Quincy, IL - cont.

A jungle of electronics festooned the dock power pillars as we hungrily recharges our respective gadgets. We decided to sleep out on the end of the jetty under the stars while Bobby slung himself in the hammock on the boat.

At 4:20am my Treo bleeped intrusively. The sky was still black. I snoozed it until 5am and then roused the crew up. Coffee, some packing and we were off to an early start at 6:15am. As we idled out of the channel everything was still. The water like a mirror as we passed under the span bridge running into Quincy.

Bobby wrapped himself up in the starboard hammock…he had not slept at all he said. The mosquitos made a meal of him he said. A little while later we locked through Lock 21. If we can do 7 locks today (137 miles) we will be in St. Louis this evening (we had called Les to give him an FYI we were coming).

The river is a curious blend of factories-pumping their effluent into the Mississippi- and long stretches of thick trees protecting its banks.