Grafton to Alton

Picture #1 is of me at the Grafton Lighthouse.
#2 of of Captain Chip as we entered the great Mississippi River...and,
#3 is me outside The National Great Rivers Museum...how do you like my yellow bike?

Grafton to Alton was a whopping 16 miles--we decided to pit-stop here to take the edge off what could potentially be an otherwise long day from Grafton to Hoppies, just south of St. Louis. Since neither of us has ever navigated on the Muddy Miss before, we didn't know what to expect...As it turned out, the chart plotter is working much better from the flybridge and the traffic was pretty minimal...we will likely do much of the piloting down the rivers from the top deck. It certainly was a very exciting moment to turn from the Illinois onto the Mississippi--No sooner did we do so and we spotted a church steeple up on top of the bluffs and right on que the bells started ringing...Chip just looked at me and said, "We are blessed"...

Pulling into Alton we spotted the infamous Piasa image which dauntingly graces the side of the bluff along the river. In 1673 when Joliet and Marquette made their way down the river to this region they first documented the engraved 'monster' and described it as being 'as large as a calf with horns, a horrible look with red eyes, a beard, a tail like a tiger that wraps around its body and ends like a fish tail...green, red and black are the three colors composing of the pictures'. If you are interested in learning more about the 'monster' that the Illini Indians called The Piasa, pronounced Pie-a-saw, which means 'Bird That Devours Man', click HERE to read the legend.

Alton is known for many historical figures and events. Of them, Elijah Parrish Lovejoy, a preacher who relocated to St Louis from Maine, only to move to Alton because Illinois was a 'free state'...and in 1836 he is best known for taking a brave stand against slavery...Also, since we had only just been to Ottawa last week, the site of the first Douglas-Lincoln debates, it is only fitting we are now in Alton, the site of the last of their debates in 1858...it is said to be here that the term, "A house divided cannot stand" was first coined...Regionally there are many stories connected to evidence about the Underground Railroad, not far from here, a settlement in Godfrey known as Rocky Road is probably the oldest and largest of the underground railroad and was known as the 'Alton Route'...Recently, most notably, Miles Davis was born in Alton in 1926...and a flood in 1993, said to be the flood of the century, tested the tenacity of the folks in Alton...sandbaggers worked day & night reinforcing the levees...the river crested at 42.7 feet. --For those of you familiar with the Guinness Book of World Records, born in Alton in 1918 was an average size baby whom his family named Robert Wadlow...by 6 months old he weighed 30 pounds! Ultimately he grew to be 8' 11.1" and still holds the title today as the world's tallest man!

As important as any of these facts probably is that of Captains William Clark and Meriwether Lewis as they began their journey west in 1804 just a few miles south of Alton, at the mouth of the River Dubois in their quest to find the Pacific Ocean...This is where that great journey was launched...

Today we visited the National Great Rivers Museum where we got a bird's eye view of the Melvin Lock and Dam...We will be passing through here tomorrow at first light...Alton was a good stop...if we ever pass this way again we will spend more time here.