Canton, Missouri

One hundred forty miles west of Springfield, Illinois, is the small town of Canton, MO, situated on the west side of the Mississippi River. We're staying in a city park, with full hookups, about 30 feet from The Big Muddy, within a stone's throw of Lock and Dam 20.

I washed Nessie and Gus yesterday afternoon in preparation for moving on.  Little did I know that a strong thunderstorm would roll through central Illinois this morning dropping 4.25" of rain in just over 3 hours. We had a couple of hours of cloudy weather, and then it opened up.  We drove most of the way to Canton in a driving rainstorm (ha! Get it?) that the windshield wipers just barely kept up with. All the roads had running or standing water, so speeds were necessarily down.  We turned north near Hannibal, MO, and followed I172 into Quincy, IL.  The rain decided to do the thunderstorm thing and when the streetlights came on, we knew we were in trouble.

The visibility was so poor that we missed a turn in Quincy and took Nessie down some very narrow streets in the River Front district.  Fortunately, other drivers were sympathetic, and we made it back to the correct route, but let me tell you, driving a 58 foot long train through a heavy rainstorm in an unfamiliar area with so much water on the road that you can't see the curb is a real interesting situation!

As soon as it had started earlier this morning, the storm moved off southeast and we were in sunshine. In its wake we saw some interesting cloud formations.

Our campsite is a bit rustic, since two weeks ago the Mississippi crested at this point at its fifth highest level on record and the campground was completely under water.  In fact, an adjacent 4' high fence still has debris stuck in it.  There is a layer of dark brown, but drying, mud over everything except the concrete pads, which the city has cleaned.  They are hoping for some warm dry weather this week to get rid of the mud, but tomorrow there is a 40% chance of rain.  Here we go again!

We can see Lock 20 from our window, but decided to walk a little closer the check out the action.  Just as we arrived a barge came through going downriver.

And off she went!  The ability of the captain of the boat to push the 1000 foot long barge into precise locations is amazing.  The lock is just a few feet wider than the barges, and in most cases, is not as long as the barges, so the ship pushes the long barge into the lock, the barges are disconnected somewhere in the middle, the first half is winched out of the lock, then the ship pushes the second half through and the whole kit and caboodle is lashed together again, and off they go.  The whole process takes about an hour, and there are 29 locks on the river! Right now, the river is high enough that the lock isn't needed to raise and lower the barge, but later on in the summer, the dams will close to raise the water level at each "lake"to a minimum of 9', which is just a bit over the draft of the barges. The barges carry everything from grain and corn to steel and coal.  Anything that must be moved north or south in the midwest is probably going to be transported by water.

What a day! The fabled Mississippi River just a few feet away, warm temps, and good neighbors.  What more could we want?