**My apologies for the delay in posting.  We are having so much fun and doing so much work that blogging has been taking a back seat to the here and now.  Plus, once you see how busy we were in Chicago, you’ll see why this post took forever to finish.  It’s a doozy!  Thank you for your patience!  :)**

 

Stats for Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Origin:  New Buffalo, Michigan

Destination:  DuSable Harbor, Chicago, Illinois

Distance:  55.6 miles

Speed:  9 mph

Time on the Move:  6 hours and 12 minutes

After a great couple of days, choosing to leave New Buffalo was like picking the lesser of 2 evils. Tuesday was supposed to be calm and flat until mid afternoon, when it was supposed to get crazy wavy. Wednesday and Thursday were for sure no-gos, and Friday and beyond were just too far away to know.  We went to bed Monday night not quite sure what we were doing, but Tuesday we woke up and decided to go. It was drizzling and overcast. There was also fog along the horizon so the day actually looked pretty ominous, but the water was flat and there was little wind.

We headed straight for Hammond, Indiana to fill up on fuel. Hammond is known for having the cheapest fuel around Chicago, and it’s right next door. After a quick fill up and pump out, the skies were clearing and we started our 10 mile trip toward Chicago.

Seeing that skyline along the lake was quite a sight after weeks and weeks of sand dunes.  Pulling in to DuSable Harbor and passing all the mooring balls with sailboats floating peacefully was absolutely beautiful. We also saw lots of airplanes overhead and the kids wondered if Uncle Brad or Aunt Nancy were up there in any of those planes. Apparently the excitement of heading into the city was enough to bring the kids up on deck for a while, and Mike and I appreciated having them up there.

After we got all tied up we met another Looper who was parked right behind us. Then we set off to explore the city. We walked the river front and stopped at the playground (of course)! We headed toward Maggie Daley park and saw the bean, stopped in a Nutella store, and played at a HUGE playground! The kids loved it! And Mike and I were happy to let them run around and burn off some energy, though keeping an eye on them was a bit of a challenge with such a large area and so many kids.

 

We talked about going out to dinner but there were some storms forecasted and we realized that heavy winds (up to 70 mph) were predicted to come along with the storm. While we tied the boat up pretty good, we sure didn’t plan on huge winds like that, so we figured it would be smart to head back before the storm. We made it back just in time to see dark clouds come over the skyline of the city. The actual winds weren’t nearly as strong as forecasted, and the storm didn’t turn out to be much, but it was beautiful and cozy to watch from the boat.

 

The next day was bright and sunny and we biked over to Shedd Aquarium.  Right away the kids loved the Coral Reef creatures swimming around and laughed at the turtle that swims with his “rump up” (the turtle was injured and for some reason he swims quite wonky as a result!).  We took a couple hours watching a live animal show with jumping dolphins, being creeped out by spiders, snakes, and other creatures that live near the Amazon, checking out the Great Lakes exhibits, watching Beluga whales swim in circles, and on and on.  There was so much to see, and we all really enjoyed it, though after a couple of hours fish are fish and we were ready to move on…  Mike caught us a ride to a pizza joint, and we totally indulged on some delicious Chicago Style pizza and salad.  The kids were amazed by how big the pizza was and that the sauce was on top!

More downtown exploring…

 

Later that evening we explored Navy Pier.  Lots of amazing picture taking opportunities (and apparently $40 must be spent sending kids through some blacklight maze which is made to terrorize 4 year olds).

The next morning we went back to the giant playground for more fun and exploring.  I NEVER thought the place would be crawling with field trips or we wouldn’t have gone.  Who takes their class field trips to a playground?!  Maybe that’s what it’s like in the big city.  Here, I thought it would be easy to keep an eye on my kids mid-morning on a weekday, but I was wrong…

 

We went to Medieval Times while we were in Chicago because it was getting close to Colin’s birthday and we thought it would be a fun and different thing to do with the kids.  Mike had never been, but I went my senior year in high school and remember it being a great show of sword fights, horse riding, and battles.  Sure enough, it was just that!

