Ole Man River

Hi All...Ben here on the rivers now,

This river travel is a lot different than Lake Michigan.  We have lots of locks to go through...and they're tall, and sometimes we have to share them with big barges and their tow boats. When we're in some of the big ones if the wind is blowing real hard, Izzy makes me wear this dorky life jacket.


In some of the locks Izzy and Jeff have to hang onto lines in the front and back of our boat that are hanging from the top of the lock wall to keep us in place, then let out the line a little at a time as we go down. Izzy doesn't like this kind when the locks are so tall, and she says some words under her breath that I don't understand as she hangs on.  Something about a hundred and thirty pound, 61 year old woman holding 53,000 pounds of floating boat in the wind with a cheesy little line from over 60 feet up when the line is too short to reach the cleat.....  I just make my way up to the front of the boat to stay out of the way so I won't get blamed for anything.

By the time I get up there, and the water starts to drip into the lock, I get the urge to take a little wiz.  Never fails. Must be something about the running water....I think Jeff has the same problem, but he doesn't use the yard.

Jeff is usually back behind the wheel by the time we come to a big barge around a bend or under a bridge (or both)

Here we are in a lock tied to a big barge.  I hope he's not thinking about using my yard.

We made it out save and sound and continued down the Illinois River

Locks became pretty routine again like in Canada.  The difference is that these locks are much bigger and we share them with barges and tow boats...sometimes having to float around and wait for an hour or more just to get into one.  These locks also don't have the friendly young guys and girls cranking the doors open by hand and chatting with us and petting me.  Jeff likes these better because they're free.

Our first stop after Chicago was a town called Joliet, IL where we tied up to the wall next to a bridge and the city park.  It was free to park our boat and the city even provided electricity for us at no charge.

The best part of this stop was that there was a Mexican Fiesta in the park that night, so we went over to have some good fajitas, tamales and tacos, and a Corona or two while we listened to the music.

One night we stopped at a free city dock where the slips were too small for our boat or Jan and Nicoline's boat, "Blue Arrow".  Since no one else was there, we tied up across the front of three little slips, and Blue arrow tied to the nearby wall. 

 

That night we repeated the Mexican fiesta on "Izzy R", and Jan and Nicoline dinghied over with their Mexican scarves to join us for tacos.  It think there were more Coronas that night, too. 

More barges and locks were in store for us the next few days

Some of these lock masters must have a soft spot, cause they had bird houses on the lock walls.  This one is the shape of a tug boat.

Well, there are a lot of birds here.  A pretty white bird with the black tips on its wings showed up one day and Izzy got this great picture of it.  It's way too big for that bird house on the lock wall. 

Before we new it there were hundreds of these birds everywhere.  They were gathered all ove the river taking a rest as they fly south for the winter...just like us I guess.  They're called White Pelicans.

This is another kind of "bird house" along the river, but in this kind, hunters hide in it waiting for a good shot at the ducks as they swim by looknig for breakfast. It's called a "Duck Blind" - I guess because the ducks would have to be blind not to see it. 

In Peoria, IL we also had a nice dock right along the city river front beside a park.

I liked walking in the park...and by the looks of this picture, I guess Jan did too....

At night they all went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack.  They're wearing bibs, so it must be a messy place.

In the morning Izzy took me for a cut and fluff at the PetsMart across the bridge, so we got up early enough to see this great sunrise over Blue Arrow behind the Peoria Bridge.

The carp jumped in our wake as we pulled out of Peoria.  I think there are more of those Asian Carp here than anywhere else we've been so far.  One of them scared the bejeezus out of me this morning when he leaped out of the water as I was just walking on the dock to go take a wiz.

These guys jumped all day around our boat as we traveled. 

Here we are stuck in the mud in a marina where we hoped to stay for the night.   Blue arrow was smart to let us try it out first. 

After we finally backed out of there, we opted to try anchoring down the river a little further in a quiet little inlet. 

We rafted stern to stern with Blue Arrow.  With their dinghy lowered between the boats, they could easily jump over to our boat to have drinks and dinner with us.

This tug must hav taken a wrong turn.  not sure how it's going to get down from there...wait for another flood, Iguess.

Jeff and Izzy had their 6th wedding anniversary this month.  Jan and Nicoline gave them a special bottle to help celebrate the occasion.

Jeff looks particularly happy about it.

Some of the places we tie up just aren't too elaborate.  Take this one, for instance.

It's just a barge anchored out in the river that boaters can tie up to for the night.  It's close to a little village called Beardstown, IL., so there was a sign posted with phone numbers for all the local businesses...I guess so you could chat with them.

Well, we decide to put the dinghy in the water and actually go and see them instead.

To get into town we had to motor down the carp infested water about a mile,

then climb onto another barge and climb up some scary see-through steel steps that hurt my feet and made me think I was going to fall through.

The trip was worth it, though, because there was a big festival going on there that weekend and the town folks were getting the town square ready for food and craft booths, and the big parade with the high school marching band, and the 5K run the next day. 

This "Mile 88 Pub" is named because this town is on mile marker 88.0 on the Illinois River...important for the tow and barge traffic. 

It was also the gathering place for a crowd of partiers that night with a live band and lots of people dancing and having fun.  This guy's hat kind of set the tone for the evening.

There appeared to be a lot of beverages being enjoyed.

And lots of dancing.

The morning came pretty early for Jeff and Izzy the next day, but everyone got up and dinghied in to town for the Elks Club Pancake breakfast and to watch the parade.  By 10:00 the clouds threatened to drop rain on us and we decided to head back to the boats, and pull up the lines and continue to fly south like these birds.

I'm on carp watch now, ever since another one jumped in the dingy with Jeff as he was exploring yesterday afternoon.  I'm going to check on the internet for recipies. 

I'll catch up with you down the river.

Love,

Ben