ST. JOSEPH, MICHIGAN TO ALTON, ILLINOIS
AUGUST 31 ST THROUGH SEPTEMBER 13TH
Thursday, August 31 st
St Joseph, Michigan to Chicago, Illinois — BY CAR
Well…the nasty conditions of Lake Michigan are continuing to prevent us from going to Chicago by boat…so we're renting a car for the day and heading into Chicago. Can you believe it?????
We're in the car and on the road by 8:30 am and it's an easy two-hour ride into Chicago. Our friend Ed Jordanich has given us good directions into the heart of the city and we're set for a fun day. The sky is a brilliant blue and it is warm and sunny. Due to the time zone change, we'll pick up an hour of ‘play time' once we actually get into Chicago. We made it into the city and found an all-day parking spot where the folks were very friendly and helped us to find our first stop—the architectural boat cruise down the Chicago River.
If one were to designate Chicago the ‘capital' of anything, then the world of modern architecture would be its domain. The skyscraper was born and nurtured a century ago on this swampy Midwest soil.
This cruise is run by the Chicago Architectural Foundation and takes you under 24 of the River's bridges and past many of its buildings. Our tour guide teaches history at the University of Chicago and knows EVERYTHING about this city and its buildings. She's amazing. The tour was a lot of fun and we learned a lot about the city. The tour starts on the Chicago River at the Michigan Avenue Bridge. This spot is famous due to the positioning of the Wrigley Building. The landmark headquarters of the chewing gum company boldly marks the south end of the Magnificent Mile. It's sheathed in
Terra-cotta that's remained remarkably white thanks to diligent maintenance, and the particular shade of green used on the trim is reminiscent of the Wrigley's spearmint gum wrappers. The tower was based on the Giralda Tower in Seville, Spain and was designed in the 1920's.
As we moved along the views were gorgeous. There are both private residences and commercial buildings, most of which face the river. There are flower boxes everywhere and much of the landscape has been designed to take advantage of the river.
The boat tour took us by Chicago's famous Merchandise Mart which was built in 1930 and was owned until just recently by the Kennedy family. The Mart contains 4 million square feet—more than any other building in the country except the Pentagon. Inside are more than 600 permanent wholesale showrooms for all sorts of merchandise, much of it related to interior design. The somewhat macabre row of heads on the plaza is the Merchandise Mart Hall of Fame, installed at Joseph P. Kennedy's behest in 1953. The titans of retail portrayed here include F.W.Woolworth, Marshall Field and Edward Filene.
I liked this picture due to the reflection of the other buildings in the exterior of the building. The building is also concave which enhances the reflection. It's known by its address—333 West Wacker Street and its curve was designed to match the bend in the river.
We, of course went by the Sears Tower—it was just as described—wonderful.
This picture is fascinating because this building is the old Montgomery Ward building. Its size was a reflection of the large catalogue business done by the company and the need for a large warehouse in which to assemble the catalogues.
During the ride we went under many, many bridges and they're rather low— Ocean Flyer would never be able to come along the Chicago River. However….we passed many areas where Chicago's transit system, the EL, is visible on the bridges. I liked this picture a lot.
From here, we walked down the “Magnificent Mile”, which is Chicago's equivalent of Rodeo Drive. Every upscale shop is here and the street is packed with people—both buying and just looking. On our way, we stopped to take a picture of this moose.
We made it a point to stop for lunch/dinner at a famous Chicago restaurant—Pizzeria Uno—at its original location. We ate outside and had Uno and Veggie pizzas. Yum, Yum!!!!!
From here we headed to Millennium Park, which is truly amazing. It's 24 acres of quiet gardens, lively public art, and dramatic structures built on top of 19 th century railroad lines, are an important link to Chicago's history.
Inside the Park, there's a huge performance pavilion, the Jay Pritzger Pavilion. The Pavilion stands 120 feet high with a billowing ‘headdress' of brushed stainless steel ribbons that frame the opening and connect to an overhead trellis of crisscrossing steel pipes. The trellis supports the sound system, which mimics the acoustics of a concert hall by distributing enhanced sound equally to the 4,000 fixed seats and over the Great Lawn, which accommodates an additional 7,000 people. There are benches everywhere—it's really quite inviting. There's always something going on in the park—it's quite a center of activity.
One of the more prominent sculptures in the Park is affectionately known as the “Bean”. Its official name is the Cloud Gate, but everyone ignores that name in favor if its street name—the Bean. The 110 ton sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel ‘plates', which reflect the city's famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a ‘gate' to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their mirror image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.
