Moving Through the Heartland

My last posting ended with our visit to St. Genevieve, a river town first settled by French colonists before President Thomas Jefferson ever purchased Louisiana.  This morning Tim and I returned to take 'The French Connection,' the small ferry that is a quick connector between St. Genevieve, Missouri, and Modoc, Illinois.

Upon our arrival at the western terminus (hahahaa! that's a grand description for what is basically a boat ramp), Tim plunked down fifteen dollars and drove the Jeep aboard.  Had we still had our RV bus, the cost would have been $60 and the bus would have barely fit.  (Click here for the ferry rates for pedestrians, horseback riders and any mode of transportation ranging from bicycles to farm equipment.)

The ferry is a fun and friendly way to cross the mighty Mississippi.  At least, the pilot and his deckhand were friendly--there were no other passengers besides ourselves.

Still, the deckhand told me they generally ferry 30 cars across on a typical day; 50 or more on the weekend.  Floating across this half-mile span of the Mississippi certainly beat sitting in a traffic jam on the Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge in St. Louis.

The couple waiting for us on the other side looked like they were excited to try it, too.  At least, they gave us a friendly wave as we departed.

To learn more about the colonial French influence upon this area, I had planned for us to visit the Pierre Menard House in Ellis Grove and Fort de Chartes near Prairie du Rocher but I neglected to consider that Mondays might find many attractions closed.  So I crossed the home of Pierre Menard, the fur trader who became the first lieutenant governor of Illinois from 1818 to 1822, off our list, but I thought we could still see the fort.  However, we found the fort's gate padlocked, too.  Still, it was interesting to see how France left its mark here.  Fort de Chartes served as the French seat of government and its chief military installation in Upper Louisiana from 1753 until 1765 when it was occupied by the British.

Rolling north on The Great River Road, we skirted around St. Louis since we had so recently been there.  Instead, we travelled on to East Alton, Illinois where the Lewis & Clark State Historic Site & Interpretative Center and the National Great Rivers Museum are located.

We joined a group of schoolchildren at the Lewis & Clark Center and found the tour guide exceptional in his patience with their numerous questions.

The tour at the National Great Rivers Museum was geared more towards adults as the Corps of Engineers guide rattled off all kinds of interesting statistics about the Locks.  To move goods up and down the river, the Corps of Engineers maintains a 9-foot shipping channel from Baton Rouge, LA to Minneapolis, MN and a 45-foot channel to give ocean-going vessels access to the ports at Baton Rouge and New Orleans before sailing into the Gulf of Mexico.  One barge passing through the locks could carry the load of 70 semi-trucks for a fraction of the emissions discharged by the trucks.  Farm products such as corn (19,385,481 tons) and soybeans (6,413,691 tons) move down the river while steel (767,432 tons) and petroleum products move up.  Before we left, Tim took a turn in the river pilot simulator and safely navigated his pretend barge through the locks.

Our next stop was for ice cream in the picturesque town of Grafton which stretches for two miles along the Mississippi river banks near the confluence of the Big Muddy and the Illinois rivers.  Main Street's restaurants, gift shops, wineries and wine shops and other attractions make the town a weekend destination for St. Louis city dwellers in search of serenity.  Interestingly, its Shafer Wharf Historic District was one of the largest commercial fishing centers along the Mississippi in the late 1800s.

We'd just covered the prettiest stretch of Illinois Highway 100 from Alton to Pere Marquette State Park just north of Grafton.  This portion of the highway with its shoulder bike lane is bracketed by the river on one side and towering limestone bluffs on the other.  No wonder this is a popular route for riders of the Sam Vadalabene Bike Trail.

Because of excessive rainfalls in the Upper Mississippi Basin, the river is currently in flood stage approaching and in some areas surpassing 15 feet.  We saw its impact at Hamburg, Illinois.  The county road we'd followed from the tiny town of Michael was detoured around a flooded street in Hamburg.  Residents of river towns have earned my respect for their courage in building lives so close to possible disaster.  Bidding the town goodbye, we pressed on to our goal for the day--Hannibal, Missouri, hoping to arrive in time for dinner which we did.