Wed Oct 25: A Day of Rest in Alton

We have been moving every day, so it was time for a day of rest.  Which is why Rick jumped up at the crack o’ dawn to change the fuel filter.  Of course he did... 🙄

Then it was time for another load of laundry, before the next glut of Looper boats arrived, and a visit to the hardware and grocery stores.  The hardware stop gave Rick a chance to buy the wrong-size part in yet another state, so that was a plus.  We really know how to live it up!!

This is what I was noticing while Rick was buying the wrong part!  We could really have used this a couple of years ago Aug in FL…

Because this part of the trip has a new issue every other day, it came as no surprise to hear that the marinas from here north will shut off water on the docks Oct 31. Winter is coming, people.  It remains to be seen what will happen at the marinas south of here.  We also got the awesome news that it may go from 80 degrees to snow next week.  Arggggggg-we can only go so fast each day.  Trying. To. Get. South.

Later we walked into the ‘rode-hard-put-away-wet’ town and found a brewery that charmed us with a pretzel & yummy beer cheese sauce!

Alton is located at the confluence of the IL, MO and MS Rivers-and was once the site of several major brick factories.  It still has an unusually high number of streets paved in brick. That’s all I got as far as history blah blah because Rick is so busy organizing he can't help me out here…

Commodore Rick arranged a 5pm meeting for any boat doing the two big Mississippi locks tomorrow.  It is a measure of how beloved he is that ALL of our 9-boat flotilla (plus some other boats) showed up - even though only ONE of them was actually going to leave with us tomorrow! It was super fun to be back together; from here we will split apart on different agendas.  But we made a tentative plan to see some people in the Bahamas in March.

Big highway bridge behind the marina…

 

Goodnight!