Looks a little ominous this morning… Look at all that debris!!
After a discouraging day the day before, we woke on Friday morning feeling like we needed to get the heck out of there. We did not want to sit in Alton for a week if at all possible. The river was only rising with every day that passed. Without the wind factor, we figured we could keep better control of the boat, and that would help us with navigating the lock safely and avoiding debris. Laura from Have Another Day texted me at 4 am saying she wished we could just leave. I responded at 8 am with “Okay-you talked me into it. We’re outta here!”
Of course fast current and massive amounts of debris were still a concern, but we were both feeling like we should try again.
Mike called the lock and he said he would put us into the big chamber meant for barges because the little chamber was full of debris and he didn’t have another larger vessel waiting to lock through. That was all mike needed to hear to seal the deal. We made quick prep for leaving—turned on the blower, finished making coffee, unplugged from power and cable, fired up the engines to warm up, mike put contacts in, and we layered up to beat the cold. About 15 minutes later we were nervously pulling lines and backing out of our TEENY TINY slip. We were both anxious to see what the conditions were that day, but we were hopeful that we would feel more comfortable than the day before.
We had a bit of a wait to get into that chamber while another tow moved out of it. We took care to stay well away from lock walls and survey the amount of debris. We saw logs, boards, sticks, and whole trees floating everywhere. It quickly became obvious that we could not avoid all the of junk in the water, but instead we had to choose what was the least dangerous path through the debris. I was feeling pretty anxious to get into the chamber and get this lock behind us so we could move past the bad juju from the day before and move on to a new area.
Trying to hold our position and survey the river, waiting for the lock to clear.
Finally, the lock was empty and we were signaled to enter the lock. By signaled, I mean the lockmaster called Mike on the radio and asked him if he was ready to “get in there and start taking whoopings like a man.” This is not necessarily the normal way you’re signaled into a lock, but ya take what you can get. The lockmaster also told us we could just float in the lock which means we wouldn’t actually tie up to the wall, we would just move slowly through the long lock chamber and wait for the doors to open on the other side. This was a first for us, but we decided to go ahead and just float. As we were nearing the lock, the current increased significantly and sure enough, it started to turn our boat just like the day before. Mike decided not to fight the current because there wasn’t a whole lot of space, so he let the boat spin and actually backed us into the lock before turning us the rest of the way around once we were out of the worst of the current. We literally did a 360 right into the lock. I was standing in the doorway and watched the lockmaster laughing and shaking his head. I just shrugged and waved to him. What can ya do?! Mike and I have decided 360s should be his signature move every time (but we actually decided not to at every other lock afterwards).
We had to push through that to get into the chamber. This is shortly after the unintentional (intentional?!) 360. We were so lucky the lock doors closed behind us before those logs came into the chamber with us.
Sure enough the rest of the locking went as expected. But boy oh boy was there debris when we came out!! Branches and trees and logs everywhere. They would just build up and form dams on the side of the river, which probably actually helped keep some of them out of the channel. Poor Mike stayed at the helm for about 6 hours and 59 minutes of our 7 hour trip that day. Between the rain and the debris, it was a rough day, but we were ecstatic that we made it out of Alton and were headed south.
We passed a tow named after my mom!I did this ALL DAY!! Very high tech…
We were not ecstatic about the freezing cold weather and pouring rain. Apparently the kids weren’t either, because I’m not sure they came upstairs the whole entire day. Actually, looking back, it might have been about 2 complete travel days that the kids were on their own down in the salon–no mom nagging them to brush teeth or anything. We needed all adult eyes on the flybridge to search for debris and quickly decide which logs would be the least dangerous to hit.
That’s my “I’m not so sure about this” face. You can see the captain is as cool as a cucumber in his life jacket (left on after a lock for warmth, I’m sure).
Usually passing the arch and St. Louis is a bit of a milestone for loopers, but on our day passing through, it just meant more flotsam in the water and a dramatic increase in commercial traffic and barges just anchored all over the river. Thank goodness for AIS–it helped greatly to see who was moving and which direction they were going.
This is about the only time I saw the kids all day, when I ran down to the salon and said “quick–look out the window! There’s the arch!” and then promptly ran back upstairs to look for logs.Arch selfie!! I should have gotten one with Mike, but it was all a blur…Tows and barges everywhere!! It was quite overwhelming!
