Have you ever had one of those days that no matter what nothing goes your way? I kind of think that’s how Sunday and Monday worked out for us. To keep a long story short, I am very disappointed in Vicksburg Enterprise car rental they told us we could pick up a car. They called us twice changing the time on us. In the mean time the driver shows up to pick us up; not knowing they keep changing the time on us. The driver apologized to us.

We were a bit frustrated that there was no possibility to rent a car, so we pulled up anchor and left.  Our hearts broken because there is no way to see the Vicksburg National Military park without a vehicle as the route is 16 miles up and down hills. We will be back to visit Vicksburg in a few years. It’s truly is a great stop.

As we were motoring out of Yazoo River we passed these two kayakers going out to spend the day on the Mighty Mississippi.

We see these boats all the time.  These types of boat shuffle workers and supplies to tows.

Mark, one of the Southern gentlemen Bryce met, took theses photos as we were making our way from the Yazoo River toward the Lower Mississippi.  The Queen of the Mississippi is in the foreground.

We are just passing the Queen of the Mississippi while she is still tied to shore.  She left shortly after.

Thanks Mark..LOL  That splat in the middle of the picture is our boat.  Our little boat looks like a little dot on the Mississippi… 

Vicksburg Casino 1 they have a few.  This is the Waterview.

Vicksburg Casino #2.  This is the Ameristar.

This bridge is a 100 feet too. No issues with height of our mast. Cannot wait to make her a sailboat again.

This guy has a unique boat.   This boat transports people and supplies to the tows.  The tows just simply slow down to allow these boats to transfer supplies to the tow.

This house has one of those steel roofs on it. You could see it for miles. It looks awesome. I love there beach.  This guy was smart, he built his home on an inside bend where there is no erosion.  Rather, the river drops sand on the inside bends where the current drops to nearly zero.

Some tows and barges are just so darn pretty.  I liked the colors on this one.

Well, The Queen of The Mississippi passed us on the river. We waved our goodbyes.  Bryce hailed him on the VHF to determine which side he preferred to pass.

We are continuously seeing kayakers and canoeist on the river.  These are adventurers typically paddling from the head waters of the Mississippi to the end in New Orleans.

We passed our first nuclear power plant on the lower Mississippi. Its cooling tower was steaming away on the Mississippi.  This is called the “Big Gulf nuclear Power Plant”.

We had to pass this guy. His speed reduced to 4 mph as he navigated a bend.  One of the largest tows at 46 barges.  Notice how low the barges are sitting indicating all barges are fully loaded.

Well, it’s great to be back on the river again. Nice sunny day. Temps 81 degrees. We found another great anchorage on the lower Mississippi off a sandy beach on an inside bend. Our current is 1.7 mph and the water temp is 63.3. Our mile marker is 402 with the water depth at 18.5 feet. As we anchor, this tow is now the biggest at 46 barges 8 wide by 6 long, minus 2 on the bow.. our latitude is 31.9861 our longitude is -91.1254    http://trackmytour.com/35L17

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I cannot believe how many things are closed on Sunday. We have been trying to rent a car but they are closed on Sunday.  Bryce met two great guys Jim and Mark. Both had that great Sothern hospitality.

Jim a very friendly gentleman drove Bryce to the grocery store. He was a wealth of information about the river and pretty much everything else in town.  He owned a 50 foot (IIRC) excursion boat that he operated for a number of years.  This is a picture of Jim in the dark shirt and Bryce in the light blue shirt standing next to Jim’s truck.

Jim provided us with a number interesting pictures of the flood of 2011 that illustrates how Vicksburg prepares for a very high flood.  This picture shows how high the water got on the Railroad Museum.  Notice the murals on the levee wall to the left of the train museum.  Those murals are about 50 feet above the water where we were anchored today.

To protect the down-town district, these huge wood walls seal off the normal openings in the levee.  For this particular opening, the street is dug up.  Unfortunately, some structures, such as the train museum are outside the levee.

Inside the levee, large pumps remove any water that gets past the levee.

While Bryce was at Kroger, another River Boat came in.  This was the Queen of the Mississippi.

After Bryce got back, we took a dingy ride to the Vicksburg Harbor.  The Vicksburg harbor is a bit up the Yazoo River.  This is a large deep water harbor with a number of companies.

The dead end of the harbor would probably make a good anchorage.  A very large area just to the left of the picture below might be a good anchorage.  No barges or tows.  However, it is a long dingy ride to Vicksburg.

