8-27-8- 8-31-18 Upper Illinois River

We are on the Illinois River running into fellow Loopers and loving it.  It is so interesting learning about the different people doing this trip.  Everyone has their own style. We met a couple on Bob N Along, Bob and Natalie that love to anchor as much as we do.  We have been staying on free walls with power, which has been nice with the warmer weather as we can run our Air Conditioning.

Joliet Wall was our first stop. Enjoyed a few docktails as is what happens when Loopers get together.  Dropped the Bikes. I spent some time in Library catching up on my blog and Scott ran to Walgreens. Other than that we just enjoyed the company and air conditioning at night.

Ottawa Wall was next. But to get there you have to go through the dreaded Marseilles lock. Dreaded because there is usually several hour wait.  It’s a bigger lock so it take time to fill and empty.  On the Rivers, pleasure boats don’t pay for locks, but the Tows do and they are commerce so they get priority.  While waiting, we call it “doing the dance.” Puttering around trying to stay out of the way while waiting.

Last time we went through there was an old barge to tie up to.  Darn it, they cleaned up the place and there was nowhere to tie. We were with Bob N Along and the voice on the radio said we were going to have to wait for a whole other tow to go through.  This is after waiting 2+ hours already.  The lock master told us what sides we were going to tie on, so we took our time and moved all our fenders the the right (starboard) side.  Bob N Along dropped anchor. As the tow went into the lock there was extra room. At 6 pm a different voice came on and asked the Tow if he minded if we went with him.  He was fine with that.   Bob N Along had to quickly pull up anchor and we had to change our fenders again to the left (Port) side, but we were moving and very happy for that.  Once in the lock the tenders were wonderful throwing us lines because there were no bollards available. The one tender told us there was just a shift change (thus the change in voice) and this Lock Master lets pleasure boats go through with Tows as long as there is room and the Tow doesn’t mind.  That explains a lot.  It was 7 pm before we got to Ottawa Wall.

Ottawa is a neat little town with everything a Looper needs within walking distance.  brewery, laundry, library, hardware, and grocery. We stayed on the free wall with power.  Bob N Along went into the marina because they needed water, pump out etc.  There were a lot of loopers there.  It was tempting to go but our budget got blown in Wisconsin marinas, so we need to be frugal for a while.

 

We got a wonderful surprise.  One of the boats in the marina is one we knew from our last Loop.  Eddy and Linda from Sprirus and other loopers saw us from the bridge and they surprised us by stopping by.  It was so wonderful to see them!

Bob N Along, Natalie and Bob came and stayed on the wall with us.  We walked to the Brew pub which was quite nice.

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We got ribs at the ribfest in town and enjoyed being grounded and not moving for a few days. We also enjoyed air conditioning especially at night.

We called the lock before leaving the dock to try to avoid another long wait but no one answered. Just then a big tow went by.  We had our engines revved up already.  We shut them down and had another cup of coffee.  Finally we got ahold of the Lock Master.  He was putting a double through then had this one to put through.  He suggested we wait a half at least a half an hour before leaving.  Bob N Along noticed a water leak on their boat, so while we waited Scott and Bob ran to the hardware store and for a three dollar part it saved them a lot of headaches, mess and water loss. While the guys were gone another tow went by.  Oh brother!  We decided we had to just go down and “get in the cue” as the lock masters say.  Fortunately the second Tow pulled off for loading and the barges from the first Tow were already on their way down, but the pusher still had to be brought down.  It is a big lock, and the lock master  TOLD the pusher we were going in with him.  He was not too happy to have us “riff raff pleasure boaters” in with him.  Loved that Lock Master.  He didn’t give him a choice.  We went in first and went all the way to the front of the lock and rafter next to each other. The pusher came behind us.  When we got down, they could only open the one lock door because we were so close to the other one. We pulled out and bam, right in front of us was a wall of barges with only 20 feet on the left for us to squeak through.  It was intimidating but not a problem.

We spent the night on Hennepin wall which is basically an old barge dug into the side of the hill.  It wasn’t that great and was quite high above the deck of our boat.  There were guardrails like you see along the road on the barge to tie to.  I couldn’t reach them, so I jumped off the boat after attaching the one I could reach to get the rest.  Later I marveled at my must have been ninja moves for this klutzy girl to have been able to leap onto the wall and get us tied up.  Sometimes it’s better not to think.  We helped Bob and Natalie get tied.  They were grateful we were there to help.

It was hot.  After cooling off on the back of the boat with cool cloths and ice water we all went for a walk.  By now we are all hot again so we stopped at the Tap House just above our boats.  We walked in and they asked if we wanted the bar or food.  I said “where ever it is coldest, but we just want cold drinks.”  They humored us as we pulled up to the very cool bar.  Girls just had Ice tea and guys had a beer.  The bill for all of us was only $8.  What???  That is great.  We enjoyed chatting with the locals and the bartender.  We mostly enjoyed the cool knowing we had to go back to hot boats with no electric to run our air.  We won’t run our generator all night.  So we turned on a 12 volt fan and were sticky but slept well once we fell asleep.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

m/v Last Call

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