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Showing posts with the label Illinois

New Canton






Pleasant Hill










Hamburg




Flooding in Hamburg, Illinois sends us on a detour through the town.








Calhoun County






Calhoun County, Illinois, is located in a peninsula created by the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers. It is nearly completely surrounded by water, and is therefore cut off from much of the surrounding communities in Illinois and Missouri.


We left Alton early in hopes to get to Calhoun County and find a place from which I could work for the day. I knew that the isolated county was unlikely to have many places from which I could work, but I had identified a few restaurants as possible work locations. We found ferries across the Illinois river to be closed due to high water -- requiring we go north to a bridge and then back south into Calhoun County. We also discovered that many of the restaurants we encountered were closed. Therefore, we changed our plans to find breakfast and then head north to civilization that could support my connectivity needs.




Our drive through this rural farming county offered great views -- most including corn.













Breakfast at AJ's Bar












Brussels Ferry





We had planned to take the Brussels Ferry to cross the Illinois River into Illinois' isolated Calhoun County, but arrived to find it closed due to high water levels -- just like every Mississippi River ferry we've encountered so far on our trip north. This required we continue north rather than west to Brussels and then the Mississippi River.





River View



The Great River Road, Illinois Highway 100, runs alongside the Mississippi River from Alton to Grafton with mostly-unobstructed views of the river.




Grafton Detour



Grafton, Illinois sits at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers.  On the west end of Grafton we encountered flooding, and a detour.