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The kindness of the Southern people is Overwhelming! I was taken by surprise with our friends on Facebook with all their knowledge of places we are stopping. They text me places to see, good restaurants to eat at. Local people have came down to the boat launch to see us and offered to take us to the grocery store, gas station.  I just cannot get over all the hospitality. A Big World of Thanks to each and every one of you.

Here is a picture of the America River Boat.

I talked to Sharde for quite a while.  She explained that the America came from St Paul and was headed to New Orleans.

We took a tour of the Mississippi that is on permanent display in Vicksburg.  Definitely stop and see this boat.

This was a model of a stem ship used to transport Cotton bales.

The gantry cranes we showed in an earlier post is used to make these huge concrete mats that reinforce the river banks.

This was the forward lounge on the Mississippi.

These are pictures of the five different River boats called Mississippi.  There were also a number of military ships carrying the same name and a submarine.

The galley on the Mississippi. The food looked so good.

This was the bridge of the Mississippi Tow on display.  Notice there is no wheel to steer the ship.  Rather there are four levers to control the four sets of rudders.

And of course Bryce had to take pictures of the two engines. We are standing at the upper level engine room.  Each engine is an 8 cylinder 1800 HP Diesel.

Here is a picture of one of the engines at the lower level engine room.  I’ll bet these engines gulped diesel.

This was an interesting mural with the railroad museum in the background.

This was an interesting alley off main.

The first mural near the exit.  Notice also the water spigot.  We topped off our tanks and filled our jugs.

The detail of the murals painted on the levee was amazing.  This shows early Vicksburg.

Here is a mural on the levee showing Vicksburg in the days of steam.

Civil war mural on the levee.

We walked up to the gas station a few blocks up and filled our diesel jugs.  Once again we have a full diesel tank and jugs.

The river boat America left a bit before dark.

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It was going to be a beautiful day on the lower Mississippi to day.  As we sit on the bow with our late morning coffee, we enjoyed the sun and watched the tows go by.

We headed down the river at about 2 PM.  We were only about 12 miles from Vicksburg, so it was a short run.  We snapped this picture looking downriver towards Vicksburg.  It shows the breadth of the river.

On shore, the Army Corp of Engineers is working diligently at restoring this bank.  Amazing how much work these guys do to keep the river flowing.

They had a huge dragline type shovel dredging the river.

We entered the Yahzoo River from the Mississippi which was a deep 30 feet.  Plenty of water and almost no current.  The lack of current is a welcome change as we motored up the river against the slight current.

We could see the buildings of Vicksburg behind this grain elevator.

This huge boat launch provided access to the nearby city of Vicksburg.

We anchored just up stream of the huge launch ramp with fore and aft anchors.  It was a great place to anchor.  Although tows came by, they created very little wakes.  During the night we had thunderstorms with 20 mph gusts from behind that helped set our aft anchor.

A large model of the Mississippi greeted us near the River Museum.  Although not nearly as large as the Memphis model.

Saturday, we plan to tour the fourth river vessel named Mississippi.  We have posted pictures of the current fifth vessel.

I am standing next to one of the two props on this tow.  Here is a close up view of the rudder and propeller system.  Twin rudders in front of each of two props.  And one huge rudder behind the prop.  The prop is protected by a huge prop ring.  Jet skiers might recognize this as quite similar to the jet pump on their jet-ski.  The prop has a quite close tolerance fit to the wear ring.

We did a quick walk through town just prior to sunset.  Cool coble stone street with covered sidewalks.  Shops and restaurants.

Headed back to Beauty just before sunset.

We woke up at 6 am to find the America from New Orleans just tying up about 300 feet behind us.  We watch as she came to shore and dropped her gangway.  They then proceeded to tie her off to the huge steel rings embedded in the concrete ramp.

See where we are at http://trackmytour.com/35L17

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Oh…what a beautiful day. High of 81 but a bit breezy. The sun shined as Bryce pulled up anchored. I just knew it was going to be a great day on the L-Mississippi. I’ve been asked a number of times the difference between the upper and lower Mississippi. Now this is my view. We have approximately 352 (452-100) more miles so we are about 2/3 way down the lower. We have traveled down the upper twice now and the difference of course is the lower half it’s like traveling on a lake apposed to a river. 