Before the show, we explored the castle, watched some people get knighted, and went to the museum of torture.  There were really some creepy torture devices back in the day–who in the world would think of that stuff?!  Hayley and Toby were interested, but Colin was totally freaked out, so he got out of there ASAP and doesn’t want anyone to mention it to him ever again.  On our way to the castle (like 2 hours in Chicago traffic…) the kids asked all kinds of questions about the Middle Ages and got the Wikipedia version of this era of history.  Once we were at the castle, they seemed intrigued with the whole “this is what it used to be like long long ago” concept.

 

After the show started, the kids were totally engaged and loved every second of it.  Horses, long-haired knights, crazy weapons, hand-to-hand combat, a queen, and a big competition, all while being served giant chicken legs to eat with your hands–what’s not to love??

In the end, our knight, the red and yellow knight, won the whole contest and he got to choose one lucky lady to be his “Queen of Love and Beauty” and sure enough, he chose Hayley.  She was quite surprised to have him walk right up with the big spotlight shining on her, but she jumped up and played along perfectly.  She is beaming in the pictures.  Ironically, she was more like the “Queen of crabby and yelling” for most of the car ride there, so we hoped her new title would help on the way home, but it did not.  Long days on the go, being bombarded with all kinds of new experiences, can be overwhelming and exhausting (for all of us!).  But sure enough, after a good night sleep, she had that crown on again with a much better attitude.

 

We got to meet up with Mike’s long time friend, Jim McAnally and his wife, Jen, while we were in Chicago.  They came to check out our boat one day and also lent us their car to take to Medieval Times (thank you so much, guys!!).  Then another evening, Jimmy came to hang out and swap stories for a while.  It was great to see them and so nice of Jimmy to make the effort to come back and hang out for a second time.

There was so much to do in Chicago, we didn’t feel like we were able to “relax” much, but I guess that’s what it’s like when you’re always exploring a new place.  Moving on regularly, we find we are always planning the next step, which can be overwhelming because it is a never-ending task until we work our way back home.  Part of the reason we stayed the extra day is because we had so much fun the first couple of days in Chicago, we still needed to focus on a few small changes to prepare the boat for the rivers.  Mike took the grill off the port side of the boat so that it wouldn’t get bumped going through any locks.  Moving it also made it easier to walk around the port side of the boat, and we know we need to easily access both sides of the boat in locks.  Mike also re-measured our air draft and took our anchor light down so we were a little shorter overall.  There are several low bridges you need to pass under to get through Chicago, so we needed to be sure we knew how tall our boat was.  By lowering the anchor light, we were able to take our air draft down to 15’11”, giving us plenty of (aka “barely any”) wiggle room to go under those 17′ bridges.  Mike and I also did some research on passing through locks (thank you Wikipedia, Army Corps of Engineers, and YouTube!).  We were anticipating this new part of the journey because we hear so much about going through locks.  Lots of people say it’s easy, but then they go ahead and give you about 20 things to remember to make sure you’re set to lock through safely.  It was an unknown to us as boaters, so just a part of river travel we wanted to gain more knowledge about to help prepare ourselves  Another thing we did to prepare for the rivers was read through the next sections of our Waterway Guide and Skipper Bob’s Guide.  We needed to refresh ourselves on traveling in areas with currents, passing and overtaking tow boats pushing barges, anchoring in rivers, and on and on.  While we were just fine leaving the crazy weather of Lake Michigan behind, we knew the next portion of our journey had lots of new learning experiences in store, and we needed to be as prepared as possible.

After we took care of these chores, we decided to make the most of our last afternoon in town.  We had heard from friends that the kids would love going to the Museum of Science and Industry, and Mike and I had never been there, so we put that on our list for another day.  Sure enough, the kids all wanted to go explore different areas, so we made sure to visit all of them.  Weather, the body, eye spy, the circus, robotics and the future, melting glaciers, the whisper room, the mirror maze….that place was full of fun!  It was interesting to hear the kids get excited about an exhibit, walk through it and process it (each at different levels), and then turn their excitement on to another area.  We stayed right up until closing time and probably could have spent another few hours exploring.

 

After 4 days in Chicago, including lots of fun, lots of money, and lots of preparing for the rivers (mentally and physically), we were ready to head out of the Great Lakes and enter the river systems on Saturday, September 29.

Thanks so much for reading and following along.  We are having a great time on our journey and we appreciate your interest and support!!