Sailing Last Mango

9/25 Woke up to a leisurely morning and left Hoppie’s after a breakfast smoothie with the Tailgater. It is wonderful. Thanks again Black Shift. We’ve found the Mississippi to be great, much better than the Illinois River. The Mississippi has been scenic thus far. The amount of commerce taking place is incredible for a guy like me. Found a statistic that 66% of the worlds grain passes through the Mel Price Lock. We’ve seen everything from mining, electricity generation (coal) to scrap iron and mulch being shredded and shipped. I wanted to pass on information about Hoppie’s. It’s an interesting place, very old school. If anyone has spent any time with rural people on the river. This is it. It reminds me of a friend my dad had when I was a kid duck hunting on the Mississippi. George lived very simply and his skin was as weathered his house.The facilities at Hoppie’s were almost nonexistent. There was power, water and fuel if you needed it. There was a restroom without toilet paper and...

9/19 Karen and I made reservations to rent  a car from the local Toyota dealer. We had plans to go to St. Louis and sight see. While on the way we met a couple “Skip and Marge” from Minnesota. They had similar plans so we split the rental. We got a RAV4 which was a great car. As it turns out Skip and Marge owned a company that built boats and actually sold Island Packets. On top of that they owned and sailed the same boat model as Last Mango. They are currently heading to their home in Florida on a 22 to 24 foot runabout with twin Yamaha 70’s. They spend their nights in a hotel and can really move if they need to. They said they only saw two other boats on their way down the Mississippi from Minnesota until they arrived in Grafton. Skip and Marge Closeup of Clyde Karen and her new friends. She loves her goats We had a great time at Grants Farm and Grants White Haven home in St. Louis. Unbeknownst to us Marge was a fountain of knowledge when it come...

The trip down the river on the 14th and 15th has not been that pleasurable. Let me start by saying that when we are boating or sailing, weather is the number one thing to follow closely. The flooding on this part of the Illinois River is incredible. Water is well over the flood stage. That’s good because we’re less likely to run aground. Last Mango needs at least 4 1/2 feet to float without running aground. Also the high water makes the current run faster which helps lessen my fuel consumption (currently .46 gallons per hour @ 2400rpm). The downside of the high water is the amount of debris in the water makes it somewhat stressful to be motoring down the river. I told Karen it reminds me of the video game Frogger. Almost constantly having to dodge logs, tree branches and tires. Tree branches and more. More Debris. More Pictures of Flooding. Flooded dam. We get to pass right over it without locking. Hurray! Picture Maury and Sandy fro...

Thursday was an uneventful day. We left Ottawa and made it through the Starved Rock lock in about 1/2 hour. That’s a record locking time for us so far. We decided to anchor out at Lower Henry Island for the night rather than make the run to Peoria. The guides state to approach the anchorage from the south west which we did. We ran aground and took three attempts to extract ourselves. I thought Karen was going to kill me. We went further south and came in again with much more water under our keel. We’re seeing tons of White Pelicans and American Eagles. One of many groups of White Pelicans along the way. I made blueberry muffins to warm the cabin and attempted some fishing. The fish don’t seem to like shrimp but appear to love hot dogs. Haven’t landed any fish in the boat yet other than the nasty Asian Carp. It’s been a chilly day and it’s now a very dark and cold night.  Great Blueberry Muffin Recipe from King Arthur Flour. Perhaps we should have left a li...

Tuesday was an interesting day. We awoke to the sounds of rain about 3 in the morning. We got up and closed the hatches and windows and went back to sleep. Maury and Sandy came over for brunch and Mimosa’s. Sandy ended up doing most of the cooking. She made wonderful breakfast burrito’s. We’ve been planing on Mimosa’s for weeks now and just haven’t got around to it. Rose and Joe the champagne was great and we really appreciate it. It was my first Mimosa and I’m sure I have more in the future.  Mimosa's with Maury and Sandy After brunch Karen and I needed to make a run for propane. We had one tank go empty just after we left Kenosha. We made the 6 mile trip to Conway’s Amoco for a fill. Seemed it was uphill all the way. The Dahons (bicycles) really come in handy when making these short trips. These bikes are great. Beats walking. Afterwards Karen went to get a pedicure and I went for a jog. Got back from jogging and decide to bail the rainwater from the morning out ...