Monday Oct. 6, 2014

Today we took the courtesy van and went across the river to visit Grafton, Illinois. I was looking forward to taking the Grafton Car ferry we had observed crossing the river when we came into Port Charles Marina on Saturday. One of the marina personnel pointed out that he didn’t think the ferry ran during the week. Only on Friday thru Sunday. He was right as local knowledge is all important. Then it was literally you can’t get there from here kind of story. We ended up driving 39 miles down to Alton, Il. To get to the closest bridge that crosses the Mississippi River. We could have taken the boat across the river and the trip would have been about 8 miles. Oh well. I had visited Grafton 3 years ago when Tom Mirus and I brought the boat up to Lake Michigan. We must have visited on a weekend because the place was dead as could be on a Monday. Many of the stores were closed and nothing was happening. We went up a steep hill to a winery- restaurant overlooking the area call the Aerie Winery. The food was ok but the view of the rivers was fabulous. We cruised thru Alton on the way back to the boat and called it a day. Colletta went out for a walk and I replaced the impeller in the generator. I had noticed a decrease in water shooting out the muffler and more exhaust smoke. Seems to have corrected the problem.

This is a picture from the Aries Restaurant above Grafton, Illinois. That is the Mississippi River in the back grround