The entrance of the park is marked with a series of columns—all looking rather regal. For me, I liked this picture due to the positioning of the Prudential Rock—which sits on the side of the Prudential building just one street behind the Park's entrance. Look closely. This monument is a nearly full-size replica of the peristyle originally in the same location between 1917 and 1953. Its columns are made of Indiana limestone while the base is built from French limestone.
After spending some time in the Park, we headed to the garage to pick up the car for the drive back to St. Joseph, Michigan. It was a long day but a great day.
Officially we had no dinner. Our afternoon pizza was a late lunch so…..
Friday, September 1 st
At port in St Joseph, Michigan
Well….we're really getting sick of this…once again the Lake Michigan waters are too difficult for us to go across to Chicago. One Looper boat, Change of Pace with our friends Tom and Marbeth, decide to go and three other Looper boats decide to remain in St Joseph. This is very frustrating. Tom and Marbeth later report that they've made it to Chicago safely but the waves were high and the crossing was uncomfortable. I'm very glad that we did NOT go today. I'll work on the website update and Jean always has boat-related things to do.
Later in the early evening, we have wonderful plans to visit and have dinner with Chris and Tom Crawford. Tom and I worked together at Prudential and Tom and Chris completed the Great Circle Route in 2002-2003. We've all become good friend and our delay gave us the opportunity to meet up with Tom and Chris.
We had a wonderful dinner at a lakefront restaurant in St Joseph and talked and laughed about a million things. It was a great night. Oh…yeah….Jean ordered rack of lamb and got eight lamb chops—we couldn't believe it. I ordered a sirloin steak. We both had salads and with our entrees we each had a baked potato.
Saturday, September 2 nd
Chicago
What a day!!!!! Jean got up very early and once again began checking the weather reports. She also spoke with several of the sailboaters who were just coming in from the first leg of a Holiday Race. We got quite a bit of conflicting information about the condition of the Lake so it was very difficult to make a decision about whether or not to go out. After much discussion, we made a decision to leave the boat for the weekend and to take an Amtrak train into Chicago. We got a hotel reservation for four nights, got a ride to the train station and off we went. It seemed strange to leave the boat but…..the weather conditions continued to be bad and the forecast showed no improvement.
We arrived in Chicago before noon and were off and running pretty quickly. We made our way uptown to the main Visitors Center and picked up quite a bit of information about the city. It's a very visitor-friendly place and very easy to navigate the train and bus system. There are a MILLION things to do—and the weather was cooperating fully.
Chicago's aquarium—the Shedd Aquarium was built in 1930 and is a main attraction and one of the largest aquariums in the world. It features 8,000 freshwater and marine mammals in natural settings. The Oceanarium, which overlooks Lake Michigan, is the largest indoor marine mammal pavilion in the world. It's also part of Museum Campus, which is walking distance from our hotel. We decided to head there—the weather was so perfect and the Aquarium sits right on Lake Michigan.
The Museum was hosting a special Exhibit on Reptiles—which was pretty interesting. The lines were so long for this exhibit that they created a reptile-looking awning to shield everyone in line from the hot afternoon sun.
We saw a million fish—of course—as well as many anemones (a new word I learned) and coral. The coral was gorgeous and there was a ton of it in the tanks.
There were things I never want to see in the water—and fish that seemed quite friendly.
This picture is of a ‘red booted cleaner shrimp'—something quite different but rather interesting looking.
This next ‘fish' is a ‘peppermint' shrimp—very colorful and very peppermint-ish.
There was a special exhibit for this reptile—the Komodo—the world's largest and heaviest lizard species whose length is 8-9 feet with a weight of approximately 150 pounds. He was hiding from all of us and very creepy. But fascinating also.
There were many, many reptiles on display which was fine with me as long as they stayed behind the glass. Here are a couple of cuties.
There were several exhibits of seahorses. These are very delicate fishes and the ones on display here were particularly interesting. One—looked very traditional and feather-light. The second seahorse looked like a piece of loose seaweed—it was pretty strange. Take a look for yourself.
All of the exhibits were well done and the fish tanks were a big hit with everyone.
By the time we were done with the Aquarium it was late afternoon. The Aquarium is situated right on Lake Michigan and its vantage point is awesome. We were able to take some pictures showing all the sailboats in the adjacent section of the Lake.
We now headed downtown in search of a restaurant for dinner—what a mistake. It was now Saturday night of a holiday weekend. Every restaurant was packed with a wait of more than an hour. We even tried to get to the top of the John Hancock building and found out that there was a 90 minute wait for that activity. So… we stayed downtown a little longer, found a TGIF's and ordered a light meal. Jean had a steak fajita and I had a hamburger—nothing special. We were both tired and hungry and not in the mod to wait an hour for dinner.