After what seemed like forever, we finally reached the Kaskaskia River where we turned upstream and tied to the lock wall. Three other looper boats were already tied up on the wall, and they all came out to catch our lines and help us get set up on the wall. I can’t even tell you the feeling of comfort and security that came with tying up on that wall. It was such a relief to have a big chunk of the Mississippi behind us, to be able to do something else than scour the river for logs, and to know we were safe and sound.
Turning up the Kaskaskia River–still lots of logs to push through, but without the raging current. AND our end for the day was in sight!!
It was still rainy and freezing. I can’t even remember what we had for dinner, but I was so thrilled to be out of Alton and safely in Kaskaskia that I made brownies for all the boats. Hayley and I went out in the rain to deliver brownies, and then came back to INNTW to enjoy ours while we watched a family movie. It was a great way to end a long day. Early to bed because we knew we would have a repeat of the great river run again the next day.
After much deliberating the night before about whether we should stay or go, I woke up with nervous anticipation about our journey for the day. I felt comforted that we would be with a group, but nervous about the strength of the current and the amount of debris we would see. We were communicating early with the other boats about a timeline and established that Southern Style would be the first boat, we would come in the middle, and Have Another Day would be third. Heading out into the river went well and we got a great push from the current right away. It was sunny and breezy, and there was a moderate amount of debris to dodge, but not too much. We navigated around several tows and all seemed to be well. It didn’t seem too difficult at this point.
This guy–just pushing a few barges upstream!!
I was still making my morning rounds of checking email, looking at Great Loop updates, reading posts from others ahead of us, reviewing weather, and checking our route for the day. I got an email from The Journey who was 2 days ahead and giving me regular updates as to the conditions. He reported hearing that many wingdam anchorages were filled with debris and, as a result, were unusable. Also, with many logs floating down the river, several other anchorages were potentially blocked off and unreachable. This posed a problem for our trip because the second night we would need a safe anchorage and with the current conditions, not having a for sure safe spot was very unsettling. Have Another Day chose to turn around after hearing this report and headed back for Grafton.
Mike did a great job handling multiple radios and a text conversation coordinating the trip down the river. All before having much time for coffee!!
We decided to push on and hope that a feasible alternative would develop in the mean time. That still left us with a long run that day with a fast current and moderate amounts of debris. And now just 2 boats in our pack. We closed in on the Mel Price lock and noticed two sailboats that left Grafton that morning were waiting to enter the smaller chamber of the lock. The sun was at a horrible angle and it was hard to see what was going on, but it appeared that a sailboat was sideways in the front of the chamber and the whole entrance was blocked with logs. Southern style in front of us spun sideways and started working against the current to pull away from the front of the lock chamber. The next 4 minutes were a blur watching sailboats push their way into the chamber with the help of the wind, which seemed to have picked up considerably. Mike was doing his best to keep us away from the lock wall as the current rushed past us and we struggled to see into the sun glare to assess the situation.
Eventually, the two sailboats made it into the chamber and southern style was headed in. We watched as he appeared to enter the lock chamber backwards due to current, wind, and debris (none of which are ideal). At that point, Mike and I were having a hard time figuring out the situation in the lock and there was radio silence, with no response from the vessels in the lock because they were busy keeping their boats and crew safe. Mike was really fighting against increasing wind and current to keep the boat in place while we readjusted our plan. He also needed to consider the amount of debris that had picked up and was coming downriver at us. At one point we spun in a few circles trying to see what was going on and avoid debris. In my memory it was like the tornado scene in “Wizard of Oz” where everything just flies past the window in a blur.
At one point, we got pushed towards a lock wall which basically went like this:
ME: “We’re 8 feet from this wall. We’re 4 feet. WE’RE 1 FOOT OFF THIS WALL! WE’RE TOUCHING THE WALL. We’re touching the wall!”
And then finally Mike was able to work away from the wall. At that point, still unsure of what was really happening in the chamber, Mike proposed the idea of us backing out and returning to the marina. That was a welcome idea to me, but was also very disappointing to both of us because we felt like heading back meant we would have to wait out the crest of the flood for a good 5 to 7 days. Turning back would have meant staying in the same town for another few days and we were really ready to leave. It also meant we would have a tighter schedule to get to Nashville in time to meet up with Mike’s family. BUT there were just too many unknowns at that point that it didn’t feel safe. We didn’t know how the long 100 mile day to our destination was going to take. We weren’t sure about the amount of debris we would encounter south of St. Louis. We weren’t sure we could handle the strong current mixed with the winds (our boat is like a sail in high winds with the fully enclosed flybridge). And we weren’t even really sure if we could push our way in to the lock chamber and retain enough control to not bump into the other 3 boats already inside.
