Saturday, September 10, 2016

Ellis Grove, IL to Olmstead, IL

Miles Traveled 135
Total Miles Traveled 6870
Day 367

Most of the severe weather and heavy rain was well north of us last night and according to the river forecast, the Mississippi River will rise about 4 feet over the next few days.  We decided to make a long run of it today to get off of the Mississippi River and onto the Ohio River.  We followed the cold front all the way down.



We found several very turbulent places on the Mississippi, I was able to take a couple of pictures of these, but the big whirlpools kept me busy keeping the boat on course.





After 120 miles cruising down the Mississippi River, we made the turn upstream on the Ohio River, we went from an average speed of 12-13 mph with the current to 7 mph against the current.  The Ohio River was noticeably cleaner and less turbulent too.


We are anchored just before the Olmstead Lock and Dam.  This is a new lock and dam that has been under construction for the past several years and will replace the next two upstream locks #52 and #53.  This is a real bottleneck for all boats on the river system creating long delays.  Pleasure boats have a low priority when locking through and waiting several hours is not uncommon.

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