For those who have done the Tenn-Tom, its like traveling on the Kentucky lake but with more current and more sandy beaches.  There is turbulence in the lower half as there is in the upper half perhaps a bit more. Check the NOAA Web Site on the depth of the river. There appears to be the same type of groynes and weirs on the lower and upper.  The lower is considerably wider and deeper.  Probably a bit easier to navigate because of that.  We often times pass tows on bends in the lower, but less so in the upper.

This is what I call a whirlpool. It is where the water flows in both directions and creates an underwater tornado. You will see these on the upper Mississippi and the Lower Mississippi. Nothing to freak-out about unless you are a kayaker.  That’s my job…LOL 

Unlike the Tenn-Tom, there are no Locks and so far all bridges are over a 100 feet tall.  So there are no time constraints to get to locks.  With tall bridges, we could have re-stepped our mast at the Ohio River if a marina was available. The current is nearly always 5 mph, but can go up to 7 and as low as 3.    Active Captain is a great resource for anchorages and info on towns.  Bryce has been posting all our anchorages on Active Captain.  So the number of anchorages on the lower has tripled.

There are probably many more anchorage possibilities on the lower.  We typically anchor on inside bends where current is low and anything floating in the river tends to go to the outside.  Tows run slow on the bends, so wakes are small.  Also, inside bends is where the sandy bottoms are, so excellent holding.  And of course inside bends have no junk on the bottom to trap anchor lines.  On the lower we are often off the channel edge by 1000 feet and well inside any buoys that mark the channel edge.

Our current trip so far: http://trackmytour.com/35L17

Most issues I hear deal with fuel, water and pump outs.  Our in a sailboat fuel tanks are not that big. Our tank is 40 gallons. However, with the river current our mileage increases to 10-15 mpg.  If we need fuel we take our wagon and two 5 gallon cans into shore and walk to a gas station. The wise thing to do is to google things you need on your tablet/phone. Call the gas station make sure they have diesel before you take your walk into town.  If we had our power boat with its two hundred gallon tanks, we would probably carry 4 jugs rather than two.

Water is pretty much a non-issue for us.  We carry about 90 gallons plus two 6 gallon jugs.  We have a complete raw water system that is filtered with 1 micron filters to produce quite clear water from the river.  These filters also remove any smell. Our separate filtered raw water has its own water heater separate from the tank water heater.  We use this water for wash down, showers  So we get nice hot showers every day if we chose.  The galley sink also has a separate faucet to use for rinsing.

For pump outs, we are fortunate to have two electric heads, each head has a 22 gallon tank.  So we can go for about a month or so before we need a pump out.

If you been following our blog you know the stops we have made. There have been other stops near towns or within walking distance but there just isn’t enough time to see every thing.

• Hickman-nice place to visit walked to gas station
• New Madrid- We did not go into Shore but heard it was nice
• Mud Island Marina Memphis-awesome place. full services marina
• Greensville Yacht club-full services marina. but we anchored out

Now, plan your adventure and enjoy.

We found another great sandy beach anchorage on the lower Mississippi for the night. We are at mile marker 452 and 12 miles north of Vicksburg MS for the night. The Current 1.7mph and water depth 22 feet and water temp is 61.7.  We are anchored on a slight inside bend between two groynes.  So sandy bottom, lower current.

After Bryce pulled up anchor at MM-499 and I put us in the river I noticed this tree floating down the channel.  You have to watch for logs in the river, but it is worse than it sounds.  I think the sail boats have less of an issue with these logs as the keel tends to protect the prop and prop shaft.  I have met many power boaters that have bent shafts, struts and props.  However, this is an issue with the Tenn-Tom, the Illinois and the Mississippi.  So I do not see it worse on the lower.

I just love to see how others live.  We are seeing more homes on the lower.

See how far this tow is away, the river is typically 1/2 mile wide.  Channel is typically 0.1 to 0.2 miles wide.  Kinda like a 1000 mile long Kentucky Lake.

This area is so nice. I think I could actually live here it’s so pretty.  A number of homes on this inside bend with huge sandy shore.

Now this is a sight you don’t see to often a tow pushing a tow. Must be headed to Greenville.

Some tows have Towers like this one rather than super structures.

Another canoeist doing the Mississippi. I wonder what their blog might have to say?

It was a warm day. Bryce is happy setting the anchor. And as usual, when it gets this warm, he is in a swim suit.

George is just being himself.  With the light winds, he spent a good part of the night wandering the deck.

A big thanks to all of you who follow our blog.

