this clearance with her mast up.  It was a gorgeous day with sunny sky and moderate 75 degrees.  The winds blew lightly today from the South creating some ripples on the river camouflaging the floating timber passing there way down the river.  Every once in a while we see floating objects in the lower river.  These floaters are due to the recent heavy rain.  We are enjoying the fact that we have no more locks to go through!!!  Only lock is through New Orleans to get to the GICW.

We found anchorage off Nebraska Point Mile Marker 809. The current is 1.7 mph along with the depth of 15.3 feet. The fall air is cooling down the water temps 68 degrees and falling. According to Wind-Alert the winds were low for the night. But let me tell you it was wrong! The winds blew 20 mph during the night.  We slowly rocked in the small waves. Actually the rocking wasn’t bad. I just needed a lullaby… 

What a amazing view! We anchored just off Nebraska Point. George liked it too.

As we were motoring out of Caruthersville harbor when we noticed this barge getting loaded. The front was completely out of the water;  it was doing wheelie…

This is the boat ramp you can use to go into Caruthersville. But It’s quite a distance from the harbor to get there.

First sighting of Interstate 155 bridge. This is the first bridge since Cairo. This bridge is 7,102 feet long and is 78 feet wide. The longest span is 920 feet (280 m) and 520 feet (158 m).  This is the only bridge over the Mississippi between Cairo Ill and Memphis TN.  That is 85 miles the way the bird flies to Cairo and 55 miles to Memphis TN.  A bit of a distance between bridges.

Apparently, this is a Cantilever bridge. They started building it in 1969 and finished it in 1976.  The Ferry we saw in Hickman does cross over the Mississippi River. Interstate 155 connects the two States Missouri and Tennessee. She first opened in December of 1976.

The Clearance of this bridge according to the chart sources is 99 feet.  The actual clearance is 99 feet minus the local river gauge depth.  As we see here, the actual height is about 80 feet.  I like having the vertical clearance on the bridge.  We could easily pass under this bridge with our mast up.

This is another tow pushing a big load…

Have you ever wondered why is a towboat called a towboat when it pushes the barges?

The word “tow” comes from the canal age when a draft animal walking along the bank of the canal pulled a barge. As river men gained experience with moving barges, they found that, by lashing barges together and pushing them, they could control the barges better and move more of them. The control was especially helpful when navigating the smaller rivers and tight bends in a river. On the Eastern sea board is the Erie Canal.  You can still see the banks called a toe path where Sal pulled the barges along the canal. This is where the song comes from: Fifteen Years on the Erie Canal and a mule named Sal.

Several tows passed us by once again.  This is a monster tow.  Notice that it is 5 stories tall and with antennas on the top, this barge is as high as our 60 foot mast. I often wonder what life would be like to travel on the river. My mind wonders back to the early 1800-1900s as the paddle wheelers traveled these parts. How much fun that would be.  Okay, so I have to add a Mississippi cruise on the American Queen to my bucket list.

This is so cute to me.. it looks like this little tow could barely see over the barge.  The barges float up this high when they are empty.

I thought this was an interesting setup.  The trucks bring the farmer’s harvest directly to a grate on the road where they dump the grain down onto conveyers that immediately place the grain into the barge.  There is no intervening silo or storage facility.  Amazing to see how many barges go up and down the Mississippi.

Just a bit upstream from the loader is a staging area for full barges waiting for a tow to push them (presumably) down the river.  Other empty barges waiting to get filled.

This little tow was shuffling barges around.

A short distance down stream was this excavator unloading what looked like perhaps fertilizer or seed, not sure.  So I suppose farmers could get seed and fertilizer and drop off the resulting grain.

Every once in a while, we see through the camouflage a floating log. It’s kind of like an Easter egg hunt… instead of eggs, it’s logs…

Bryce and George are best buds…  Bryce you need a shave..  Without his electric shaver, he is only shaving every other day.

Sunset over the Nebraska Point MM-809

The following are bridges we passed under. I will post them as we go under them.

                    Bridges                    Actual clearance

• Interstate 155                    80 feet

As always we appreciate you following us.