Alton

I wandered into to town, as is my habit, to find dinner. Had an excellent Cobb Salad, three glasses of Diet Pepsi, and a slice of cheesecake at the Bluff City Grill. I’d go back in a heartbeat.

This is one of my favourite parts of this travel. In fact, I’m to thinking I should modify my mission statement to somehow include to this.

To eat out in every river town.

The marina is quite something. Everything floats. The office, fuel tanks supplying the pumps, even the swimming pool

And what I didn’t realize until I walked out is that the poles holding everything in place are like 50 feet high

And on the shoreward side is a giant berm. There’s a pedestrian walkway that crosses the over the old flood plain between the berm and the downtown on the steep bank, which is now railway, highway, and parkland.

I’m familiar with docks and marinas in tidal areas, but this is pretty remarkable. The river is at normal stage now. But there’s a lot of engineering to deal with high water.

Neat.