Sunday, September 3 rd
Chicago
Today was a busy day in Chicago. We were off and running early. We've walked a lot during our stay here and this city is famous for its parks and walkways. In every park there are sculptures and trees and beautiful plantings. Here are a couple of photos as examples. The trees are from the Chicago Art Institute's gardens.
We took the bus to the Museum of Science and Industry and stayed until they closed the doors at 5:30pm. The Museum is billed as Chicago's #1 tourist attraction, with yearly attendance around 4.5 million. This is a museum where you could spend weeks, if not months. It's the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere, with 14 acres of hands-on exhibits designed to spark curiosity, ingenuity and creativity.
Every exhibit was fascinating and the Museum was HUGE. Everywhere we walked we entered a new section with incredible information and interesting displays. We had gone to this Museum specifically to see a special DaVinci exhibit which was scheduled to end on September 4 th . We needed special tickets for this but we had gotten them in advance and were all set. Jean has always been an admirer of Leonardo DaVinci—the Father of Aviation. Her first airplane, and all subsequent airplanes, were named Leonardo —after Leonardo DaVinci.
The DaVinci exhibit was excellent—it's just amazing how many ideas he had and how many of those ideas he was able to transfer into inventions. He was a gifted individual with incredible talents. He was an artist, a sculptor, an inventor, an architect and so much more. The exhibit had many different sections—each providing good information about DaVinci and his works.
He often drew sketches of different ‘inventions' and these sketches were well ahead of their time. DaVinci clearly saw things that didn't exist and was able to draw a model of something that could work. Here are several examples of his designs. This first design is for a parachute—note its pyramidal shape. He also drew a design for a glider—after all, DaVinci is known as the ‘Father of Aviation'.
DaVinci was totally fascinated with water. Not surprisingly then, he designed water shoes—take a look.
He also invented and designed the paddleboat. Here's one of the paddleboats that was part of the exhibit.
At then end of the exhibit, there was a huge room set up for people to try to replicate some of DaVinci's inventions. In this section of the exhibit you could build your own bridge, assemble a machine and even test the firing power of a catapult. This part of the day was a lot of fun as everyone tried to fly, paint, sculpt, etc.
I was unaware of DaVinci's contributions to warfare. He invented many different weapons to prevent neighboring ‘fiefdoms' from taking over. He designed a tank to help in wars and also invented the catapult.
Within the Museum, there was an entire section about transportation that included a replica of the city of Chicago with a working train system which was a good representation of Chicago's rail system. Included in this exhibit was an incredible mock-up of the city with all of its buildings.
This section also contained many airplanes, including a Boeing 727 jet that you could ‘fly'. There were also several planes hanging from the ceiling.
There were many other exhibits that were fascinating including a section on a German submarine, the U-505 that was captured by Americans during WWII and then towed 2500 miles to Bermuda to prevent the Germans from finding out about its capture.
The actual submarine was on display but we were unable to get on it—it was too late in the day.
After the day at the Museum, we went to Grant Park to take in the last evening of Chicago's largest jazz festival. It was a gorgeous night—very cool but no clouds and no rain in the forecast. The festival had started on Friday night and would end tonight. We got there in time for a few sessions and then headed out for dinner. We found a small outside café—it was now almost 10pm so we had a light meal. I had some chicken and Jean had a Greek dish, Spanikopita. We ate well.
It was a very long day and our feet were killing us!!!!!!
Monday, September, 4th
Chicago
Today was just plain fun—all day. We started the day, in the rain, with a walk over to the Adler Planetarium. This museum is inside Chicago's Museum campus, along with the Field Museum (the history museum) and the Shedd Aquarium. It's a short walk from our hotel and the HUGE planetarium building sits right on Lake Michigan. It opened in 1930 as the first public planetarium and still has a traditional in-the-round Zeiss planetarium that shows constellations and planets in the night and sky.
We spent several hours at the Planetarium visiting the Space and Galaxy exhibits. We went to a very interesting ‘presentation' about the skies above Chicago and saw many different star constellations drawn against the night sky. From a technological and astronomical perspective the presentation was very impressive. I don't know if I'll remember everything but…..we have very few pictures from the Planetarium. Most of the presentations were too dark to take pictures or the ‘skies' would not have photographed well. Sorry. We did get a picture of the Planetarium building.
On our way from the Planetarium, we were able to get this great photo of the Shedd Aquarium. This is a good angle to see the aquarium's water pavilion.