I woke up and turned on my lap top only to stare at a blank screen. I listened to the sounds around me. The coffee perking, Ice maker making ice for the day and bread cooking. What do I write about today? I asked myself. The rain and winds stopped me from taking photos yesterday, so I don’t have anything to write about. Wait!!! I have one picture of the Greensville bridge crossing over the Lower Mississippi.

Talk about Greensville, As we motored out of Lake Ferguson it was raining and the winds piped up off and on all day. I was asked once about the turbulence and whirl pools on the river. Both the upper Mississippi and the lower Mississippi have this turbulence and either way what I call them whirlpools. The first five miles or so after pulling out of the lake going south was full of turbulence. After we passed the Greensville bridge they seemed to have chilled a bit.

The Greensville Bridge is around 120 feet tall. This is the new bridge. It took 16 years from the initial developing stage 1994 to August 4, 2010 when the bridge opened. The older bridge had to be taken down. In 1950 the old bridge was hit by an Air Force plane, The bridge remained structurally sound. However, after many years of getting hit by tows and barges the bridge had to be replaced. 

We anchored for the night on an inside bend of the river.  We prefer inside bends because the bottom is sandy, the current is lower and the tows slow down for the bends.  We anchored way inside a set of green buoys at mile marker 499 off a nice sandy shoreline. The water depth is 15.5 feet. Our current is 1.9 mph water temp is 60.6 degrees. Our latitude is 32.9381 longitude –91.0764  There wasn’t any sunshine yesterday; only rain and wind. Theses are the days we are thankful for our enclosure.

We are slowly making our way south. We hope to be in Vicksburg MS by the weekend. Our most current position and a short blub with pictures is at https://trackmytour.com/35L17  Each night I post where we are anchored or if we are in a marina. It’s hard to believe that we have been gone 2 months and one week already.

George is doing well. He seems to have adjusted well to being back on the boat.  He sleeps a lot.  He looks quite fat here.. must be the good life.

As always thanks for following us.

So I thought I would start the day off to an answer to a question that has been asked a few times. What do you uses as a navigation device? paper charts?  We use OpenCPN, Active Captain, Along with our Garmin and the book set of Waterway Guides. Although doing the lower half of the Mississippi the Waterway Guides have no information. Even with all the Electronic devices Bryce is still able to chart a course from the paper charts. Please don’t hesitate to ask us questions.

This is an example of  OpenCPN  it’s a chart plotter on a computer. You can check YouTube how to use it.  We use our Chart plotter a lot on the lower Mississippi along with Active Captain. Actually we use them all the time on all the ocean and lakes. 

As the morning ends, I must get ready to start our adventure to Greenville. Our anchor alarm just went off.  We are not dragging but Beauty just did a 180 degrees turn. The winds are shifting to the NE. Storms are moving in sometime tonight.  Br..

Bryce uncovered the jet-ski to take us into shore. He looked though the binoculars and saw trashcans on shore so we were able to take our trash in.

I waited on shore while Bryce went back to the boat to get diesel cans and the wagon. There wasn’t enough room for the trash and me and everything else. You can see beauty in the background. She wasn’t that far away.

These are concrete rings that use to hold large boats. We were able to tie a line and hold the jet-ski in place.

Patch is safely tied up.

There is a really nice boat launch here.  It is huge!!!  It is made in such a way to allow launching at almost any flood stage.

This is the top of the hill at the boat launch that leads into town.

As we were walking this old building has all the high water stages shown since 1927.

This is a huge dyke that protects the town from raising flood waters.

This Historic Inn just captures the view on S. Walnut St.

When I read this it gave me goose bumps. Are we in a not so good area? We kept walking to main St.

This is the entrance to the casino.

I think this alleyway looked cool.

This sure is a pretty church.

This is the Greenville courthouse.

The murals on the buildings might be saying: This once was a soda shop.

Downtown Grill open in 2016 on Washington Ave. It is part of the 9 million dollar plan to redevelop the Sears building. Wanted to eat here; but by the time we returned the diesel cans to the boat it was too late to walk that far into town.

There are many building for sale.  This was a mural on one of them.

Parts of the town are in a transition phase.  What a sad scene to see history disappearing.

Washington Ave. I read is under new development.  WE can see areas on Washington coming back.

At the end of Washington Ave on the corner of N. Walnut St. is a memorial to WWII vets.

The sidewalks on N. Walnut have a number of engraved squares dedicated to different musical artists. 