So we bailed.
Looking back at the lock after we decided to leave, this was the scene. Hard to see, isn’t it?!
We throttled forward and headed upstream and got away from that craziness. It felt so defeating, but so relieving at the same time. I called Alton marina that was just 2 miles upstream and he said they had room for us. Another huge relief knowing we didn’t have to power 18 miles upstream all the way to Grafton. We had to dodge a tow and all the debris he was pushing as we neared the entrance to the marina. Also about 3 full sized trees that appeared to be blocking the entrance to the marina. By that time I was more concerned about getting the lines ready to dock at Alton and wondering how we were going to get in to the marina with the heavy winds and currents.
Amazing how everything looks brighter once we decided to turn back! This is the tow we had to pass to get back to Alton.
Mike was all lined up to turn into our assigned slip but I knew he was fighting against the wind. Just when everything looked good and he moved forward to pull into the slip there were some loud banging sounds and a CRASH and the dockhand started yelling “Woah woah woah!” We did a little more banging around on our way into the slip and wondered what in the world all that noise was and what in the world went wrong.
In the end, we realized the marina put our boat that is 14’ wide into a slip that was about 15’ wide. This is an extremely tight fit!! With our bumpers out we couldn’t even physically fit into the space and our front bumper got caught on the first post and pulled tight across our starboard light and broke that baby right off (that was the cracking noise). Then we bumped back and forth a bit as a result of being pulled to the side so that was the other banging sounds. In the end, a broken light and broken clip were ordered off Amazon and sent ahead to another marina. It sounded horrible and was not a great ending to a defeating morning, but at least we didn’t bring the whole roof down, which is what it sounded like we were doing.
A few loopers who are staying at Alton walked down to hear about our battle wounds for the day and our story confirmed their thoughts that they were sitting tight for the day. Sea Cottage was nice enough to bring over some new movies for the kids, and Mike and I tried to decompress and stay warm on the sundeck watching the current whip logs and debris past the marina. At one point we saw another boat pass and for a second we thought about heading back out and trying again. But we realized the wind was not our friend, and we knew we had to sit tight. We started mentally preparing to sit in Alton for a week or so until the floodwaters crested and started to recede.
Later that afternoon the Steins from Have Another Day got the courtesy van from Grafton and came to hang out on INNTW. We enjoyed a happy hour on the sundeck while the kids played down in the salon. Deb and Rhett from Twin stopped by and heard about our adventurous morning also. We ended the day heading out to dinner with the Steins and enjoying the kids sitting at one table and the adults still licking our wounds, sitting at another table. We talked about the destruction Hurricane Michael brought to the Panhandle and the fun that awaits us once we get to warmer weather, but ultimately our conversation kept coming back to trying to get off the Mississippi River. Hanging out with friends was really the only good part of the day.
And the fact that we all got to pile into that huge extended passenger van again!
Heading to bed that night, Mike asked me what we were doing and I told him I thought we were sitting tight for a week. It wasn’t what we wanted to do, but it was what we thought was best.
I woke up to a text from Laura on Have Another Day at 3 am saying she couldn’t sleep and wished we could just try to leave again the next day. That got my mind rolling and I fell back asleep thinking about the what ifs.
Thanks for reading about this tough day. More to come soon!
Part of the reason we pushed so long and far yesterday was so that we could get in to Grafton Harbor earlier in the day today. So we were up and at em at first light again (what a pain!) and got on our way. We were treated to this beautiful view of the train bridge right next to our anchorage.
Gorgeous. But also foggy. We didn’t really worry about the fog, or even think of it, actually. We were more concerned with the fact that the middle section of the bridge was down, which means a train would be passing over shortly. We were low enough to sneak underneath, regardless, but going under while a train is going over seemed a little crazy for first thing in the morning. The fog held on for a while, off and on. There were times where we slowed it down because it was pretty think and we realized we should not leave until the fog actually lifts. Between radar and AIS we could “see” everything on the river around us, so we felt safe. (If you have never heard the story about the fog we brought our boat home in from Canada, you should go back to late May and read those blog posts. Because THAT was some crazy fog–this was nothing in comparison.)