After the Planetarium Jean and I met Tom and Marbeth, two Looper friends, to go to Wrigley Field for a Cubs baseball game. I'd never been to Wrigley Field so…off we went. The Chicago Cubbies were a winning team during their first forty years. They won the first and second World Series that they played, in 1907 and 1908. Since then, however, it's been tough going. They haven't even reached the World Series since 1945.
We had great seats, in the fourth row just past first base. We could reach out and touch the players—the seats were great!!!! I thought for sure that one of us would catch a foul ball or an errant throw to first base but...no such luck. It was an afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Pirates with not much at stake for either team.
The game got off to a terrible start, as Pittsburgh scored four runs in the first inning off horrible pitching. The pitcher WALKED the first three batters!!!!! Then the next three batters all got hits—it was horrible. The Pirates then scored another run in the second inning and had a 5 to 0 lead after just two innings. But….the Cubs rallied in the bottom of the second inning and scored four runs making it a 5 to 4 game. The fans stayed pretty loyal and continued to cheer for anything positive. But…after leaving many batters stranded, 5 to 4 was the final score and the Cubs were the losers.
One very interesting thing…Wrigley Field is located right inside a Chicago neighborhood. Immediately outside the Field are row houses. Well…some of the homeowners have constructed bleacher seats on their roofs—I hope that you can see this in the picture. These seats could be the best in the house!!!!!
Following the game, we all went to the John Hancock Observatory for a 360-degree view of Chicago and Lake Michigan. On our way we stopped at the Chicago Water Tower, a historic monument downtown which is now an art gallery.
The John Hancock Center was the first Chicago giant to break the 1,000 foot mark and is one of Chicago's most famous buildings. Jean and I had tried on two prior occasions to go to the Observatory but the lines were too long. But…today…all four of us got right in—and the evening was crisp and clear. The views were spectacular. Of course, given my long history with Prudential, I HATED the idea of going into a John Hancock building but…they did have an excellent observatory. The perspective you get regarding Lake Michigan and the Chicago is spectacular.
I also took a picture showing two of Chicago's two ‘downtown' beach areas.
We also managed to have some fun with one of the photo set-ups they offered.
After the observatory we found a great Italian restaurant for dinner where I ordered my usual—chicken parmesan. Jean ordered lasagna and we both ate like queens.
We all made a short detour into the Hershey's Chocolate Store—for a few little nibbles and then the four of us headed home—Tom and Marbeth went back to the marina and Jean and I headed back to the hotel. We really do miss being on Ocean Flyer.
September 5 th
Chicago
Today, we considered ourselves very cultured. We started the day with a four-hour tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois, as well as a walking tour of many of the prairie style houses he designed in Oak Park. The tour also included a visit to the Unity Temple, also in Oak Park, and also designed by Wright. It was a wonderful morning.
Frank Lloyd Wright is considered to be one of America's most prominent architect/designers. He was born in 1864 and lived and worked well into his nineties. He's easily recognized as a genius although his personal life was pretty chaotic—for the times in which he lived. The majority of his work was done for residential purposes, although his commercial works are extremely well known and regarded. He lived in Oak Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb for twenty years—from 1889-1909. During this period, he had already established his prominence and was busy designing private residences. In addition to his home and studio, which are now part of the FLW Preservation Trust, there are 26 FLW homes in Oak Park and the surrounding areas—the largest concentration in the U.S. In total, FLW designed 425 ‘pieces'—quite a large number.
Before we went to FLW's home, we went by two of his ‘bootlegged' houses. These are homes that he built while he was employed as an architect by a well-known Chicago firm and was a protégé of its lead architect. He needed extra money so he designed these houses ‘on the side'. One of the houses is currently for sale for $1.1 million.
We started the tour at his home—his residence for almost twenty years—from 1889-1909. His residence was beautiful and seemed so very current. It was hard to believe that he built it in 1889. His home contained his trademark elements—bands of windows, an entrance on the side and his use of geometric shapes—both round and octagonal. The house was as interesting on the exterior as it was on the inside. I was surprised at the height of the ceilings and the amount of storage in each room—plenty. Wright believed strongly that his homes should be functional and he also felt that the house should be built in concert with nature.
We were also able to go inside his studio—which was on the same property as his residence. The studio was equally impressive in both the exterior and interior. It had plenty of light and was very practical in design. On the outside of the studio were some beautiful concrete designs.
As we moved through the neighborhood, we saw many other FLW houses. This picture reflects a Tudor-style house that he designed for his neighbor. FLW didn't want to design a Tudor-style house but his neighbor insisted—something FLW wasn't used to. Take a look.
This next picture is of a house that I loved!!!! I loved the lines and the overall design. I would have loved to have seen the inside but…..
