Yes, today we went past the Gateway City that was truly the entrance to the west for many pioneers. The St. Louis Arch is the tallest manmade monument in the USA and quite an engineering feat. Unfortunately the elements in downtown St. Louis have made this beautiful park practically unusable after dark and there is no place for a pleasure boat to dock in the entire city. So we just eased by at around 10 mph and took a few shots.
Our destination today was Hoppies, a real Looper institution on the river where Hoppie and wife Fern are working the dock every day with the help of daughter Debbie. I have no idea how old they are but none of us last forever and they are getting up there.
Hoppies is the absolute last stop for water or fuel for 240 miles on the Loop. So we topped up the tanks and will head out in the morning. We have only burned 24.8 gallons since Port Charles and that is over 60 miles plus idling for three locks. That is pretty good milage for Cbay and shows that slower speeds save much fuel. Today we got a nice push from the Missouri when it fed into the Mississippi. We were running 12+ mph from St. Louis to Hoppies.
We are rafted off beside Native Son due to a premium on space here but we do have power.
At 5pm Fern Hopkins holds a meeting on the dock every day and briefs boaters on the conditions on the Mississippi. She is a virtual encyclopedia of information. We learned that none of the anchorages in our guidebooks are available due to low water but we already were prepared for that.
Jan prepared a delicious dinner of picadillo for all of us and we ate on the flybridge as we watched tows go past on the river. We leave at 0730 in the morning.
