Over the last day or so, we've been speaking with various fellow travelers and with dock masters as well as reading boater forum postings and even Facebook postings on the conditions of the Mississippi. The level of water visibly rose since yesterday covering waterfront park and bike trails and even the lawns of some houses all the way up to their supporting columns. A lot of the waterfront houses are built or were rebuilt on support columns built after the devastating 1993 floods.

We decided to embark on our original plan to spend a few days in Alton, IL - a bigger town than Grafton and only 20 miles downriver. As we cast off, it was immediately evident that we were not going to be able to go very fast. The current certainly added some speed - some 6 mph - but the channels has distressingly large tree branches, tree trunks and logs as well as other debris that we needed to avoid. Striking a tree branch might disable our propellers and leave us in serious trouble. In any case, we made our way down the river - and the wind started to pick up as dark clouds passed overhead - clearly closer to 20 mph or more than the forecast low double digits.

Within 90 minutes we were outside Alton Harbor just under the very attractive Clark 'Superbridge' (the building of which was the subject of a NOVA broadcast in the 1990s) - where we had to turn upstream into the marina entrance past a gauntlet of distressingly large logs and other flotsam. The wind was annoying strong as we made our way to the gas dock and then again after refueling as we proceeded to our assigned slip. We could see further sizable debris and trees bobbing down the river. We later heard when checking in that the river was predicted to rise another 8 feet before peaking in a few days - not good news for our plans, particularly if the locks downriver were to close. There had already been lock closure in the upper Mississippi.

After settling in, we took a long walk through the town of Alton - the site of the last of the Lincoln-Douglas debates and a major river town with a lot of very impressive 19th century buildings and a vibrant, albeit small downtown district lined with restaurants and bars. We later rode out bikes back to town for dinner past the huge casino storefront on the river - which is actually just a gangway to the actual casinos located on three boats/barges off the land.

Tomorrow, we go to St. Louis for a day trip.