I am anticipating about six weeks to get the boat to Michigan City. It's a single Ford-Lehman powered Grand Banks 36, about 8 MPH in still water and maybe 9 if pushed a little. I took my own GB42 (29 years ownership) up to as far as Chattanooga once, but that was in the Fall and BEFORE Active Captain now showing on my chart plotter. Since the boat has no AIS, I have purchased an AIS dongle for my two Coastal Explorer laptops. Crew for this trip is wife and me, veteran cruisers. I have absolutely no concerns about the Tombigbee, Tennessee, Ohio, or Illinois rivers, as I have experience on some and have studied every AC anchorage entry and associated reviews for the entire 1300-mile trip and believe we will always be able to find nightly shelter with the possible exception of the Mighty Miss due to our slowed speed there. However, I will be carrying a large halogen work light to mount on the bow should we get stuck on any waterway at night. We know how to cross large bodies of water overnight, but have no intention of testing such skills in rivers. So my ONLY concerns about a waterway are centered on the 219 miles of the Mississippi we must traverse. We certainly won't see water so low there that we would have trouble entering some anchorages, but the more likely high water has its own issues. I am daily watching the Cape Girardeau levels with the idea that a stage of around 18 feet is doable but will gladly to consider any advice about this river from true veterans of it.