Wednesday Aug. 28

132 miles    Kaskaskia Lock to Ohio river, IL mm# 966

Yes you read that right, 132 miles today. We started out at 0645, sunny 90+ degree day.  13 tows, 0 locks. This section of the Miss. River is very busy with tow traffic. With the current adding 4 mph we made good time despite passing all those tows.

 

We passed a city called Chester which is located in Randolph County. (I couldn’t resist putting this in the blog).

  City of Chester

 

 Chester Bridge

 

 

All along the Miss. River the Corp of Engineers put fingers of rock in the water to “control” the flow of the water. Some stick straight out from shore and some are put in u shapes. I’m not sure it’s working like they planned. This is one of the reasons we had a longer ride today. Most of the areas you used to be able to anchor in along the banks are now all silted in and too shallow. There are also no marinas in this section of river.

 

Silting all around the rocks.

 

 The color of the cliffs is changing the farther south we go. Notice the reddish tint to these?

At 1600 we left the Miss. River for the Ohio River. This slowed our traveling down because we are now going upriver. We found an anchorage at 1745 near a new dam that is being built on the Ohio. This dam when completed in 2014 will replace 2 dams that are currently being used.

 Miss. River on left, and Ohio River on right.

 

 The new Olmstead dam.