Headin Down South ,Fun in East Alton and around

Ah the joys of late nights and early starts. Todays adventure started out at the luxourious hour of 7, awesome 2 extra hours of sleep!, throwing everything into the backpack it was a wild rush downstairs to grab a bite too eat before we were off to the great East Alton and surrounding. Ah the fun of small cars and long trips in IL, Corn, more corn, wait, soy, more corn, yep that was about 4hrs of fun and searching.


(My View at 16mm in the Prius)

(Oh beautiful corn)

After all the excitement of Corn, Trucks, Soy and Trees we finally arrived at family. After surveying the tight little town in the 100's we headed out for lunch at the one and only Beasley's in Alton right on the Great River Road. Really nice scenery in the fall, it's absolutly beautiful, coming down through the hills with the almost tunneling overhang of the trees as they ascend the bluffs. And of course along the way there's always the Pere Marquette Lodge, Park and the Cross.

And onward we went, full with great food our little entourage pushed on up to Brussels to catch the free ferry to another Southern IL staple, Calhoun County peaches.

A few minutes and miles later we were packed up with 1.... 2..... no 3 pecks of peaches and were back across the river (Yeah they're really that good) heading back to the house. But alas one last detour and a question, How do IL peaches stand up to CC peaches? hmmmm. So we ended up pulling into Eckerts to pick up a peck to further compare and eventually turn into homemade cobbler and icecream, Yum.....

(On the walk down the path we encountered these two energetic youths going all out in this wagon)

(Ah, the test subject, IL peaches)

Finally all the goods were gathered and we were free to head back to the hotel. Wow has this place seen better day's. It's still stuck in the 70's when it was booming, and right now looks like a perfect canidate for either a scary movie, a cool photoshoot, or firefighter training, lol.... But upon ariving it was unanimously decided that an air freshener and dinner was to be obtained soon. So off we went again to the lil Prius and headed out on a grand cruise through East Alton in seach of a good food joint and a Air Freshner. We drove from the Beltway to Downtown and all around in search of a non packed place to eat.

(Downtown Alton looking West towards St. Louis, where I was informed Chelsea's at today, haha)

The cruise was fun for me, backseat camera ready. Fun and kind of depressing at the sametime, like most blue collar towns these days Alton too was looking worse for wear, Especially in East Alton and downtown, a Sad but continuing trend in this economy.

On an upbeat and comical note I did see a few cool things, We passed the famous Bon Aire and also for the first time in my life I saw, lol.... a 120" Stretch Limo, but get this, decked out in full camo....sadly I didn't capture a picture of that one as I was dying laughing at the time. Oh man the south is great.