The last 2 days we traveled 114 miles and did 6 locks. The bottom 2 pictures is our trip through downtown Chicago. The top pic is one of the many barges we have seen. These barges push pretty much anything you can imagine, from garden mulch to backhoes to garbage. Not much fun passing the latter!!
We left Chicago bright and early (7:30) Tuseday Morning. We wanted to get an early start since we had to do the dreaded fish barrier on the Illinois waterway, and deal with the Coast Guard. Turns out it was no big deal. We were met at the entrance of the "electric barrier" by the Coast Guard, handed a paper flyer explaining it, and then had to phone in for permission to go through. Once granted, we drove the 7/10th of a mile and met another Coast Guard boat at the other end. We also had to phone in again to let them know we were through. They only let one boat at a time proceed. Really, you can stand at one end and see the other, that's how close it is! And some poor boats paid $600. to be towed through this! We're glad they stopped that!
The day went pretty smooth after that until we reached the lock at Dresden. Commercial boats (barges mostly) have the right of way, and we wound up waiting 5 hours before we could go through. There were 3 barges, and they sure move slow! We anchored, I fixed dinner, and then we put Ray to bed. We finally got our turn at 9pm! We kept going in the dark, looking for a spot to tie up and found a little town dock with a launching ramp and a few fishermen. No power, but by that time we didn't care! The fishermen were very nice, but the apparently they fish at night and sleep during the day! Today we came to Spring Valley, and are staying at a very small but nice boat club. We are between Joliet and Peoria, closer to Peoria. There is a boat tied behind us from Lake Huron doing the loop, and we went part of the day with a boat from Watertown also doing the loop. They had been on the water since mid-June!
That's it for today- love to you all, we miss you! Bud, Fran and Ray
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