We9re at anchor behind Angelo Towhead Island at the junction of the Ohio and
Mississippi rivers.  It's a beautiful evening, the fish are jumping, Mary
has cooked a meal I wouldn't have thought possible on an alcohol stove, and
we're replete and happy.

We were entertained by relatives in Peoria and good friends in St Louis,
from where we made use of Southwest Airlines relatively cheap fares to make
a 24-hour dash to Kansas City to visit Mary's family in Platte City, MO.
Since the last post we have had much better lock luck, and on the two
Mississippi locks we were taken in immediately and allowed to float, which
we loved.

We've met and enjoyed chatting with several more loopers, including Wayne
Roberts on "Opelousas", who happened to be reading our last post at the
Alton Marina as we pulled in, and Della and Floyd on their home-made boat
"Freddy Freddy", on which they live full-time and with whom we shared the
wall at the Kaskasia lock.

Fuel just missed being a big issue for us.  In contrast to the well-known
stretch on the Mississippi and Ohio where fuel is scarce, we've never seen
it noted that there is no gas between Peoria and the brand new marina at
Grafton, some 160 odd miles.  Had we read Skipper Bob's book closely enough
ahead of time we might have noticed the lack of references to fuel, but we
didn't and only a chance remark by someone at the Detweiler Marina in Peoria
prevented us from leaving with insufficient fuel to make Grafton.  We think
loopers need as much warning about this stretch as they get for the
Mississippi/Ohio River stretch.

Patrick and Mary Fowles
25 ft C Dory Cosmic C
Currently at anchor behind Angelo Towhead Island
Www.the-fowles.com

We just returned from a few weeks on the Champlain and Erie Canals, and
were impressed once again by the friendliness of the local folks there.

Tug 44 had developed an engine anti-freeze leak in a cabin heater box, and
it was late and nothing was open at the town of Waterford at that hour.

I walked up the street and spoke to the folks at the first house along the
way and asked them, "Do you by any wild chance happen to have a couple of
inches of old scrap 1/2 inch copper tubing, standard water pipe ... to fix
my boat?"

The man said "yes" and invited me into his basement where he ripped out an
unused section of water pipe right out of his ceiling.  He said "We always
take real good care of the boaters, it's very important here!"

20 minutes later, I had my heater box bypassed and all was safe and well
once again.

And at Lock 11 on the Erie, I needed to mail out my Federal Estimated Tax
payments on September 15th, and Cindy the lock keeper there said "I'm busy
right now, but here, just take my car into town and mail it at the post
office".  Just wow!

Later at Little Falls, we met the owners of a commercial tug named
National, and went to dinner with them.  The next morning, I was allowed to
operate their boat, a 41 ton little brute.  VERY exciting for me!  Docking
was particularly strange ... while approaching the pier, I put it into
reverse, gave it some throttle, and waited what seemed like 10 minutes
before the boat started slowing down.  It was nothing like operating my
American Tug.

We stayed a few days at Little Falls, one of my favorite stops, and Tom
Ryan, the nicest guy on the canal and operator of the town docks there,
drove us all over 2 different towns in his car for some shopping errands we
needed to do.

Canal folks are such a nice contrast to the folks I meet everywhere else,
I'm starting to think maybe it's just something in the water...

We brought back over 500 photos from the trip which will soon start
appearing on our web site at http://www.tug44.org/

Best wishes to all,

Fred W.
Tug 44 (American Tug 34')