Illinois / Missouri: Grafton, IL to Branson, MO to Alton, IL

Days: 87 - 89
NM To Date: 1796
Locks Total: 78

We made arrangements to meet two of Clark's cousins and their wives in Branson, Missouri for Saturday night into Sunday.  In order to make that date, we left Grafton early to get to the Alton marina, check in, pick up a rental car, and drive the 4.5 hours to Branson, MO.  Each cousin had approximately 4 to 4.5 hours drive to meet at Branson where we rented a three-bedroom duplex and split the cost.

Coming into Alton, IL

 Alton marina is a larger-sized marina.  Like Grafton the entire marina is built on floating docks.  Even the swimming pools are set up to go up and down with the rising and receding waters of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.  Earlier this year the Illinois and the Mississippi flooded and were closed to all but essential boat traffic.  After the waters receded, the slips in both marinas were filled with silt / sediment.  We learned in Grafton that many of the boats are still stuck in the silt and have not moved since the flood waters receded.

In Alton we saw the dredging activity required to clean the silt out of each slip.  The machinery barely had the swing room required to do the necessary work.

Dredging the slips in Alton, IL marina

Although our boat stayed in Alton for three nights, we barely saw the marina as we traveled by car to Branson, MO and stayed there overnight on Saturday.  We arrived in Branson just after 5:00, and Clark and his cousins immediately started catching up on what had happened over the last 18 years since they last saw each other.

Eventually we made our way out the door of the condo to drive to a restaurant, McFarlain's, where we had a good meal with great corn bread.  After dinner we went back to the condo and looked through family photos and played numerous rounds of a game I had never heard of before called Catch Phrase.  We had a lot of fun talking and playing and finally called it a night somewhere around 1:00 or 1:30 in the morning.

Sunday morning we took our time getting up and out.  We spent more time reminiscing as Clark searched Google maps for pictures of his cousins's farm that he had visited a couple of time when he was quite young.  We finally decided to go to Cracker Barrel for brunch, and only the fact that we had an 11:00 checkout time got us moving out the door.  Unfortunately numerous other families had the same brunch plans, so even though we got there at 11:30, it was closer to 12:30 before we got seated.  Since this was supposed to be breakfast, I was absolutely starving by the time it came time to order.  I must say that Cracker Barrel sure knows how to do breakfast right though as my food was prepared just how I like it.

We finished our brunch and thought about driving home, but fun and games were not over yet.  Branson is a Missouri version of Nashville / Los Vegas. Everywhere we looked we saw ads for entertainment in the form of singers, casinos, and family amusements, so we had lots of choices for entertainment.  Although it rained first thing in the morning, it did not last long.  While we ate our brunch, the sun came out and dried up the puddles enough that we decided to go play miniature golf before driving our separate ways back "home".

Professor Hacker's Miniature Golf
in Branson, MO

We completed 18 holes of mini golf and finally said our good-byes and left Branson around 3:30 or so for our 4.5 hour drive back to the boat.  Clark and I had a bit of trouble deciding what to do about dinner.  Since we were both still pretty full from our brunch, neither of us wanted much but knew we should eat something or wake up starving at 4:00 a.m.   By searching online I found a restaurant near Alton named The Round Table that had excellent Google reviews.  The place lived up to the reviews - good food, cheap price, great service.  Since we were both tired after we got back to the boat from our excursion, we called it a night early.

Monday morning we had errands to take care of and the first of those was to go to the store and buy some food to replenish our stock.  The next 3 nights will be stays at remote places or anchorages, so we needed to provision the boat fully.  After we returned from the pharmacy and food store, we took the boat to be fueled.  Poor thing was pretty thirsty, she took 204 gallons of diesel fuel at just under $3 / gallon.  Good thing at the speed we travel on this trip we do not have to fill up all that often.  We figured out that we have a range of about 350 miles with both tanks on full.

After completing our chores, we still had the car and some time on our hands, so Clark suggested we go to St. Charles, Missouri to tour this historic city which was Missouri's first state capital.

Old Railroad Station building in St Charles, MO

We took the self-guided tour of the historic downtown that I found on the internet.  The town is famous for a variety of reasons but at the top of the list are 1) the history of Lewis and Clark who resided here for two winters before setting out on their historic exploration west and 2) the importance of Daniel Boone to this area where he started to blaze his trail west.

As we strolled the streets, we saw many forms of architecture on our tour including some German masonry work which was interesting.

Lewis and Clark Restaurant

German Stone Houses

Vertical Log Cabin Church
reconstructed replica of original built in 1791

Clark caught me peaking into the cookie store
( I bought some Peanut Butter cookies for myself.)

Corner of Main and Boone's Lick Streets
Start of Boone's Lick Trail
where he blazed a trail following old Indian paths
Boone's Lick became the fist westward passage to the
Oregon, Santa Fe, and California Trails

Note the stars on this flag in front of the Lewis and Clark boat house
we did not get to see their boats as they are on loan
to make an HBO documentary of the L&C expedition

dug out canoe at the Lewis and Clark Boat House

Tapestry showing Lewis and Clark path westward

Lewis and Clark and dog
who accompanied them on their travels west

We underestimated the time required to drive back to the car rental place after our explorations of St. Charles.  We raced the clock and the traffic to get back by the 5:30 deadline, so we could get a ride back to the marina after dropping off the car.  We made it but just at 5:30 itself!

Clark promised me a bike ride in Alton, so before making dinner we went out to look for the bike trail heading back towards Grafton.  Since it gets dark earlier and earlier these days, we did not have much time to explore.  We did find a nice park with a pretty fountain as well as an interesting display of caves and a dragon drawn on the cave wall.

Fountain with bridge to Missouri in background

The story of the wall drawing

Wall drawing of dragon
we do not know the two posing in the picture!

Once again we caught ourselves racing against the clock as the sun set on our bike travels.  We raced home in the twilight to get back before complete darkness set in.  After our bike ride I made dinner, and as I cooked Clark worked on prepping the boat for our travels down river tomorrow.  He topped up the water tank and added an anti-corrosive fluid to the antifreeze.

Just before our bike ride, we talked with the owners of Kat in the Hat who plan to leave Alton tomorrow as well.  We will coordinate our departure in the morning to line up for the locks together.   Even though tonight turned into a late night of blogging, I will be up early to catch that first lock! We have two to get through tomorrow, and the first is less than a mile away from the Alton marina.

Not clear if I will be able to submit any blog entries over the next 3 nights as that will depend on cell phone coverage.  I do not expect to see WiFi for several days now.