Day 46: Sn 10/28- A Mark Twain Barge Sandwich

We got a good start in the morning with some nice sunny weather. We made the 11 miles to Hannibal quickly. We were excited to see Mark Twains hometown, since we were re-reading a copy of Huck Finn that my mom gave us.
The downtown/riverside of Hannibal was super cute with some brick roads and everything seemed to be name the "Mark Twain ______". The income level appeared to drop suddenly as we got toward the top of the hill and came up on the combination Family Dollar/Save A Lot. We were able to resupply a lot of our supplies including dog food. We carried our supplies the mile back to the river and ate lunch on the dock.
While we ate and admired the Mark Twain Paddle Boat(pic), a big barge passed us which was unfortunate because Dam #22 was eight miles down. We followed the barge a few miles back and gained sight of the dam while he was still finishing positioning to start locking. We drifted up the last mile or so and finally hung on to a mooring piling. When we eventually decided to go and wait on shore we saw another barge coming up. We didn't want to wait another two hours so we stayed close and hurried up to pull the signal cord as soon as the tug entered the lock.
The lock guy came out to us on the guide wall and instructed us to pull up the just outside the gates and hang onto a service ladder. They were going to get us through between barges but the barge behind us was lining up on the guide wall right behind us. That was a little freaky being between a hydraulic gate and a huge barge.
We made it through the lock without getting squished. Behind schedule, we paddled until after the sun disappeared and made our camp on Gilbert Island. Making and eventful day with 24 miles accomplished.