We left early in the morning for our trip to Hoppies that included two lock, Mel Price and Lock 27 (aka The Chain of Rocks). Tony was named Lieutenant of the Floatilla by the Swedish sailor after he called the locks and successfully got us all in the cue without much wait. As we cruised into the St. Louis waterfront area and past the arch, we made sure to get pictures of us with the arch in the background, along with Bill and Sue on Blondie, Karen and David on It's About Time, and the sailors from Sweden on Ella. Bill and Sue took pictures of us. We continued the rest of the way to Hoppies passing corn processing plants, beautiful trees changing colors, and exposed banks of the river with the low water levels. Once we arrived at Hoppies, we waited quite a while while others fueled up and got tied up in their slips. Once we got tied up, we set out for town with the crew of Blondie in search of mile high apple pie at the Blue Owl. We not only found the apple pie that we were searching for, we also found a cute little town full of people who had traveled there to enjoy the shops, winery and Blue Owl cuisine on this beautiful autumn day. We strolled the streets decorated with garlands of colored leaves and stacks of pumpkins and gourds. As we made our way back to the boat across the footbridge near the railroad tracks, we came upon young people dressed in sequence and ties taking pictures before heading to the homecoming dance. This was the first night to sleep directly on the Mississippi River.

We got back to the boat just in time to hear Debbie share with us about the Mississippi River and possible anchorages as we make our way to Paducah and then Green Turtle Bay. We made plans to head into town the next morning for breakfast at the Blue Owl since we would only be traveling 40 miles to the Kaskaskia Lock and Dam to tie up for the night.

We woke up the next morning and walked up to town and enjoyed a walk with Karen and David from It's About Time before meeting Bill and Sue at the Blue Owl. We also met Gary and Gina from Prime Interest in line at the Blue Owl and decided that we would all enjoy breakfast together. We had a lovely time! And when we returned to our boats, we found Ella and Fear Knot had already left! We suspected that we would find them later in the day at Kaskaskia Lock and Dam.