Take a look at this orange monster. It's across the street from the one above (that I love) but…what a horror. It's currently on the market for $5.6 million!!!!!
The last building that we visited both inside and outside was the Unity Temple, a Unitarian Universalist church. This temple contained many of the FLW standard features—bands of windows and geometric lines. His use of stained glass window designs was gorgeous—the design was actually sheaves of wheat—signifying ‘life'. FLW said that this building was his “contribution to modern architecture”. One of FLW's most famous buildings, this church is an early example of the use of reinforced concrete.
The interior is delicately illuminated by a golden-paned skylight and windows. FLW rejected reframes and set his windows directly into the concrete for a more open flow from interior to exterior. FLW designed the sanctuary with 400 seats in a four-sided configuration so that no one would ever be more than 40 feet away from the front.
Back to Chicago for lunch—soup and ½ panini and then a short walk to the Chicago Cultural Center—Chicago's acclaimed landmark home of the arts. In this building is housed the largest Tiffany stained-glass dome. It was truly spectacular. Prior to becoming the Cultural Center, this building was Chicago's Public Library building.
Within this building, the inlay stone work is intricate and stunning. These pictures won't let me show you the real beauty of this building but…it was beautiful. I've also provided a picture of the coffered ceiling which I thought was just magnificent.
From there we moved on to the new Chicago Library with its interesting exterior.
Tonight we continued our culture theme by attending a performance of Hamlet at the Shakespeare Theatre. This newly constructed theatre is located at Navy Pier, thus giving its patrons a beautiful waterfront spot. Navy Pier was originally opened as a shipping and recreational facility in 1916 and has evolved into a premier family entertainment center. Among the highlights of Navy Pier's long and rich history was its use as a training base for the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 1947. Before we entered the theater we took some pictures of the Pier and from the Pier.
The evening performance was excellent and the views from inside the theatre were also wonderful.
Wednesday, September 6 th
Chicago
We knew that today would be fun. We went to the Field Museum to see the King Tut (King Tutankhamen) exhibit on loan from Egypt. What an exhibit!!!! This museum is said to be the largest Georgia marble building in the world. We had early tickets to the exhibit and were glad for that. The exhibit contains 130 ‘pieces' from King Tut's tomb that were found in 1922 after laying buried beneath the Egyptian sands for more than 3,000 years. The riches from the tomb are famous and the pieces on display were fantastic—gleaming gold, magic amulets and articles of ancient life. No pictures were allowed, so I have no pictures to share with you. But….the exhibit was excellent. There were a lot of small artifacts from the tomb as well as several of the ‘outer tombs' that encased the King. There were many of the symbolic items including gold trinkets and jewelry. We enjoyed this exhibit greatly.
The rest of the day was spent at other sections of the Field Museum. This museum has a huge dinosaur section on permanent display. It's pretty interesting and you could spend days going through it. The Museum's main lobby is also unbelievable not only in its architecture but also for its displays.
On our way back from the Tut exhibit, we took this picture of Soldiers Field Stadium, home of the Chicago Bears. This stadium is interesting in that the city built a new stadium but kept part of the original stadium facade, including the old columns, in tact.
In the afternoon we went to the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park to ‘rest our feet'. Even the fountain is historic. It's a decorative, tiered fountain with intricate designs of pink marble seashells, water spouting fish and bronze sculptures of sea horses. It was patterned after a fountain at Versailles but is about twice the size of its model. Thanks to its size, the 25-foot Fountain can propel water 150 feet high and circulates 14,000 gallons a minute.
At about 4pm we made our way back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the Amtrak station in town. We were back in St Joseph by 9pm and ready, once again, to try to cross Lake Michigan and head into Illinois—this time by boat.
Thursday, September 7 th
St. Joseph, Michigan to Dolton, Illinois
We were off the dock at 7:10am and finally underway to Illinois!!! The morning was clear and cool—68 degrees. We had a lot of work to do before we even left the dock. We needed to re-inflate the fenders—we're now back in lock territory. We had to lower the satellite antenna system—we're now back to low bridges. I was up by 5am and Jean was already up and working in the engine room. Ugh. On the way out of St. Joseph, I took two more lighthouse pictures.
Well….Lake Michigan finally cooperated and the 60-mile ‘run' down the Lake to Illinois was easy. The Lake was pretty calm with waves at only 1-2 feet. We were very lucky—the next few days were forecast to be nasty, once again. After a few hours we entered the Calumet-Sag Channel (we're now in Illinois) and immediately went under our first and lowest bridge. Right after this bridge we would quickly come to a rail bridge—also low. This next part of our trip would take us under many, many, many bridges.
