Week 13

 

Oct 6 – 1, 2025

Monday

I forgot to mention yesterday papa's miracle. Last night he landed in Peoria anticipating that he could call an Uber. Peoria is a big enough city and the app said Uber was available. Well he couldn't get a driver to come get him at 930pm. He couldn't find a taxi or a bus. We were starting to get concerned. He was only 12 miles away and we couldn't find a way to get him to us. A woman overheard him talking to Ed on the phone and offered to give him a ride. An angel in disguise!!!

We left Peoria heading down river. We got to the first lock of the day and had to wait over 3 hours. Luckily the 2nd lock was only 20 min. We traveled 39 nautical miles. It was a beautiful day cruising in 85 degrees.


We were losing daylight, so we just dropped our anchor in the river. We were on the outside of the red buoy and had the anchor light and flashlight on the flybridge. It was also almost a full moon. We hoped no one would hit us in the night. We also had a hard time getting the anchor to set. We were worried we'd drag in the night and get beached in the mud. It wasn't a great night sleeping! To top it off, A huge thunderstorm came through that was really loud.



Tuesday

It was still a drizzling rain this morning. We pulled up anchor just before 7am. We only had one lock that we only waited 20 min to get through.

The temperature had a significant drop to only 65 as the high today.

We traveled a long day and hurried at the end to get to the Grafton marina by dark. It was an 82 nautical mile day.


We went across the street to the Grafton pub for taco tues and a live bluegrass band. The tacos were only $1.50!!!


Wednesday

We hung around the boat all morning until we had our class. We called Elise to wish her a happy birthday!

Ed and I walked the whole length of main street. There's wasn't one stoplight.


It's a very cute quaint town. There was a sign that's said Grafton home of the wintering bald eagles. No wonder we see so many Bald Eagles every day, several times!!! We went to the ice cream and fudge store.

We arranged for papa to get a ride on an atv from the dock hand over to a chairlift. We rode to the top of the hill on the lift. It was so beautiful today. The colors are starting to change. We sat out on the deck for quite awhile enjoying the beautiful scenery of the river. Grafton is the place where the Illinois and the Mississippi rivers merge.



We went to the oyster bar with the boaters from good karma and Avontour. We had a great night with a lot of laugher.



Thursday

We left Grafton for a 14 mile cruise to Alton, IL. On the other side of the Mississippi river is Missouri. The marina there was big and nice. We did boat stuff including defrosting the freezer.

We got an Uber to the bar and grill we were told we couldn't miss. It's called Fast Eddies ( another reason we had to check it out)! The band playing was really good and the food was really good for a really great price, but it was soooo loud. We were there with Sea U Later and Adventursome.





Friday

We mostly hung out on the boat today. Papa can't walk anywhere. I did laundry and walked while I waited for the wash cycle and the drying. Ed spent his time videoing papá as he answered questions about his life.

Papa left us around 4pm for the airport. It was kind of sad to see him go. We don’t really know off we will see him again in this world as he is heading out on a mission to Guatemala next week.

The local grocery in town offers the service of picking up boaters from the marina. It's to their benefit as the boaters will spend a couple of hundred dollar getting food. The next 4 days down the river there isn't anything, no fuel, no food, or water, no marinas for about 259 miles. So this is the place to get what you need. I was really impressed with this little corner market. I got just about everything I needed. There wasn't a great selection of produce. I was a little disappointed in that. It was so great to have a ride there and back. She was even kind enough to stop at the bakery I had heard about. It's fall and I'm craving pumpkin. We got muffins, bread, and a few other treats.

For dinner we walked to Gentelins. It's known as the best restaurant in Alton. We met Pat and Liz from Good Karma there. It was really good and we enjoyed a nice evening with them.

Saturday

We heard about a nice farmers market this morning that wasn't too far away. We walked over there with Harold and Kathy From the cheeky Warbler. It was a big nice market where we could get some really nice produce. So we are all stocked up!

We got a ride to the great rivers museum. The three big rivers are near here: the Illinois, Mississippi, and the Missouri. The lock here just down from Alton is huge going across the Mississippi. In the Illinois the largest set of barges could only be 15. Here on the Mississippi they can have up to 50 and be 2000 feet long!. We will be in the river with these barges for a few hundred miles.


We went to a park where there is a life size statue of the tallest man in the world that was born here in Alton, Robert Wadlow. He was 8' 11.1" tall. He only lived to be 22 yrs. old.




Back at the boat I did some cleaning of the hull. This river water is dirty. It's turning the hull of the boat an ugly yellow color. Ed got a haircut and then we walked into town for dinner at an Italian restaurant.



Sunday

Ed reached out to the bishop again here and we were able to get a ride to church here in Alton. It's the reason we stayed one more day. We really wanted to partake of the sacrament and attend church. The Elder's quorum pres lives about 7 min. from the marina. He very willingly picked us up and dropped us off. Brother McKinney is his name and he served his mission in Lima perú. We had some common ground right off. He was so kind to recognize that we don't have a car. He offered to take us anywhere we needed to go. We didn't need anything, but it was super nice of him to offer.

We got a pump out today, to avoid the rush tomorrow as about 8 or 10 boats were leaving in the morning.

We walked over to an amphitheater to listen to live music for a while at the Alton music festival.


We went to docktails. This was the biggest group yet. There was probably 50 of us loopers meet at the dock pavilion. It was also a coordination meeting to organize getting through this first lock right outside of town. We all decided we should leave the marina at 7 am and get through the lock together. Hopefully there won't be much of a wait.


See you all next week….don’t forget to look up @lovemefender on YouTube and watch our shenanigans.


YouTube Link:

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