Day 9 down the river (11/5/11)

Another cold morning but had lots of sunshine by afternoon and was nice
other than the wind. Made 2 more locks today without much problem. At one
point during the morning Dave turned to avoid what we thought was a log on the the river. But then realized it was swiming at us, and when it was about 10' to 15' it turned back to the shoreline. Turns out it was a deer. The river was over a mile wide where the deer was swiming, and we in the middle of the river. I did get one photo, but didn't turn out, the deer is just a white speck in the middle of the photo, darn.

I checked with a number of marinas today to find a place to dock for the night, but at most places the water level was too low. We did find one at Grafton, IL, and stopped there for the night. It was a party marina, and there were lot of guys with big boats and stereos. Just before sundown most headed out. We had pizza at the marina for dinner and settled in for the night. Sitting there with heater, lights, and computers going, we lost the 110 volt power. The inverter had truned off becase the batteries were low. That is when we found out the power from the marina turned off . I found one of the guys in the store, which was closed, playing on his phone. He was able to get the power turned on for us, so we were good for the night.

Tomorrow (Sunday) looks like good weather and we will going through St.
Louis in the morning sometime. We have 2 locks tomorrow then none for a couple days. We should be able to update the blog Sunday night but then not sure about the next couple of days after that. The Spot will work and so our location will be posted.