Its So Hot You Can Bake A Pumpkin On A Step

Day 123  | Grafton 

The To-Do list never ends. In the relative coolness of the morning, Barry cleaned some of our white fenders that have gotten very dirty over the last four months. It takes only one nasty lock wall to make our white fenders brown, and we've been through 72 locks so far. While Barry was outside, I dusted the inside top to bottom and then pulled out the vacuum cleaner to run over all the carpet. I'm not sure where all of that gunk was hiding, but its not as bad as it looks. The collection chamber in the handheld vacuum is pretty small.

We finished our chores and left for our walk shortly after noon. The water level in the rivers is still falling, and land that was flooded three days ago, is now a sun-baked mudflat. All around town, businesses are decorating for fall. This restaurant was sporting freshly-planted mums and pumpkins in their front flower beds.

We still have no telephone service at the dock, yet needed to make some marina reservations for the upcoming week. All the Loopers are starting to log-jam on each other and dockage space is at a premium. Up the hill we walked in search of any kind of service on our Verizon phones. Verizon proudly touts that they have 98% coverage in the US. Well, this is a time that its not good to be in the 2%. No coverage in this section of Illinois, from Peoria to St. Louis, has been very frustrating. We knew there was a single cell tower on the hillside, so we kept walking towards it until they "could here us now." We received a strong enough signal at the edge of town, but only when facing the tower. Calls made, we now have claimed our spot in the next three towns, taking some of the stress away. The rocky hillside where we ended up marked the end of town.

Its hot here, especially as we approach the first day of autumn. The humidex was 101 at 1:12 and rose a bit more by the middle of the afternoon. We've always joked about frying an egg on the sidewalk, but I've never seen or tried it. Today, however, we did see a pumpkin baking on the step. The commercial district on Main Street runs for maybe half a mile, and within that span are three ice cream establishments. We had passed by without temptation during our previous walks. Today, however, we gave in and stopped for a waffle cone in the shade. An additional treat was watching the monarch butterflies flit from flower to flower just in front of us.

The road signs in front of the marina are dominated by the river -- Great River Road, America's Byway, Meeting of the Great Rivers. The proximity to the river is also noted on the white sign on the side of the red restaurant. It marks the water level of the 1993 flood -- a rise of over 38 feet.

We came back to Crossroads and Barry changed our air filters, checked the oil level, and removed some original electronics that were no longer connected, but taking up valuable storage space. I started a new book on Fiberglass Beach, knocking out the first 60 pages before dinner time. We went up to the Oyster Bar at the marina and were not disappointed. Dinner also came with a show as we sat on the deck and watched the parade of nine more Looper boats come in for the evening.

We have a reservation at Hoppies tomorrow night, but its a long day with two locks and over 60 miles to cover. These locks have auxiliary chambers that cater to pleasure craft. This and the boost from the current speeds up the process greatly. Tonight we topped off the water tanks and removed the sun screens in preparation for a 7:00 am departure with a few other Looper boats. We are ready to get moving again.