At Grafton, IL

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October 27-31, 2022: Relaxing at the Great Loop party destination.

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(continued from Mad Dash to Grafton, IL.)

It was pretty early on a Thursday afternoon when we arrived in Grafton. The dock guys told me to park in any of the slips in front of the main marina building, which included a restaurant and bar. I picked one and nosed in. Janet tied us up.

The Plan

At this point in the trip, Janet and I had both made reservations to fly out of St. Louis to our respective homes. Janet would be done traveling with me. I’d be going home for about three weeks to attend two art shows where I would be selling my jewelry and to prep my home and property for the winter. (Yes, I have a house-sitter, but I had all kinds of outdoor prep work to do that I honestly couldn’t expect him to do.) Our reservations were for the same day: November 3.

There were three options for parking the boat until my return:

• Park it at the next stop, Alton IL, which was only about 20 miles down the Mississippi River and the closest marina to St. Louis.
• Park it at Grafton IL, our current stop, which was farther from St. Louis but still reachable via taxi.
• Push on to Green Turtle Bay in Grand Rivers KY, which was still within travel range to St. Louis but at least six travel days away.

The way I saw it, I’d thrown away the possibility of parking at Green Turtle when I spent those extra three nights in Peoria. It was just too much of a rush to get the boat there with so little time left. I wasn’t interested in rushing through the Loop stops — at least that’s what I thought then. But I also wasn’t interested in spending a week at Grafton IL, no matter how nice it was. We’d stay a few days at Grafton and then push on to Alton to park for a month.

My original thought was to spend just two nights at Grafton and then go on to Alton. But Grafton Marina had a special deal for Loopers: buy three nights, get one free. This significantly reduced the cost of staying there. And they had an oyster bar right on the property. How could I resist? So I signed up for four nights and settled down in our transient slip right in front of the marina’s main buildings.

Before long, we would be joined by Nine Lives and La Principessa, each of which were parked at the end of one of the two covered docks because they were simply too large to fit in the transient slips around us. Pony had departed just a few days before.

I should mention here that Grafton is known as a real party destination for Great Loop cruisers. Apparently, in September and October the place is crowded with Loopers who are all unwinding after the long trip down the Illinois River with mostly anchorages for the last 100 or so miles. “Docktail parties” are the norm. I could imagine them all boat-hopping and trading boat cards as they met or caught up with new friends. But when we were there at the tail end of October, things were unusually quiet with very few Loopers around.

It would foreshadow what was ahead for me.

Oysters, Oysters, and More Oysters

I don’t think there are too many people who like raw oysters more than I do. After securing the boat and taking my pups for a walk in a big grassy area adjacent to the marina, we walked over to the oyster bar above the marina office and went in for lunch. I had oysters (of course) two ways: cooked and raw. They were both delicious. Janet had some other seafood thing — maybe fish tacos? — and enjoyed it, too.

 
I ordered and ate oysters two different ways. Although the cooked oysters were good, I’ll take raw over cooked any day.

Over the next few days, we’d eat there three times. I probably could have eaten every meal there. It was that good.

The Vet Visit

On Friday, I had an appointment for my pups with a veterinarian in the next town. We’d be traveling home by air and the airlines require a health certificate. I considered myself very lucky to be able to get an appointment as easily as I did. I know that I’d have to wait weeks for an appointment at home.

I took the courtesy car. Connie from La Principessa came with me. She wanted to stop for provisions at Walmart, which was very close to the vet’s office. I dropped her off and continued to our appointment.

We had a short wait in the lobby followed by another short wait in an examining room. A vet’s assistant came in and got vitals. Then the vet came in and did her thing. Then they left us alone in the exam room for a long time while they tried to figure out what paperwork they needed to give me. They finally came back with the paperwork.

While I’d been sitting in there I’d been looking at all the heartworm posters. Heartworm isn’t really a thing where we live in central Washington, but I knew it was a thing in the eastern states where we’d be spending a lot of time. So I decided to get the girls a vaccine while I was there. They tested the girls and told me they’d have results in about 30 minutes. I paid for what they’d already done and went to Walmart to fetch Connie. I bought a few things while I waited for her — we did, after all, still have a week left on the boat. Then it was back to the vet’s office for the vaccinations and another payment. I put gas in the courtesy car on the way back.

I should mention that I really got to know more about Connie’s fascinating past during the drive. Her story is not mine to share here, so I won’t. But it’s good time to remind everyone that people are multi-dimensional with a lot of experiences — sometimes quite unusual — in their backgrounds. Don’t assume the people you meet are the stereotypical characters they seem to be.

Boat Portrait

While I was at the vet, Janet was back at the boat with her paints and brushes and a tiny canvas. Using reference photographs of the sunrise and my boat when it was parked at Peoria, she painted a gorgeous little portrait of Do It Now with the sun rising behind it. I hung it in my boat’s main room in one of the few available wall spaces. (I’m glad the canvas was small or it wouldn’t have fit!)

Janet, by the way, is a professional artist who sells her work at art shows and galleries. You can find her online at JanetLeRoy.com. Some of her work is also available in her Esty shop, JanetsFeatherworks.

The Kayak Guy

It was either Thursday or Friday when a guy paddled into the marina on a kayak. I didn’t really think much about it until he showed up in his kayaking outfit, with the water shielding skirt still hanging on him.

His name was Mark and he was doing the Great Loop in his kayak. He reported that he wanted to set up his tent in the grassy area adjacent to the marina but they marina folks had said no. He was looking for a place to stay.

I think I surprised Janet when I offered him the aft deck of my boat as a place to sleep. “But there’s rain in the forecast,” I told him. “You’ll probably get wet.”

I had no other place to offer him other than the floor inside the boat and I wasn’t willing to offer that up to a stranger nutty enough to paddle 6000 miles.

He thanked me and wandered off in search of other Loopers. He wound up being befriended by Kenny and Rhonda in Nine Lives. I think he slept on the dock adjacent to their boat — or maybe on their aft deck, which was covered. I didn’t ask. I know he was around for a few days and followed them to Alton when they left Grafton.

Mark is a Canadian who is paddling the Great Loop. Crazy? I think so.

Weekend in Town

We had arrived on a Thursday afternoon and things were pretty dead in town on Friday, but on Saturday, things really picked up. It turns out that Grafton is a weekend destination for folks in surrounding towns, as well as St. Louis. We walked around town, in and out of shops. We were shocked to see a very long line — easily 100 people or more — waiting for the Grafton Sky Tour, which seemed to consist of ski-lift like benches and small gondolas that went up a hill to a winery. We later learned that you can see St. Louis from up there on a clear day.

We browsed around town for a couple of hours, stopping to have ice cream on the way back. When we returned, I felt as if I had “done” Grafton.

Monday was Halloween, but not at the marina. That was on Sunday. A handful of boats came in and parked. Most folks were wearing costumes. They set up tables and chairs on the dock and had food and drinks. The restaurant’s two bars — upstairs and downstairs — were busy, too. But by the end of the day, most folks had packed up and driven off. Only a few boats spent the night.

I lit up my boat one night, turning on all the outside lights, including the blue underwater lights. It makes it look kind of festive, no?

Moving On

By Monday morning, I was ready to move on.

We’d been told that the water had already been turned off at Alton for the winter, so there was no water or pumpout service. We topped off the water tank before repositioning the boat to the fuel dock to pump out the waste tank. Grafton didn’t have diesel or I would have refueled there, too.

Then we headed out into the Illinois River to travel the last half mile before entering the Mississippi. We were on our last leg of what I’d come to think of as Phase I of my Great Loop journey in Do It Now.