Life on the Mississippi – St. Louis MO and Canton MO [June 30 – July 1, 2016]

A 16 barge "tow" off of St. Louis

The Mississippi is a very busy, working river.  The river is bustling with barges and tug "tows" moving all kinds of goods up and down the river.  The tows involve as many as 16 barges tied 3 across and 5 long, and pushed from behind by a huge tug, with one barge fastened to the side of the tug.  A tow this size is about ¼ mile long.  It carries the equivalent load of 870 large semi trucks (11.5 miles bumper to bumper) or 2.75 miles of rail cars.  Impressive.  The shores of the river are dotted with groups of tall silos.

Gateway Arch Riverboats tour boat

One of many bridges to St. Louis

Our introduction to the Mississippi River was on a Gateway Arch Riverboat in St. Louis.  The boat takes you along the river upstream and then downstream; under its many bridges.  St. Louis has made great efforts to clean up their riverfront.  A derelict building is painted with a lovely mural that you see as you cross one of the many bridges that cross the river from Illinois.

These tugs are BIG!

On our drive to St. Louis, we listened to Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, a memoir of his young adulthood as a steamboat pilot, and the subsequent replacement of steamboats after the Civil War with barges.  Twain describes how the river cut new channels and flowed back into oxbows.  Much of that volatility is now controlled by a series of dams and locks built between St. Louis and Minneapolis.

A tow coming through the locks near Canton MO, note the deckhands sitting on the front corner.

Close up of the 3 barges across and the deckhands.

We camped at a community campground next to a dam and lock in Canton MO.  The campground strung along the bank of the Mississippi.  We watched barge and tug tows pass through the locks in both directions.  In some cases, the tow was too long for the lock, so they disconnected a group of barges, and passed them through first, followed by a second process for the remaining barges and the tug.  We woke up in the morning to find a tow outside our window waiting its turn to go through the lock.

Morning tow awaiting a turn through the locks.

We came to appreciate the beauty of the Mississippi River while we were in that campground.  Watching the water flow past is just as relaxing and mesmerizing as watching ocean waves roll in to shore.  The opposite bank had fluffy green trees seen from a distance.  It was a peaceful scene.

Kids fishing.

1/4 mile long is a long way.