Grafton to Hoppies

Condos Near Grafton

Today we took a short ride (17 miles, 2.1 Hrs) from Grafton, IL to Alton, IL.  This put us closer to the Melvin Price Lock (the one that we are waiting on to open).

Cliffs along the Mississippi

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The Mel Price lock opened on Saturday morning for southbound traffic. The first group to lock through were two Pleasure Craft, Lesson Plan and Phantom. This is the second time we saw Phantom on the Loop.  The first time was in Hammond.  Herb, the captain of Phantom is solo on this part of the loop.  He left Hammond on Tuesday (before we left on Friday).  He was at Alton Marina when we arrived on Friday, along with five other loop boats.  The other five decided they would wait a day or two, until things settled down in the lock. We got out ahead of all the southbound commercial traffic and made it through the two locks on the Mississippi with no issues. 

Our Lady of the Rivers

These four ladies in canoes are paddling to the Gulf

St. Louis was a disappointment from the river. For a town that seems like its heritage is tied closely to the river, the riverfront in St. Louis is pathetic.  There is no place on the river to stop in downtown St. Louis. Check out the time lapse photo movie of Lesson Plan's pass through St. Louis.I was excited about going down the Mississippi right by downtown St. Louis and the Gateway tot he West, the Arch. I charged up the GoPro and made sure to start it as soon as we left the second Lock of the day, 5 miles to St. Louis. The place where Louis and Clark visited. St. Louis was founded in 1764 as a French fur-trading port. By the 1850's over 5,000 paddle wheel steamships would visit St. Louis each year. The Gateway Arch was the winning design in 1947 to recognize St. Louis as the Gateway to the West (construction began on February 1963). The riverfront should be alive and thriving. A welcoming hub for those arriving by water. I was looking forward to this passage. 

A nice house on the hill

We made it to Hoppies Marina (mm 158) on the Mississippi. When we arrived it was much earlier than we liked to stop, but the is the last fuel stop until Paducah, so it is a necessary stop to top off the tanks.  I estimate that we can go about 320 miles on the fuel we have on board (40 gallons usable). Paducah is 207 miles.  But we don't know what the current in the Ohio River will do to our MPG, which has been about 8 so far.  

Lesson Plan resting at Alton Marina

The next morning we leave for our most ambitious day yet, 110 miles.  We have our buddy boat Phantom traveling with us (although he could be much faster than us if he wanted). This stretch of the river is not exactly pleasure craft friendly.  There are no marinas and safe anchorages are far and few. So off we went to make it to a little cove just below Cape Girardeau, MO. (mile 48.8).  From there we will attempt to make Paducah the next day, nearly 90 miles (and one lock).  Will we make it?  Tune in in two days to find out what happens to this hapless duo of boats.  

Lesson Learned: Sometimes a city is just a city. I had St. Louis built up in my mind that it would be fabulous to see from the river, but it has less on the river than we have seen in some of the towns a 10th (maybe 100th) its size.