I started off the day going into town to the local farmers market and to see a series of paintings on the walls of the levees that surrounded the town.The farmers market had one farmer, but hey, that''s all I needed. The murals on the levee walls were very beautiful and they had plaques that told the stories about each mural. It's always interesting to learn about each town we go to and find out tidbits of history about famous figures in America's past.

We departed around 10am and we were going to go through 3 locks within the first few hours of our travels. Little did we know that the water levels were so high in this part of the river that the locks and dams were pretty much submerged and we actually crossed over the dams. That cut down a lot of time and what a new experience! Traveling on the Ohio river, we were going downstream and at certain times the current added 5 knots to our speed. Once on the MIssissippi that changed. The river goes upstream and is against the current, knocking off about 3 knots an hour. We were warned that the Mississippi was very busy and it is. We encountered lots of tugs/barges and many of the tows were 5 barges across and 5 barges long. We were making good time overall and decided to forge ahead for a couple more hours to an anchorage that was supposed to be isolated from the barge traffic. We encountered a problem in that the water was so high we couldn't determine where the entrance to the cut-off was and we didn't want to run aground. We settled on anchoring near the anchorage but on the banks of the Mississippi. There continues to be a lot of barge traffic and somewhat of a wake from the traffic, but we are safe from the activity.