Burntside Adventures: On the Mississippi

Over the last 5 days we have descended the Illinois River and are well on our way down the MIssissippi. The rivers are in flood stage from all the fall rain. The Illinois ws full of barges and tows pushing them. It is also surprisingly void of population. I expected small river towns, but they were few and far between. Also, not much for cell service so minimal internet coming down that river. It's better now on the Mississippi. We have been traveling most of this distance with a couple of other boats, both sailboats, with their masts off. One of them is a catamaran with a group of three older guys , and the other is a couple several years younger than us, we have become good friends with. Coming down the Illinois, we tied off at free walls in Joliet and Havana, with a stay at SpringBrook marina in between, anchored out one night behind Buck Horn Island, rafted up with the other couple, and stayed at the Grafton Marina, then Hoppies lasat night. Hoppies was destroyed by floods and ice a year ago and is pretty third world. Cindy thought it was comparable to the apocolyptic community in the movie "Waterworld". It's at Kimmrick, Missouri, a nice little town full of craft shops. Today we are going to put on over 100 miles, and get close to the bottom of our stint on the Mississippi, start the slog up 50 miles of the Ohio River before the locks into the Kentucky Lkes and the Tennessee/Tombighbee waterway.