Alton to Kaskaskia Lock 9/24/17

We left Alton at 7:30 after calling ahead to the lock.  Matt at the lock advised us that they would take us right away and we should head on down.  The Detroit Diesels in the boat are so loud that they will wake up everyone and there is no sneaking out of anywhere when they are running.  We untied everything and started up the engines as the last thing to leave. We went straight into the locks with two other loopers, Resolute and Liberty Ship. The next lock was the Chain of Rocks which has double chambers and we were locked down in the smaller chamber right away. After all the horror stories we have heard we feel very lucky to be breezing through the locks with no waiting.  I hope I didn't just jinx ourselves.....

Something else is it's hot out here.  Summer finally arrived after not needing AC in Canada for just about the whole summer it's 90 degrees here and hasn't rained now for almost two weeks.  I think it will cool off next week which is OK with me.

We went through St Louis today.  The Arch

The Mel Price Lock.  Our first lock on the Mississippi

Chain of Rocks canal.  If you stay in the Mississippi here you will be on the rocks!

Later in the afternoon we passed Hoppie's and kept on going.  Everyone knows of Hoppie's but since it was early and we didn't need fuel or anything we kept on going to Kaskaskia Lock where there is a free wall to tie to.  Hoppie's is nothing more than a couple of old barges tied to the shore with no wake protection and no services for $1.25 a foot a night.  Kaskaskia is much nicer, no wakes or current and FREE.  We ran the AC until we went to bed and were comfortable through the night with the boat closed up.

Hoppie's in Fenton MO