The Cal-Sag together with the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the DesPlaines River and Illinois Rivers connect Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River just north of St. Louis. It is 333 miles from the entrance at Lake Michigan to the Mississippi with eight locks to traverse going down. We would be on this waterway for the next several days.
On our way into the Cal-Sag, we noticed Missy B in front of us, one of the boats we first met in Canada and which we haven't seen in awhile. We immediately saw how industrial everything is on this waterway. There are barges everywhere, cranes in operation along the water's edge and rusted boats and tugs tied up to each other. There were mounds of gravel, coal and sand all along the waterway.
After going through one lock, we turned into our marina by 1:45pm, happy to be done with Lake Michigan and on new waters representing the next part of our adventure.
We're both pretty tired from our week in Chicago and from our early departure. We turned down an invitation from the marina folks for a small get-together and got to bed early.
Dinner tonight was from the freezer—a Lean Cuisine chicken entrée.
Friday, September 8 th
Dolton, Illinois to Seneca, Illinois
We were off the dock at 6:30am anticipating a long day, including several locks. The skies were clear with a cool temperature of 68 degrees. The water was very calm—we're happy to back on a river and less dependent on the weather conditions. This will be our first full day in Illinois waters. We're not sure what to expect.
As with yesterday, we were very surprised at how industrial the waterway is—very narrow and bordered on both sides by active plants—many of which are coal and gravel and sand. There are HUGE mounds of coal and gravel around every bend in the water. In this next picture, if you can see him, there's a man working on the top of the mound.
There are cranes and barges all along the waterway making it very difficult to navigate. Today will also mark our first experience in dealing with tows and barges and tow captains.
Within the first couple of miles we've met a tow and Jean calls the captain to get instructions regarding how we should approach him. The rules of this waterway are that the commercial boats RULE and that the pleasure craft ALWAYS are second to the towboats. These tows are ‘pushing' huge barges—two and three wide and four and five deep. I don't know how these guys do it. It's pretty amazing.
We've also noticed that another pleasure boat has come up behind us and is following us pretty closely. We soon realize that this boat captain—Bob, is calling the tows ahead of us even though we're the lead boat. It only takes another minute to figure out that he knows everyone on the tows and that they all know him. We later learned that he's a part-time tow captain. He called Jean later and asked to ‘take the lead' which, of course, we loved to hear!!!!! He was a great help—especially on our first day working with these barges. He was on this waterway with a brand new boat that he was delivering to Seneca, Illinois. By the way… he told us that this was his 71 st trip on the Calumet/Illinois River this year!!!!!!
We also got to experience our first lock with the barges!!!!! Bob was a big help here also. We waited about an hour and a half to go through the lock which Bob explained was ‘very good'. Bob also hinted, very strongly, that we would never get to our planned destination that night. So….we changed our marina plans. In this lock we were tied to a barge—another new experience. I also managed to get a picture of Bob.
We went through three locks in total, learning at each one, that we need to allot more time each day to wait at every lock. Ugh!!!! By the way...these locks are different from the 100 locks that we've already gone through—what else is new!!!! In this system, the lockmasters give you a line which you must hold—you do not use your own lines. These locks are also HUGE—VERY HUGE. They need to be big to hold the barges. They're 1000-1200 feet long and about 130 feet wide. It's very unusual to go through by yourself. The lockmasters don't want to waste the ‘lock experience'. Plus, if you go through with a barge, that's a totally weird experience. Their wake is brutal—especially as they ‘power up' to leave the lock. But…..
We went under some more bridges as part of our travels—these bridges are actually getting to be pretty interesting. Some are quite beautiful by themselves. We've lowered all antennae so that we can clear each bridge. Here are some examples of today's bridges.
Through our travels today, we crossed from the Cal-Sag Channel into the Illinois River. The waters certainly all look the same—industrial and busy. We didn't make it into the marina until 5:45pm!!!! Needless to say, we were exhausted. There'd be no walk into town.
Dinner tonight was essentially h'ors doevres—salsa, chips, cheese and crackers.
Saturday, September 9 th
Seneca, Illinois to Spring Valley, Illinois
We were off the dock at 9:15am on a cool morning with calm waters.
Oh… I forgot to mention that there's a lot of debris in these waters. There are logs and tree stumps everywhere. Well…while waiting at one of yesterday's locks, we ‘hit' a submerged log. We heard the ‘thump' and figured we hit something. While at our marina, a full service boatyard, we had the propellers checked and found that one of them was very dinged. Jean carries a set of spare props so the marina took off the dinged props and put on the new ones. That's why we were not off the dock until 9am. Actually—the marina did a great job of working on the boat. It was hauled out of the water at 7am and worked on until 8:30am—and it was a Saturday!!!!! They did a great job!!!!!