Not sure if this is a open business for sure. But it looks nice.

We made it back with full diesel cans.  Really didn’t need any, but why pass up the opportunity. 

This is pretty cool on the waterfront in the boat launch parking area.  This huge sign painted on the levy can be read clearly by maps satellite view.

We had dinner at Max-Erma’s It was inside the casino. I didn’t care for the atmosphere for some reason. 

Waterfront side of the Casino and Max-Erma’s on the top floor.

The Greensville Yacht Club. We jet-skied over to check it out.

Transit boaters are welcome; you dock along the floating docks.

We stopped a dock worker and asked him if they sold diesel. Yes they sell diesel; but if you need a lot they call in a truck. I called this morning to check on the price for dockage but no answer.

Maybe this use to be there dock store or something and it was carried away in one of the spring floods.

Well, we arrived back from our daily adventure in Greensville MS. I must say it’s heart breaking to see such a rich place in history decaying. We wandered up Main street to  E. Edison St. to Rick’s Express gas station on Alexander St. We pulled our wagon with our diesel cans. We walked back down Washington Ave.  It turns out there are a few gas stations within walking distance if you have cans.

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Making Bread

I woke up this morning thinking it was a good day to make bread in my bread maker. I gathered up all the ingredients and followed the instructions! As I closed lid to start the bread.. Something just didn’t look right. hum..this looks a bit watery. I than glanced at the recipe. Crap!!!! I added a cup of water and I only needed 1/2 cup. I just hate wasting my ingredients. Hopefully this new batch turns out well. I replaced the oil with applesauce.

I just remembered when we were in Memphis at Kroger’s I picked up hamburger.  I must say that is one thing that doesn’t last in my refrigerator. I didn’t have enough ingredients to make chili so I made SOS..  Dinner will be good tonight.

It was easy to cut..

Oh…My… Gosh.. Bryce says this bread is delicious. I have a big smile

Today is supposed to be warmer a high of 73 and sunny. We just love heading south. One of the best things we enjoy doing in the morning is having coffee or tea on the bow. Well it’s getting time to shower and pull up anchor for the day. Lets see what adventures unfold for the day.

Boy, What another great day on the lower Mississippi. I hear so many bad things about the Lower Mississippi. But I only see her beauty. I view her like any other lake or ocean. You must have respect for her and have a great captain on board as I do.  Thank you my great captain.

We have been boating together for well over thirty years. Bryce did a lot of boating with his family. His father liked boating like we do.

The Delta Mariner passed us on the lower Mississippi. The last time we saw her was two years ago at lock 53/52 on the Ohio River. We had to wait because she is a high priority vessel. She is designed for shallow inland waterways as well as the open ocean. She is 312 ft long and is 84 ft. wide.  And she is also 50 ft. tall but only drafts 8 feet. So she is perfect for the rivers.  She carries a Common Booster Core Which is an American rocket stage. These boosters are used on the Delta IV rocket as part of a modular rocket system. If you are interested in reading more about the Delta Mariner. https://en.m.wikipedia.org  

Here is another side by side set of tows.  One tow is working, the other is hitching a ride. I always thought maybe they were heading to a dry dock for repair. But perhaps they are new ones being delivered.  There are a number of tows and barges here at Greenville for repairs at the Mississippi Marine Dry dock.

Bryce saw on the AIS that a tow was coming out of the canal were we are heading into Greenville. Not knowing how wide the opening is, we decided to wait and let the tow come out before we entered. That is when I noticed these beautiful trees standing on a point. They looked so manicured. 

Awe.. here she come now. We started towards the opening. I could tell right away it was going to be a nice place to visit.

As we approached the opening I couldn’t help but noticed the sign. At first thought I was thinking maybe we could have them step our mast. Then reality hit me.. This is a tow area..

Just off  Lake Ferguson to our right or starboard side I saw this.. It reminds me of a car wash. Maybe this one is a tow wash…LOL

Looks like this is a scrap metal place.

Look.. we are seeing a small tow up close…poor thing looks like it’s sinking.

This is one huge elevator.

This is called Lake Ferguson. Boy she sure is long. I think it was a 5 mile run to our anchorage.

I noticed these two guys standing on the roof of a tow. They working hard on what looks like a new tow behind the trees.

This is a dry dock.. They are able to pull tows and barges in here and work on the underneath them.

Here a dry dock with a barge in it.  I was waving to the workers who are saying hello.

