7/27/22 - Kimmswick Mo to Alton Illinois

We had a restful night sleep and awoke around 6am.  The rain had ended but the river level remained high appearing that it would crest in a couple of hours at 9+ feet higher than it had been when we arrived.  However, it did appear that the quantity of floating logs and debris coming down the river had decreased which was a positive sign.   We sat and drank our usual morning coffee and decided that it felt like a GO day with plans to cruise about 42 miles further upriver to Alton Illinois.  

At 8:30 Ray from Hoppies came down and helped us to move the boat up the dock (barges) to the fuel pump.  When he turned the fuel pump on to prepare to fill our tanks gasoline came shooting out of a small hole in the hose spraying five feet onto the dock.   He quickly turned the pump off and saying a few choice words.  Not having a replacement hose for the pump, we improvised and used some good foil tape and a couple of hose clamps that we had aboard to create a temporary fix to the hose.  After fueling up the tanks we were ready to shove off.  

departing Hoppies Marina

Anheuser Estate from the water 

About 25 miles into the cruise for the day St Louis and our first glimpse of the Arch came into view.  St Louis is a very busy port city with a lot of industry and busy barge activity.  

interesting sculpture/yard art of a huge set of legs diving into the water

                            reminiscent of the leg lamp, only on steroids, in 'A Christmas Story'

St Louis and the first glimpse of the Arch
We enjoyed a playlist of songs mentioning St Louis on our entry into the city including some W.C Handy, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland and Huey Lewis

getting closer

There she is...the Gateway Arch 

As we were approaching the downtown we were fortunate to have a tug and small barge navigating upriver as well right beside us.  Erik slowed to the same speed as tow and radioed 'Allison Rachel' on the VHS inquiring whether he would be kind enough to snap a picture of 'Happy Destiny' passing in front of the Arch.  He quickly responded, "pen in hand go ahead with your phone number".  Within second the captain was out on the front of his tug snapping multiples of pictures of us as we passed in front of the Arch and very soon after we received text messages of about 10 pictures!   Perfect timing...Yay! 

'Happy Destiny' made it to the gateway to the west! 
Here in just a few miles we could choose to hang a left on the Missouri River and continue out west?!?
Maybe next time! 
:-)

Huge thanks to the captain of 'Allison Rachel' for taking the time away from the helm to help a fellow boater out by taking and sending us pictures
We may be a nation divided in some ways, but, we are all still one! 
Spirit of America!  

'M/V Allison Rachel'

Just outside of St. Louis we came upon the Chain of Rocks Lock and Dam.  Not much of a lift but you enter a canal that runs the length of the "Chain of rocks".  Aside from having to wait a little bit for a southbound ??? boat that never showed up 😂😂😂 we got through fairly quickly by floating instead of tying up as we usually do.

Chain of Rocks Lock and Dam was only a 6' drop and the lockmaster instructed that if we wanted we could just float the descent rather than tying up to the floating bollards 


Short time lapse video floating the descent and exiting the lock

About 10 miles north of St Louis we came to Mel Price Lock and Dam which will be our last lock on the Mississippi River (this time).  Here at Mel Price they have the National Great Rivers Museum that seems interesting.  You can also do a dam tour.  Unfortunately, we were busy doing other stuff when we made it to Alton Harbor and did not take the time to do these things.  

Getting ready to pull out of Mel Price Lock
The floating logs and junk were crazy at the exit of the chamber; the worst we've ever experienced
Good thing that our Marinette is an aluminum tank! 

Two miles north of Mel Price lies Alton Illinois and Alton Harbor which was our destination for the day.  Our plans are to stay here for two nights.  After several fairly long cruising days it was time to relax more, catch up on a few things and enjoy the marina swimming pool and two hot tubs.  We were greeted at our slip by a friendly older dock hand who caught our lines, connected us to electric and then spent a good 10-15 minutes giving us a tour of the marina and amenities.   It is customary to give tips to dock hands.  Depending on their service we usually tip $5 or sometimes $10 if they are providing exceptional service or helping with a pump out.   As we were pulling in our slip Renee handed Erik down money to give the dock hand a tip with.   Erik assumed that Renee had given him what she expected to give as the tip; actually she just handed him a ten dollar bill, a five dollar bill and five one dollar bills.   Erik handed the tip to the guy without realizing this.....he got a good tip from us.   No wonder he spent time and attention on us. lol

After settling into our spot and organizing a few things on the boat we ventured off to explore the marina.  We had seen on Nebo, a boating app that we utilize, that there were several other Great Loop boats at the marina.  Walking the dock we came upon Russ and Lynette aboard 'Field Trip' as well as another couple who were also loopers.  Russ is a recently retired high school math teacher after educating kids for 41 years in Arizona.  Get it....Field Trip for a retired teacher?  And as a kicker the name on the back of their dinghy is 'Hall Pass'.  lol.   We love looking at boat names and could probably write an entire blog on favs.  We sat aboard with them for an hour or more chatting.  It turns out that we had met them at the AGLCA Fall Rendezvous held annually at Joe Wheeler Sate Park in Alabama back in 2018.   The boating community seems to turn a big world into a small world :-)  Other friends of ours (Phil and Sue Spainhour) aboard another Marinette are expected to be pulling into the marina tomorrow morning.   Back in 2018 at the Rendezvous the Spainhours and us had already acquired our boats.   Phil and Susan were in planning stages and had not left their home in Nashville yet. Russ and Lynette were still boat shopping and planning as well.  Dreams have come true and many great adventures have been had by all three of us!  

Alton Harbor lighthouse 

We had some burgers on the boat for a late lunch/early dinner and headed off on foot to head to an AA meeting we had located on 'meeting finder' (apps sure make boat trips easier for us).  We were greeted in usual recovery fashion with many smiles and handshakes along with inquiries on where we were from and about our trip.  The meeting had a weekly rotating format with this weeks meeting being a 'The Four Absolutes' meeting.   The four absolutes (Honesty, Unselfishness, Purity, Love) were loosely adopted as AA principles from the Oxford Group as were many of the premises of the twelve steps.  Tonight's reading and discussion was on 'Love'.  Nice to get in a fix of recovery and fellowship.  

                                                        

TGCHHO

It was a beautiful evening for the walk back to the marina while taking in the old school architecture and sweeping landscape of the Mississippi River.  Back at the boat we enjoyed the leftover half pieces of pie from the previous night before heading off to bed.  

 

Todays travel stats 

Life is good aboard Happy Destiny