More houses on stilts all along the river. Unique and beautiful, but I can’t help but think that those people must have amazing quads with all those steps to climb every day. Also, I hope their houses don’t come crashing down off those sticks.
Toby kept us entertained during his workout. Here he is doing “up downs” that are actually very challenging.These boys are good at distracting the driver…We watched this guy come out of the fog….kinda cool (creepy).Here he is closer. A tow pushing a barge with a crane.
For all of you wondering where we are, we are HERE in this post.Mike loves when the kids take over the driving for a bit (with the help of autopilot of course!!).
Along the way, we (unknowingly) passed by a tow pushing barges captained by Cody Holifield. Cody is very active on our Great Loop Facebook pages and takes pictures of all the loop boats he passes by during his shifts and then posts them to Facebook. I have seen many of his pictures along the way, and Mike and I were thrilled to see INNTW pictures of our trip!! What a neat perspective to see our boat from a tow. Also, I can’t imagine driving that thing!! Thanks so much for the pictures, Cody! We hope you get to do the loop soon!!
We always laugh at how our bow looks like it sits so far down in the water. It’s like our boat is too overloaded with bikes and toys on the front or something?!Lions flag every Sunday!!
The rest of our drive was sunny and beautiful. Mike listened to Fantasy Football. We were amazed at how brown and muddy the water was. We watched some boats headed out for a day of tubing and skiing on that same water… ugh. We are certainly spoiled with beautiful water in Lake St Clair!
Our destination for the day was located right where the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers meet. Here we are getting close to the confluence and we were interested to see all these areas of swirling water. You could see the Mississippi flowing in at a pretty fast pace, and it made a very weird pattern on the water. It made us a little nervous, but turned out to not have a big impact.
Welcome to the Mighty Mississippi, INNTW!!
The first thing we did when we got to Grafton was freak out about how busy the marina was and how strong the current in the river was. It was overwhelming to pull in to the harbor with pleasure boats everywhere, several trying to race us to the fuel dock, a day-cruise boat loading up, and the music from about 5 live bands carrying across the water. Apparently Grafton is a hopping place on a sunny fall Sunday!! It was a tad different than the peacefulness of the bridge anchorage… Regardless, Mike did great and got us on the fuel dock and in our slip with no problem.
Toby (complete with homemade Buzz Lightyear wings) was taking in the views of the Mississippi River.What a deal!!
After we got all tied up in the slip we were anxious to join in all the fun. So we got a great table on the deck at the restaurant, over looking the river, right by the band. We had that amazing feeling of “we made it” after traveling the river for days–we were just excited to relax and enjoy and unwind for a while.
However, the fun and excitement of this picture lasted about 7 whole minutes before the sunny skies clouded over and promptly dumped massive amounts of rain on our parade. Luckily our server quickly moved us to a covered table, but the band stopped, the sun went away, and the carefree feeling went right along with it. We finished our lunch and sprinted back to the boat to enjoy the protection of our covered slip. (Thankfully our boat was parked under a roof so the boat didn’t actually have to get all wet–it was like a garage party.) It poured like this for the rest of the day.
This notice was my first warning that trouble was brewing on the Mississippi. I didn’t worry much about it when I first saw it because we could see the Mississippi from our slip–it was fine. However, as the days went on I would realize that this little warning was actually a big deal.
The next day was Colin’s 9th birthday. Happy birthday, Colin!!! What an exciting day!! All Colin wanted for his birthday was to go bowling and go out for pizza. However, he didn’t get to do either one and boy did we hear about it!! I think the best part of the day for him was this slime that Hayley bought him at the grocery store.
Unfortunately the courtesy car (like a loaner car) from the marina was booked up all day so we couldn’t do the things he wanted to do. We tried to make the best of it by exploring Grafton. We started at Aerie’s Winery after somehow climbing a HUGE hill to get there. We weren’t quite sure how we ended up climbing that enormous hill and no one was happy about it by the time we got to the top, but the views were amazing!! At least 3 people asked if we were the crazies who had just climbed up there by foot and the owner offered us a ride down after we took some pictures and tasted their wines. Not a bad stop in my book, but Colin wasn’t thrilled.