The Green building is the Mississippi Marine building.

As we made our way past the industrial area, the lake became so beautiful!

Another Canoeist heading back out to concur the Mighty Mississippi.  

Lake Ferguson is really pretty.

Here is a satellite view of the Mississippi and the entrance to our anchorage. The blue dot is where we are anchored.

After Bryce is done working for the day. We will go into Greenville and explore a bit… to be continued

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Trip down the Mississippi today was drop dead gorgeous.  Beautiful; the sun shined all day. The air was a tad cool but the sunshine made up for it. The river was peaceful today even with the traffic of all the tows. It’s funny; seems like we always met the tows on a curve. It’s really no big deal. Bryce just calls them on the VHF and ask what side they would like us to pass on.

If they are traveling the same way,  sometimes we just follow them. Because most of the time they travel faster than we do. We travel at 10 mph over ground. The tows sometimes 12 mph. What is funny is one day we will get passed by “Mark Staab” a few days later we just might see them again. In some sort of odd way, I think they all are watching us.

They also seem to like it when Bryce hails them as we pass by them. The other night when we were out in the heavy rain the tows radioed each other about us coming down the river so when we anchored for the night Bryce picked up the mic and told them we were anchored. They thanked Bryce for letting them know. 

I am starting to feel like it’s a family out here. LOL

Shortly after we pulled up anchor, just around the bend we saw more canoes on shore. This time there were two. I think it is safer to go down the river with a another buddy.  

The Army Corp Of Engineers had a huge project in this area.  This barge is a set of 4 cranes use to unload large concrete slabs to reinforce the dykes.

This was two large barges with sleeping quarters for the workers.  This was the size of a medium two story hotel.

Look at all these concreate slabs.. We see them placing them alone the shoreline to help stop the erosion.  These slabs are held together and to to shore with huge steel cables that wrap the dyke.

This tow is pushing 7 barges wide and 6 long for a total of 42 barges.

I thought this was a cute little tow.  Her name is Terrene. We have noticed that the little tows are used in areas to shuffle barges around.

Once again, a dredger scooping up water and sediment and shooting it out near the shore.

Look there I see life… okay maybe homes. We are stating to see a few more homes along the river.

This is a bit unusual, George is awake and watching the shore go by as we cruise along the river.

We were passed by two north bound Twos after anchoring last night.

Such a pretty evening we just had to enjoy a few minutes of it.

I was cooking chicken stove top stuffing and Bryce was grilling chicken. Poor George didn’t know if he wanted to be up or down.. of course he loves to eat chicken.

Our anchorage last night. Remember you can always check on our whereabouts by going to https://trackmytour.com/35L17  Feel free to leave a message too.

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After we anchored in the evening, the first thing I do is start dinner. We are both normally hungry. While I was messing around in the galley, Bryce poked his head down the companionway and said, “you have to come see this”. On the river, it looked like an expressway of tows. There were 4 tows/barges, two in each direction passing. Beauty didn’t wiggle at all when they went by.  So it was a good anchorage.

We woke up early this morning wanting to leave at dawn. As the sun raised, Bryce noticed we had two south bound tows and one north bound tow passing us. He wanted to wait for them to clear out before we pulled up anchor.  What a difference a day makes. It might not be too warm out, but the sun was bright and warm. We ran our Furnace all night to keep the morning chill off us. I don’t like doing that because I don’t like using the propane. However, it was cold enough. Weather man said 36 degrees last night. You bet your bottom dollar we are happy to be heading south. We passed and were passed by a numerous tows with barges today.

Here is an Army Corp of Engineers tow headed to an upstream dredging.

This vessel name is Mark Staab.  We passed and were passed by this tow a few times over the last few days. The captain came out to wave to us.

The lower Mississippi is just a wide open river.  Very easy to navigate.

Here is Helena Bridge; US 49. This bridge is huge. It’s over a 100 feet tall. 

It was so cool to see these two tows passing each other. It looked at one point like they were going to hit. But of course it was an optical illusion.

The Army Corp of Engineers was busy reinforcing the dyke here.

This guy is canoeing down the Mississippi. I yelled out to him just to see how he was doing.  These guys normally start in Minnesota and paddle down to New Orleans.  The Mississippi has a number of whirlpools.  Most of you know what I am talking about.  Because I always say they could suck me into a new dimension.  I have read that they are very dangerous to go near with a kayak or canoe.

George is really relaxing..

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