Home Again!

We stayed at Keokuk Yacht Club Thursday night which happens to be taco night.  Good food and fun people.  

Just before KYC we locked thru 19 and we got to see an unusual sight!  A cement truck crossing the upper gate or the lock!

This view was very typical for our last few days on the river, very smooth.  

We left early and had a beautiful calm day going up the river.  We were concerned about our fuel level as diesel is not readily available on this strech of the river.  The concerns faded away as it became more apparent the current was not getting worse.  

We lucked out at the last two locks of the trip and didn't have wait at either lock and dam 18 or 17.

So long Lock 17- no more locks on this trip!

We 

"Muscatine" starts showing up on the buildings

Muscatine waterfront

Up the Mississippi

We left Grafton on Tuesday, July 29 and headed up the Mississippi.  There were some slight patches of fog to highlight the sunrise.

Sunrise near Grafton, IL

As expected we have about a 2-3 mph current running going up the river.  There goes our mileage.

Ferry Crossing

The river flooded significantly in early July.  The temporary flood protection was still up at several of locks.  Both Two Rivers Marina at Louisiana and the Quincy Boat Club in Quincy, IL were in the process of repairing flood damage to their buildings.

Sand bags at Lock 24

 Sunrise near Lousinana, Mo

Bluffs along the Missouri side of the river

Bored captain

Quincy Boat Club - They had 2" of flood water in the upper part of the building

The Pier Restaurant at Quincy, IL

Quincy, IL bridges

Corps tows Clinton and Muscatine dredging north of Quincy

Down the Illinois

Ottawa

Ottawa City Dock

Statue commemorating the site of first Lincoln - Douglas debate

One of the many beautiful murals in Ottawa

Peoria

The Caterpillar equipment manufacturer is headquartered in Peoria and has a very nice visitor center that is a short walk from the city dock.

Caterpillar Visitor Center

Left Peoria and headed downstream to Grafton where the Illinois river flows into the Mississippi.

Scenes on the Illinois River 

Tow fleet - easy to pass them when they're not moving and pushing 15 barges

Illinois River "castle"

Small tow at work

  

Confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi from the dock at Grafton Harbor.  We passed here when we left Muscatine in the fall of 2012.  We will complete the Great Loop when we enter the Mississippi River about a mile from the marina where we will turn north up the river to get back home.

We changed our forwarding address

We went to the city dock at Ottawa one more time, took some pictures in town, had a coffee and charged the inverter batteries one more time.

Then, we moved down to the starved rock marina dock to pump out, get fresh water and have lunch at the restaurant and hope our parts showed up at the ship store.

The parts actually showed up just in time, we finished lunch, pumped out and made it down to the lock to lock thru with FIVE other rec boats, one of them that tried to knock our side window out as we sat tied to the dock!  Some boaters just don't have the eyesight, or foresight, or smarts or something that allows them to not fit into the dumbass category.

We got thru the lock and moved downstream a few miles and found a sandbar to spend the night on.

This morning we made our way to Peoria and plan to continue on south in the morning. 

Still hanging out at the beach

Here is the morning coffee traffic for today.  We got parts on the way, should arrive Friday, so Saturday we may finally get moving again.

Beach Blog

Got some stuff done today.  We ordered a replacement depth finder and a tuner circut card for the TV set.  Both part will hopefully arrive at the marina up ahead on Friday.  So, here we are, back at the beach!  Not a bad place to be stuck for a few days!  The temps are in the low 80's today and there is a nice breeze.  Here is what Jennifer does most of the time!

Still Killing Time in Ottawa, IL

Not much new to report from Ottawa.  We stayed a second day and night on the sand bar just up river a mile from the free Ottawa city wall.  It got very hot yesterday and we were forced to sit under a shade tree on the sand most of the afternoon.  Our schedule for now is driven by the high water on the Mississippi.  We don't want to turn north at Grafton, IL until the flood water has a chance to go down a bit.  We will figure out where to get our depth finder, order that and plan to ship it someplace downstream.

This is the view from the morning coffee deck, parked on the sandbar.  This guy runs empties upstream every morning.  They go fairly slow thru here, especially the longer units.  It is pretty tight and there is a good corner and narrow bridge right in town, so they don't bother us much with any significant wake.

Couple photos that didn't make it into the earlier posts.  Jennifer locking thru Chicago.

Captain Badger in Ludington.  (That is an inside joke, we call anything and everything Badger now)

Me and my little badger on a walk in Ludington.

This IS the badger, or a statue of it anyway.

I should have put this with the last entry...

Here is a screen shot of the Corp Lock Queue web site that we use ALL the time to see how the crowd is going to be at each of the locks.  We are the Rec Boat in the queue and we are wIting on the Kelly Lee to come out.

I 80

Well, if we could get on the interstate here at the I 80 bridge just south of Joliet, and go about 75 mph, we would be home in about 5 hours.

Joliet Free City Wall with 30amp Power

We decided to call it a day at the free city wall in Joliet.  The barge traffic has been pretty light compared to what we have experienced on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.  The pictures below are the second one that has passed us since we tied up a few hours ago.

Skyscrapers, Bridges and Barges

We got an early start this morning to make sure we got ahead of the local sightseeing traffic at the Chicago lock and before the waves on the lake could get us.  This first picture is about half way from the 31st street marina to the Chicago lock.

This is the view of the approach wall while we waited for the lock.

And here we are just inside the lock and headed into the concrete jungle.  There was a celebration run for the 10 year anniversary of the Millenium Park.

Work barges along the first mile or so as they make improvements to the river walk.  This was another reason we wanted to move thru here on Sunday.

This guy was practicing the violin at about 7am.

Apartment building with a very small private slip area.  None of the boats looked all that fancy like you might expect for this close to downtown.

An old tug that looked like it belonged on the Erie Canal System.

Lots of low bridges.  We only had to have one opened for us, the rest we squeaked under.

Lots of material barges parked along the canal.  We think some of it may have been used on the construction project for the river walk.

The concrete sign says something like Chicago sanitary canal system.  It didn't smell very good for a mile or two.

Warning signs that should have said your fish finder may be smoked in the next mile or so...

More pictures soon...