Next we walked around town and saw some cool Halloween decorations and found a woodworking shop. Interesting stuff…
THIS looked like a cool place!! If you zoom in you can see all kinds of outboard motors hanging off the railing on the right side.Wood working shop…lots to see in here!!Interesting old pictures. Lots of repurposing going on in this place.I’m telling you, we see eagles every single day. Apparently they like to winter in Grafton. Who knew?!Check out the high water mark shown on this establishment from 1993!!
At this point, Colin was pretty unimpressed with his birthday plans. No bowling and no pizza. We were willing to do whatever he wanted in town to keep him happy, but he was down in the dumps, so we took him back to the boat and forced him to play with his slime until frozen pizza was ready. After that he was feeling much better, and we forced him to head to the pool next. It was about 88* that day and the forecast called for cooling temps in the days to come, so if we wanted a pool day, this was it!!
Let the birthday festivities begin!! Mike is hanging a pinata for the kids to break open. Colin is apparently convincing Hayley of something while Toby looks on, amazed by the engineering skill that goes into hanging a pinata.
Thank GOODNESS Hayley thought of this whole pinata idea. She actually did all the planning for C’s birthday. She found the slime, cut curly cues out of paper to hang from the ceiling of the boat, and started this whole pinata idea. Colin drew a picture of Harry Potter, the kids stapled 2 pieces of paper together, and then they filled it with candy from last Easter or maybe even Christmas. They were thrilled with their ingenuity, and I was glad Colin was so excited about it. They took turns hitting the pinata with my flip flop, and most of the candy went flying directly into the hot tub shown below. I let them eat it anyway because INNTW?!
Colin started the Harry Potter series around August 1 and he just finished the 7th and final book around November 1. He did an awful lot of reading in those months and loved those stories. Now he is going thru that grieving period we all do when we finish a good book or series.
The pool was actually pretty chilly so the kids ended up in the hot tub most of the time. It turned out to be a fun afternoon.
We ended the day with ice cream and plenty of birthday cake oreos for everyone. It turned out to be a pretty good day.
The next morning we picked up a rental car for a few days and headed straight for St Louis. We wanted to explore the city a bit, and while it is almost an hour from Grafton, there aren’t any marinas in St Louis because it is more commercial, so Grafton was a good home base. We drove along the river for about the first 20 minutes and could tell that the river was pretty full. Also, we noticed tows had their barges pushed up along the banks and we wondered why they weren’t heading down the river. (We found out later that tows were put on a restriction to only travel through the locks during daylight due to the high waters. This caused long back ups of commercial vessels north and southbound on the river.) After about 45 minutes we saw the arch and the excitement in the car increased significantly.
Tows backed up along the river…..hmmm.
Obviously they were super excited to get to the top of the arch!Here we are, crammed inside the capsule heading to the top.
View of the Mississippi River from the top. Look at those barges parked on the other side and that helicopter landing pad down below!View of the city and the baseball stadium from the top.
I was impressed that everyone was so brave to head to the top without much of a second thought. Long ago when my brother graduated from high school (long, long ago) my family visited the arch and I started to freak out and didn’t want to go inside the little pod that goes all the way up to the top. It took me a little bit to get over it, but I did eventually go to the top that day, and it wasn’t such a nerve-wrecking ride after all. On this day, every time I started to freak out about the tight space or the high arch, I just tried to act normal so the kids wouldn’t know I was nervous. It is amazing how acting brave can actually make you feel more brave.
The next stop for the day was the St. Louis Zoo. Partly because we love zoos and partly because it is free. The kids loved that it was all decorated for Halloween and they wanted to see every.last.animal. Aside from the fact that they have elephants, there’s not a whole lot to say about it, but it was a good stop.
We cannot pass a Halloween display without stopping to take pictures. Usually we need at least 3 or 4 pictures just to be sure.We don’t have elephants at the Detroit Zoo, so we were excited to see them up close here. We were amazed at how they eat with their trunks. And watching them poop. Ya know, the normal stuff.
