STL

Congrats Eric and Erin

Junior, Devin, and Eric in Beardstown, IL

We made it to St. Louis! It's been an exciting week since our last update. We had many visitors and met lots of new friends. Three of our college buddy's met us in the small town of Beardstown, IL. Jason and Devin Duvernay came for an exciting night aboard, although they had to leave the next morning and didn't get to travel down the river with us, they did get to experience the Logsdon Tug Service. It wasn't quite a 5 star marina, and was actually just a tugboat company that let us tie onto their barge. Also Eric Wehrman joined us that evening and since he has some time off before he starts his new job with Delta Airlines he got to travel down the Illinois river with us. Before they arrived they all went to the grocery store for us and we were replenished with perishable foods. The next night we dropped the anchor near a small island and cooked a feast. Eric was a bit concerned that we had no cell phone reception and we were in the middle of nowhere, but soon he really started to enjoy the fact that we were cut off from the rest of the world.

The next morning we had an exciting experience in the lock, that included being blasted by the propwash from a tugboat pushing 12 barges! Twas quite scary for us all, and it changed Eric's attitude about transiting through locks (initially he was really excited to see one in action). The afternoon brought us to our destination of Grafton, IL which is the confluence of the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers. Now we really had some current pushing us, but with that came lots of deadheads floating by. In Grafton Eric's new Fiance Erin Obrien joined us for the night (congratulations you guys!). She met us at the Loading Dock bar where we tied up for the night. There was a bonfire going on and again people caught wind of our adventure, the Caterpillar employees from Decatur were asking us questions about the boat so of course we had to invite them aboard. They were a bit intoxicated and wrote some very funny entries into the ships log!

Rowdy bunch from Decatur at the Loading Dock

Aunt Lynne introduced us to the most delicious frozen custard in St. Louis

Erin and Eric joined us for the rest of the journey to St. Louis. Erin's beautiful female voice seduced the lockmasters into expediting our travel through. Right I am using the internet at Eric's Aunt's house. This sweet woman named Lynn took us to Vietnamese dinner and Ted Drewes custurd for dessert! Then she must have realized we were quite smelly and offered us a shower and a bed for the night, so we thought we better take advantage. Thanks for the breakfast and spatula too Lynne!