On the river

We left Chicago Monday morning and immediately experienced our first lock of the many we'll transit on this trip.  The Chicago Harbor Lock drops boaters 2 feet into the Chicago River.  The reason for this lock is that the city was having trouble with sickness in the late 1800's because their sewage dumped too close to their water intake in Lake Michigan.  They constructed the lock and dug a canal to connect the Chicago River with the Illinois River, thus reversing the river's flow.  Ingenious, huh?  That's why it's called the Sanitary Canal.

We walked OVER Lakeshore Drive many times, but here we are going under it.  The flag on our bow is from America's Great Loop Cruiser's Association, the group that connects boaters making this trip.

Cruising through downtown Chicago is amazing.

It's hard to believe we were at the top of this tower yesterday.  After the city, the riverbanks become much more industrial.  Once we joined the Calumet River, we encountered tow traffic.  They're called "tows" even though they are pushing the barges-some push 15 barges at a time-5 long by 3 wide.  This area of the river system is sometimes "affectionately" called "the 10 (or even 12) miles of hell" because of all the commercial traffic and tight spaces.  Our fist encounter was at a bridge, where the tow was waiting for the bridge to open.  We radioed the tow captain and he said there was plenty of room.

It didn't look like plenty of room to us, but he backed up and we threaded our way through. Our next encounter was at a bend in the river and the tow was pushing 9 barges.  We contacted him and he said, "Find a hole."  We got out of his way by finding a space between 2 barges on the left descending bank (LDB) as he scraped his way along the RDB as he maneuvered around (muscled through?).

Yes, that is our windshield and bow rail in the forefront of the picture.  Whew!  We ended that evening at a VERY quiet marina (We're pretty sure we were the only people staying on their boats overnight).

 What a contrast to Chicago!  John went on a beer run in the dinghy to a marina 2 miles back up the river.

In Chicago we paid $2.50 a foot each day for our dock, plus $12.00 every day for electricity.  Gas was $5.30 a gallon (we didn't buy any).  Here we paid 75 cents a foot for everything.  The next morning we moved downriver 1 mile and paid $4.52 a gallon for gas.

Tuesday we moved down river to Ottawa.  We tied up at the city's free dock (from $2.50 a foot + $12.00 each night for electricity to 75 cents a foot for everything to FREE for dockage and electricity!)  As we finished tying up, Bavarian Cream (we'd met them in St. Joe) pulled up.  There was no more room on the dock so we offered to let them raft off our boat.

The first Lincoln/Douglas debate took place in Ottawa.

Great minds congregate 

We went for a walk and John went to the grocery store.  The grocery store provided a ride back to the dock.  We stepped across to Bavarian Cream for a visit with Larry and Jane then settled in for the night.  John got up at 7 am Wednesday to help Larry and Jane cast off then we went for a bike ride along the Illinois and Michigan (I&M) Canal.  The Erie Canal is famous but there is an amazing network of canals and locks connecting much of our country.  Perhaps if there were songs like "I had a mule and her name was Sal, 15 miles on the I&M canal" or "15 miles on the Grand River Canal" we'd have a better idea of the extent of the system.  Railroads made the canal system obsolete.

An old lock along the canal

On the river, some of the bridges have "yard sticks" to indicate how much clearance is available from the water to the underside of the bridge.

The river opens up more here

We saw our first Asian Carp, riled up by the passage of a tow.  The engine noise evidently agitates them.  This one was behind our boat

They really do leap!

There are lots of birds along the river.  We saw blue herons, egrets, many turkey vultures and our first
white pelicans.

We traveled all the way to just north of Peoria.  The river is low, so we plowed mud all the way into the marina but there were bigger boats than ours in there and they made it!

Peoria at night

Thursday we headed south again.  We heard an "LST" calling on the radio to a lockmaster but didn't really think we would meet a World War 2 ship on the Illinois River!

And right behind him was a Vietnam era river patrol boat.

This is the biggest tow we've seen-16 barges.  3 across, 5 deep and he's pushing one alongside the tug.

  

We had our most interesting lock-through today-we rode down with a tow.  He was only 2 barges wide so agreed to allow 2 pleasure craft to lock through with him.  Patches, in the foreground, is our new dinghy.

 It was very hot today.  Even with enough wind to cause whitecaps on the river and the wind we generated at 25 miles/hour, it was still warm, warm, warm.  How hot was it, you ask?  Here's a partial answer:

 He had the right idea!  We used our whole icemaker tray of ice for icewater and it is 10x5x12 (if you've seen Jackie and Paul carry it from our boat to theirs, you have an idea) and was heaped high when we left.  And we added water to the ice!

John drove almost 160 miles in the heat and wind ("almost" because Mary drove while John lifted weights and when he went below to the head).  Definitely windburn added to today's tan!  After transiting 8 locks and traveling under 104 bridges (actually, through one-it only has 9 feet of clearance and we need 13 even with our antenna down so we had to wait for it to open) we are at mile "0" on the Illinois River.  We can see the Mississippi River from our slip at Grafton Marina, Grafton, IL.  This marina is very nice and we are going to take a few days to rest, clean the boat, do laundry (actually, John is doing laundry while Mary "blogs") ride bikes (early tomorrow, as it will be another hot day) to Pere Marquette State Park and prepare ourselves to tackle "Dat Ole Man River."