Budding photographerBudding gorilla
Finally, after much walking around and seeing “one more thing” we convinced the kids to leave the zoo. We had one more stop we wanted to make on the way home. The Piasa Bird is folklore from Alton, Illinois (about 20 minutes from Grafton) dating back to the 1600-1700s. Explorers heading down the Mississippi River noted a painting or carving of monsters or dragons on the walls in this area. Since then, a huge creepy bird monster has been painted on the rock walls right by some caves in the area. Our friends on Living the Dream told us about this great spot, so we wanted to check it out. Unfortunately the main caves are closed, I’m guessing due to caving-in issues because there are big rock piles everywhere. However, we heard about a back cave that you can get to if you follow a secret path. Our friends loved exploring this cave and their rave reviews sent us around the back. However, when we found the opening to the back side of the caves, there was a huge crack at the top and lots of loose rocks down in the cave. It looked like it might come crashing down at any minute and our resident engineer said “no go.” Plus, the 9 year old with really good instincts was too terrified to even go close, so we had to bribe him for a quick picture before he sprinted away to safety. We didn’t end up exploring in any caves, but we did climb up some rocks and come back down again shortly after. A good adventure nonetheless.
We found the back entrance but look at that giant crack up there?!Colin was not thrilled in this picture and apparently neither was Tobin.Since we didn’t go in the cave, we decided to climb up some other rocks instead.Interesting rock formations!!More jumping off of rocks. INNTW!!
Unfortunately our “must do” in St Louis was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so we were forced to return on Wednesday, which was just fine with us. But first, Mike found a way to sneak in a…
We headed to the Anheuser Busch Brewery for a tour and some tasting of beer we have tasted many times before. The tour was just as much a history lesson as it was a brewery tour. We learned about the history of the complex and how the company grew over the years. Many of the buildings are very old and beautiful. The kids were thrilled that they got to “taste” lemonade at the end of the tour, and we were, too.
Toby’s first pic with my camera EVER.We bring the party wherever we go…can you tell?!
Seeing the Clydesdales and their immaculate stable up close was pretty awesome!
Our next stop of the day was the City Museum in St. Louis. We heard about this place from several loopers and my brother, Brad, who grew up in St Louis. This place is a huge 10 story building filled with repurposed building materials that are now used to freeform climb and explore and squeeze all over the building space. It is like those playground tunnel structures but on steroids for older kids and adults alike. We were warned that we needed to keep a close eye on our kids, based on the nature of the exploring, and thank goodness for that heads up! When you start climbing through one tunnel, you may find any number of paths that break off, all heading to different rooms and sometimes different floors than where you started. There are so many unique parts to this place, I don’t even know where to start explaining them. We were thrilled to find the 10 story slide, though it wasn’t really that fast. We loved exploring the “caves” in the basement. Toby was ecstatic to stumble upon a circus act with a trapeeze artist right in the middle of the museum. Then he realized there was a train built for younger kids that he could sit and ride on all by himself and that might have become his favorite spot. Mike followed Colin and Hayley for most of the day and I stuck with Tobin. Thank goodness Toby was nice enough to not sneak through small spaces that I couldn’t fit through. It worked out good because he was a little creeped out about getting lost (I was, too), and I couldn’t fit through all those tight spots!! If you are ever in St. Louis, be sure to visit the City Museum!!
We found an old Wurlitzer organ near the 10 story slide.We climbed along this rebar tunnel hanging from the ceiling.Look how high up it goes!! This place is amazing! Bring kneepads if you have them…Hayley and Colin about to go down another tunnel in the caves.Tobin in the caboose of the train.
So the BEST part about this place is probably actually the outside. There is a plane (or 2??), a school bus, a turret from a castle, and sooo much more connected by suspended walkways for climbing and exploring. Fun–really high off the ground, but fun.
Cockpit of the airplane.
After about 2 hours, we told the kids we could stay longer at City Museum or stick with the original plan and go bowling. Of course, Colin was desperate to go bowling, and it was his birthday wish, so bowling it was!! That kid loves bowling, and I was so glad he enjoyed it after being so bummed he couldn’t go on his birthday.
Are you exhausted yet?! Because I sure am just remembering what a busy couple of days we had in Grafton and St. Louis!! Fun, but exhausting!! We stopped by the grocery store to stock up on provisions (no small task itself!), had Jimmy Johns for dinner, and then had to drive an extra HOUR just to drop the rental car off. How annoying. The only saving grace there was that the kids were equally exhausted and welcomed a chance to veg out on their kindles for the ride in the huge extended passenger van we borrowed from the marina to help us return the rental.
They were ecstatic that everyone could get their own row! And look at that headliner?!
