And these are the Mississippi River boat pictures.  I kept them on a separate page as they are kind of a theme to themselves.  All of these pictures were taken from the Riverboat Natchez which in and of itself is a great classic boat.

The first is a pic of the ferry boat that goes between Canal Street in New Orleans south across the river to Algers.  Think about how dangerous that job is - driving a boat cross-wise to river traffic which includes dozens if not hundreds of the boats in the following pics.



This is a barge being pushed by a pusher tug.  Believe me - this is very small and it is still big.



We saw an ocean tow coming up river.  By the way - that river - it is said to run at 2-4 knots current.  While were out it looked like more than that - eddies, whirl pools, chop - it was all across the river but these boats just churned away beating into the current.



This is about the biggest of the boats we saw on the  river.  This boat was taking on a load from the Chevron refinery.



Here is a tug pushing its barges into the side of the river.  Many were parked like this - I wonder why.  The load was heavy steel beams perhaps for an offshore drilling rig.



This was an interesting tug.  Apparently it is for large loads that ride high above the water on the barges.



This little guy is at the Navy base.  It is a water taxi to go back and forth across the river.



The Mississippi River was more impressive from the airplane.  Mile after mile of wide river bending back and forth as it wound its way north.  Everywhere you looked from the plane you saw the barges either digging their way along the river or driven up into the side and idle.  Big ships were moving around and many were anchored.  I did not see a single pleasure boat from either the air or when we were on our Natchez boat trip.  Guess the lower Mississippi is all about work and no play.