Orinoco, a 48 Tollycraft, just completed a dream trip of mine by traveling the Lower Mississippi and Atchfalaya River from St Louis to Houston. This is a great trip that we now are making a "loop" out of by going back up the Tenn-tom and returning to Cairo, where we will go on upstream to Alton. We left Alton on April 1, made the usual stops at Hoppies, Diversion Canal and then hit the big river below Cairo. The Mississippi was running between 4 and 5 mph, so 130 mile days were normal. We used Active Captain to locate anchorages and they were exactly as reviewed. I thank those few who wrote those reviews and made my anchorages look good. We picked up my brother and his wife in Memphis and continued the trip to below Natchez and the Old River Lock where we locked down into the Atchafalaya. The Atchafalaya is a big river, not as contained by dikes as the lower Mississippi, but still plenty of current. We stopped at Morgan City and had a delightful day of resting, went to a great hardware store and ate at a delicious Cuban restaurant. We turned right at the ICW and went to Lakewood Yacht club in time for Wheels and Keels. The big tows and currents cause some conditions that you don't experience in other waters. The Tows are big, the biggest was a 6 wide and 7 long for a total of 42 barges and was pushed by a three engine large tug. The river is marked with buoys, and it is advised to stay within the channel, we saw a lot of water at 12 ft in the edges of the channel and 60 to 80 ft in the center. The upstream tows run the inside of the bends and stay away from the outside bends because of currents and the downstream tows run the outside because of the current advantages. I ran my usually cruising rpm which in slack water gives me 9 MPH, with current, Orinoco made 13.5 to 15 mph and according to AIS, the downsteam tows ran about 9mph and the upstream tows about 3 to 6 mph. Those upstream bound tows made a lot of propwash turbulence that resulted in big standing waves going downstream 1/8 mile and you did not want to ride one of those waves. We used the AIS a lot and talked to the tows usually to stay out of their way, because when two of these guys pass in a bend, there is not a lot of room. Help on these sections is far between, with only two Marinas, Memphis which is a great stop and Greenville Miss. Fuel is available at both. Vicksburg is a beautiful town on the river with a slack water harbor and no services. Natchez is a beautiful town with no services. Robert and Patty Mitchell with Maggi the wonder dog ORINOCO lying Grand River Kentucky