It was a whirlwind few days and all the while the river was rising above flood stage. We knew this and kept hearing about it, but I guess I just figured that people around here deal with floods all the time. I didn’t really think through the implications of having to leave Grafton in flood stage waters. Once the kids were sound asleep that night, we met with The Steins from Have Another Day and discussed a plan for leaving in the morning. We weren’t really sure it was a smart thing to do because the water was already so high, the current would be really pushing, the debris would be increased, and there weren’t many safe areas to stop along that stretch of river, especially in very high water. We discussed all the pros and cons and decided to leave at first light. No one really seemed sure it was the right decision to make, but we were ready to get out of there. The temperature had dropped by about 10 degrees every day we were there, the river was only getting higher, and there wasn’t much more to do in the “Key West of the Midwest.” I went to sleep that night with nervous butterflies about leaving the next morning.
Thank you for reading and following our adventure!! More to come soon!!
1 night at the Bridge Anchorage in some river, somewhere…
We were anxious to keep moving on down the river, so our next travel day was a long one. We had beautiful, peaceful weather to start the day off, but that changed several times. Tows, barges, fog, and raindrops, oh my! The sailboats learned their lesson and left a bit before us heading for the lock. We all made it in this time, and this beautiful, foggy view was our reward. Gorgeous, though slightly unnerving wondering how thick the fog was below. It didn’t turn out to be too bad (as seen below), though with fog, you just never know.
After the brief fog came the rain. Some people have actual windshield wipers on their boat so they can see in the event of pouring rain. However, we only have 1 helm up on the flybridge, and while it is fully enclosed, it is just canvas and strataglass, so no real windshield wipers for us. (Most boats with windshield wipers have actual glass windows or a lower helm down in the salon where they can drive in inclement weather.) Luckily, the waterway was pretty open on this day, so no big concerns about visibility.
…except for the occasional tow to pass.
The sky started to clear up, so the kids brought their school work upstairs.
I love watching him work. What a smarty!
Once the math was done for the day, we moved on to games and helping Daddy drive the boat.
Notice how the “games” look a lot like reading and spelling. Shhhh….And then they play with each other and describe everything their doing to Tobin?! Amazing learning and cooperation going on here!Next up–Dos. If you don’t have this game yet, it is a twist on Uno, but this one requires you to do basic adding and subtracting. Thank you, Bob and Judy for this gem!Toby loves to help Daddy drive. You can see how taxing it is when autopilot is on, lol!
We have seen so many eagles along the way. More eagles than I’ve ever seen in my life, by far! The kids know to look for a white head and tail carefully, because sometimes it’s hard to tell exactly what colors we’re seeing when they’re soaring around up there. It is always amazing to see one, no matter how many we pass!
Here is our final anchorage by the railroad bridge. It was a great spot because there was a bend just on the other side of the bridge, so tows would have to be paying good attention to navigate under the bridge and around the bend. Then, we were safely tucked well out of the channel. We watched several tows pass and felt very comfortable with our spot. We also leave the AIS on all night, so we are constantly transmitting our position to commercial traffic (and any other boats with AIS)–great peace of mind!
After a long day on the water, we had a bit of a dinner fiasco. In the afternoon, I took some homemade chicken noodle soup out of the freezer, let it thaw for a few hours, and then put it in the crockpot hoping it would heat up by dinner. A few hours after it was in the crockpot I realized it wasn’t heating at all. We have had issues with our generator/power/invertor being strong enough to power certain appliances and this was just the latest example. No big deal, I shifted gears and started to warm up the pan to make grilled cheese–if we can’t have the soup, at least we can have the sandwich, right? WRONG. The heating switch on the stove has been acting up and it wasn’t staying on consistently, so the pan was barely warm. Definitely no grilled cheese and now I’m frustrated (probably just hangry). At this point, I was starting to throw a fit to poor Mike (who was busy driving) about how I can’t live on a boat if I can’t reliably cook for my family. But it’s the truth, and I was running out of options quickly!! Luckily, I went to one of the kids’ favorites next–bagels and cream cheese. But get this–the toaster doesn’t have enough juice to work in the kitchen unless we’re actually plugged in to shore power, so I had to take it to the sundeck where I toasted bagels, spread cream cheese, and peeled bananas. And they LOVED IT! Whew! 3rd time is the charm. Just another example of how it is always something on the boat!!