Our first lock was only a few miles ahead and we went ‘in' with only a 15-minute wait which we thought was great. We were in with three other pleasure boats and a huge barge—the Olmstead —in front of all of us. It's pretty tight in the lock when you're alongside one of these tows with a very wide load of barges.
When the gates opened we realized that the barge needed to hook up some other barges that he had already pushed through. So… we waited 90 minutes inside the lock. This was a new experience. When it was time to leave, the barge went first and created quite a bit of wake. Then the lockmaster signaled us to go next. Which we did, but….oh my…we got caught in the barge's wake and got tossed all around. Another new experience.
At our next lock, we were told that the wait would be ‘at least' 90 minutes. There was already a barge at the lock waiting to be processed. So, we tied up at a large round slab of concrete and got comfortable. What a day.
At one point in the day, we actually had two tows coming at us from the opposite direction. In this case, the captains told us to ‘go between' the two of them.
In many cases, these tow captains are pushing a load of barges which is 3 or 4 barges wide and four or five barges long. Each barge holds the equivalent of 22 tractor-trailers. It's amazing that the captains can even see what's going on. Equally amazing is watching them turn corners, take bends, go beneath bridges and enter and exit the locks.
We got into our marina, The Spring Valley Boat Club, at 4pm and were very happy to get there!!!! We were met at the fuel dock by several members of the boat club who were very friendly and very interested in our trip. We were invited—three times—to join everyone at a dock party and went over at 6pm. Everyone was extremely friendly and very inquisitive. We spoke with several boat club members who had already completed parts of the Loop and got some very valuable information from them.
Dinner tonight was cheese and crackers and some finger food at the dock party. When we returned to the boat we had some dessert—low fat frozen strawberry yogurt topped with fresh strawberries.
Sunday, September 10th
Spring Valley, Illinois to Peoria, Illinois
We were off the dock at 8:25 in grey skies and slight rain. It's dreary.
We do notice today that the scenery is improving. The waterway is getting wider and it's definitely more green, thanks to trees along both sides of the water. Throughout most of this waterway we have seen many, many great blue herons and great egrets. They line the waterway and look beautiful in the water.
Surprisingly we've seen no other pleasure craft even though we know that there are several Loopers in the area.
Jean did see hundreds and hundreds of white pelicans today—which is quite unusual. For a while, they seemed to be following us. There were several different groups, each with more than one hundred pelicans. Pretty amazing. I took a picture of some of them sitting on a sandbar near us. I hope you can see them.
The day was relatively easy and we made our way to the Illinois Valley Yacht Club—IVY—by 4pm. It's a very pretty building with turrets on both ends.
We were met at the fuel dock by Bob from Bonas IV and his friend John. There was also a dock party underway including a BBQ ribs contest. Jean and I also noticed several other Loopers at the Club. We got our fuel, got into our slip and headed over to the party. The permanent boaters at this club are very friendly and treated us very nicely. We were quickly fed and then offered a car to use while we were there—very nice.
For dinner, we ate at the Club, with the Bonas IV gang—Bob and Nan and their friend John. The buffet was excellent—chicken and pasta. Jean and I had a little of both. We had a wonderful salad and no dessert!!!!!!!
Monday, September 11 th
At port in Peoria, Illinois
We decided to stay another day in Peoria and do some chores. The entire day was spent working on the boat, doing laundry, completing a website update and doing grocery shopping. Oh…I forgot…we also cleaned the boat!!!!!
Dinner tonight was a chicken Caesar salad.
Tuesday, September 12th
Peoria, Illinois to Beardstown, Illinois
Today was a long day but an easy day. We only had one lock to get through but were planning on an 80 mile journey. We left the Yacht Club at 6:45am and made our way past downtown Peoria.
We were traveling with two other boats— Bonas IV and Amarse . Amarse is a boat owned by Judy and Fred who we met very early on in the Trent-Severn Waterway in Canada and with whom we have stayed in touch for most of the trip. They caught up to us at IVY and decided to continue on with us for today. We have been traveling on and off with Bonas IV for the past month. Our luck was very good for the lock was only 10 miles from the Yacht Club and when we called the lockmaster he told us to “keep on coming”. It was great. As we approached the lock he opened the gates and in we went. We waited for two other boats—both Loopers from another marina and the five of us went through in no time.
The eighty miles on the Illinois River was very similar to the rest of the trip on this waterway. There are sections of big grain facilities with large plants and machinery in operation.
