October 10. Day 8. Muscantine to Burlington.

Evidentally none of us are morning people. We decided the night before that it was going to be a sleep-in day (do we seem to have a lot of those?), but Wade and I were up at 7am anyway. A boat had parked next to us after we had gone to bed that night and we discovered who that morning. It was a pontoon looking boat named "Jelly Bean". I'm not sure why but the thought of "Chicken of the Sea" and "Jelly Bean" alone at the dock together was terribly amusing for me. I think we should be paid for the advertisement of all these products! I'd love to hear the stories behind the names picked out for certain vessels like ours. There was frost on the dock, but the sun was out so I had high hopes for a nice day. Shipped off at 8:30 and my high hopes were dashed. Wade started us out and shortly after he opened the cabin doors for us to see - it was snowing like crazy out there! Because it was so cold out (not sure what temp exactly but it was very very chilly) we agreed to take smaller shifts at the tiller. I relieved Wade an hour and a half later versus the two and a half hours that we typically sit at the tiller for - bundled in no less than six layers! Thankfully I stayed warm enough and took a longer shift than Wade. Jenny relieved me and Wade relieved her when she was cold. Pretty uneventful. Went through Lock and Dam 17 and 18, and lucked out on the second. We arrived at the Lock just after a barge radioed in - coming from the opposite direction. We would have had to wait up to an hour and a half for him to come through, but the barge radioed in that he could wait 5 extra minutes and to send us through before him. Thank you Captain Barge-man!

We arrived in Burlington, IA at 4 o'clock and stopped at the city port. There was one other boat there - a 32 foot Adventure sailboat, who had put in at Dubuque and was preparing for a trip to South America! This was the second person we've met who was going down the Mississippi. The other fellow was in a canoe - going to St. Louis from the Twin Cities, MN. Talking with the attendants at the Locks and Dams, though, I guess it's not really that uncommon that someone comes through with the intention of going all the way down.

Anyway, we picked up a map and followed my guidebook to the attractions of Burlington. This city was just starting in the mid 1800's and it was evident by array of old buildings at every turn. It seemed every block had large church with a tall steeple, and even the residential section was composed of Victorian era homes. We walked 6 blocks to our first site - Snake Alley. Snake Alley is supposed to be the "crookedest street" in the world! While we were there, we met a fellow tourist - we were slowly noticing the change in accents as we progressed south, but we could tell she wasn't from around there. Turns out she came all the way from Germany! She thought it was the neatest thing ever that we were sailing the whole Mississippi and even took our picture. If we were as fast thinking as she was, we would have gotten hers too. Oh well. We chatted for a while and then continued on our way. Found a Dairy Queen! For hours afterward Jenny and I could not talk without our teeth chattering, but it was well worth it.

We also went to the birthhome of the famous Aldo Leopold - Father of conservation and writer of A Sand County Almanac. Both Wade and I had to read his work while we were in college, so it was cool for us, while Jenny had never heard of the guy but humored us anyway. By the time we walked back to the boat, it was getting dark and we agreed to stay at the city dock but also that we needed supplies. We were almost out of propane for our heater and there were rumors that it was supposed to get down to 25 degrees that night, we needed more gasoline containers, fuel for our lantern and coleman stove, etc. Wade "google texted" (it's a question answering service via text messaging) a number for a taxi service and we were picked up shortly after and taken to Walmart. Ended up getting enough stuff to sustain a small army trapped in antartica for a month, and getting it all packed away on the boat was no easy task.

Corn dogs for supper and an attempt at blogging before our power died and it was time for bed!

Just a side note: We have to run the generator every couple of days to keep our power going, and lately our charger has been down. Hence, we haven't been able to power the laptop to keep up our blogging. Expect to be back up to date by tomorrow, thanks.