Then, you'll go by large sections of just beautiful trees and water.
We've continued to pass many, many, many barges. Once again, we were faced with two barges coming at us at the same time. This is yet one more opportunity for us to ‘go between' them.
This river is ‘owned' by barges and it's very clear that you need to give them the right of way. The industrial nature of the waterway is very apparent. In these next two pictures I thought I'd give you a close-up view of the size of these barges. I took these pictures from the deck of our boat as one of the barges was just passing us.
One special thing did happen today. We saw a bald eagle!!!!! I have been trying to spot a bald eagle the entire trip. I really thought that I would see one in Canada. On most days I would be on the lookout for an eagle. I was very upset to think that I might complete the entire loop and not see a bald eagle. In fact, after we saw all of the pelicans, I mentioned to Jean my continued disappointment about NOT seeing a bald eagle. I had no sooner mentioned this today when….we saw him—in the air—soaring. He was magnificent.
We made it into Beardstown at about 2:30pm and got settled. All three of us were tied up to a barge—of course. We were told that we might have to move in the middle of the night but…. ‘probably not'. We were grateful for the spot however. There aren't many spots to either tie up or anchor in this section of the River. It was also impossible for us to continue past 2:30pm because there would be no place for us to stay the night for many, many miles. Beardstown was a good spot for us.
Jean and I took a walk into town and made our way to the Chamber of Commerce building which also housed a wonderful and very eclectic museum. We got a personal tour from one of the museum docents. The Chamber of Commerce is housed in the building that used to be the local courthouse. In fact, at this site Abraham Lincoln defended a local man suspected of murder. The man was acquitted, in part, due to Lincoln's reliance on the Farmer's Almanac to prove that he could not have been seen by the light of the moon as indicated by an eye witness. According to the Almanac, there was no visible moon on the evening of the killing. The trial would always be known as the “Almanac Trial”. The museum also had exhibits on a number of local events from its famous 1922 flood to the recently famous Beardstown ladies—the small town women who became famous for smart investing.
We later went out to dinner with Judy and Fred from Amarse . We ate at the only restaurant in town—the Riverfront Restaurant—which was above the bowling alley.
We had a lot of fun catching up on each other's travels. For dinner, Jean had grilled pork chops and a Caesar salad. I had grilled catfish and an Italian salad. No dessert.
Wednesday, September 13 th
Beardstown, Illinois to Alton, Illinois
Today was a full day on the Illinois River. All three boats were off the ‘barge' by 6:40am in cool temperature (60 degrees) and clear skies. At our first lock we waited about 90 minutes while a barge processed through. The lockmaster let us tie up to the lock wall which made the wait easy.
While waiting, three more Loopers came along. We finally made it through and it was the only lock of the day. By this time, we're very comfortable with the locks and the tow captains. We now even know some of the tow boats by name. They make the trip back and forth on the river all the time and we've passed some of them more than once. The captain of Anne B even came out of the tow to have his picture taken by me. It was fun.
Today we even passed fields of corn—it was very picturesque and a nice change from the industrial scenes of the past week. Today, the river is wider and lined with trees—it's very pretty. We also passed under even one more bridge—I've stopped counting.
We've passed several car ferries which all seem very busy. We can see that the ferries are full. We're just mystified as to where everyone is going.
At about 4:30pm, we entered the area where the Mississippi River joins the Illinois River. The water opened up significantly and we were able to see both up and down the Mississippi River—it was beautiful.
We immediately saw beautiful bluffs along the shore. They were gorgeous and very interesting in their design. In particular spots, the cliffs had holes in them.
While just passing the convergence of the rivers, we noticed a huge, high barge coming at us. We immediately noticed the difference in the height of this barge. We also noticed how much wider this section of the river is—we'll pass this barge easily.
We've now completed our trek on the Illinois River and we're beginning the next phase of our trip—over 200 miles down the Mississippi. We made it to our marina—still in Illinois—by 5:05pm—pretty tired but very happy to be in new waters.
Upon arrival, we saw that Huddie and Betty Baxter, from Cape Cod, are here also. We haven't seen Huddie and Betty since Canada. So… we invited them over for refreshments—and then had a light dinner. We both had chicken, a cold pasta side dish and garlic bread. We had some low fat frozen yogurt for dessert. Yum.
At one point, we saw that the sun was setting with a stunning reflection on the bridge immediately adjacent to our marina.
Jean took a nice picture of the sunset itself.
We've decided to stay here for a few days. Our marina is only 30 miles away from St. Louis, Missouri and we'd like to spend some time in that city. Stay tuned. |