After our fun/windy day in Ottawa, we planned to head out early in the morning. So early that we needed to set an actual alarm. Ugh. I did not want to jump out when the alarm woke us up, but we were coordinating with 2 other boats, so we knew we had to get moving. First, though, we looked ahead on the Army Corps website and saw that there was quite a line up of tows already waiting at the lock, so maybe no need to get moving after all. I just finished sending a text to Twin telling them to relax a bit because there was a big back up (looked like 5-6 hours of waiting to me!). However, Mike called the lockmaster and he said if we could get there in 30 minutes, he would lock us through when he turned the lock around (filled it up or brought it down to go back for more barges that belonged to the same tow). Mike said that sounded good and we’d be there. However….the lock was about 4 1/2 miles down the river. Which meant we needed about 45 minutes to get there, best case scenario. And we were still in bed. Our sailboat friends definitely didn’t travel as fast as us. I felt like making the lock was impossible, but Mike assured me that if we were on our way, we’d make it in the lock. I quick called Twin back and told her we had to go NOW. So all 3 boats were out of bed and getting ready to go as fast as humanly possible. Mike helped push the sailboats off the wall to give them a head start, and then we headed out. I think it was about 7 minutes from phone call to lockmaster to pushing off the wall which has to be some kind of loop record.
And it was cold out. Did I mention that?! The temp was just about 90* the night before, but it was close to 50* when we woke up. Brrr! We even had to turn the air conditioning off as part of our 7 minute prep! But the sky was beautiful, so that was an amazing sight as we raced down the river. We talked to our sailboat friends on the VHF about our chances of making the lock. Then we called the lock again to tell them we were all on our way and should be there in about 35 minutes. The lockmaster probably wondered about our ability to figure out elapsed time, but again, Mike told him we’d be there. We passed our sailboat friends and got up on plane to run for the lock. As it turned out, the lockmaster wasn’t thrilled about waiting for us, but we were within range, so he did. He did not want to wait for our sailboat companions, however, and closed the lock doors before they were even in sight. We felt very lucky to make the lock, but we felt super guilty that we got in and our friends had to sit and wait. For hours. About 4 hours to be exact. Not exactly what they rushed out of bed for. However, when we touched base with them again later in the day, they were still in good spirits and assured us they were glad we made it and said they didn’t mind waiting. If that was me, I would have been super annoyed. But that’s how it goes, and everyone knows that going in to it. But still, what a rough start to the day for them.
This is right before we flew past the sailboats and left them in our diesel exhaust…
We, however, got right on our merry way and felt super lucky for the great timing on our morning run. There were the usual tows and barges EVERYWHERE. We also started to notice lots of houses built up on stilts to accommodate the fluctuating river levels. It is interesting to see how tall they are. While I know it is necessary sometimes, all those steps every single day would be quite a chore! And I think I would always worry that my house wasn’t stable enough and would collapse. But ya know, that’s probably why I don’t live in a house on stilts.
Tow and barges we need to navigate around seen from afar.Tow and barges we need to navigate around seen from up close.Here is one example of a house on stilts. There were many, many of them along the bank just like this. Look at the cute lighthouse! Look at all those steps!!Playing Guess Who with the little ninja.Colin hard at work on a new story while underway.We started to see big groups of these large white birds and we couldn’t quite place what they were. Storks? Nope. Turns out they are white pelicans that, apparently, live pretty far north!!
We were studying the directions to the Peoria town dock and looking at satellite images of the area while underway, but we were still perplexed as to which exact area the correct dock was in. It is best to know these things ahead of time so you can prepare lines and fenders and just have a general idea about which direction you’re going to need to turn the boat. Luckily, Living the Dream stayed there a few weeks prior, so I was able to get some insight from them. I also messaged a few boats that I saw on Nebo that passed through the area recently and asked them to weigh in on where they parked. It takes a village to make it around this loop, and thank goodness other boaters are so willing to help out!
All our options for docking. We ended up at #2 and it worked great. Closest to the ice cream symbol, so it was the obvious choice.Closing in on the bridge we would pretty much dock right under. Look how wide the river is here!
When we got to the docks we were very pleased with the set up. The dock was right off the channel, so it was super deep. The power worked so that was a bonus. The price was right (FREE!). And the town was walking distance away. We got off the boat and went exploring once we were all set at the dock. We scootered down the riverwalk and had some great views of the water. The kids were super excited/nervous to scooter over the railroad tracks in town after we saw a pretty long train go by, so that was fun. Then we happened to stumble upon the Bearded Owl Brewery, and with a name like that, we just had to stop in. We were thrilled to see a little girl sitting alone at a table with food, water, and toys–obviously the place was kid friendly! They had some show on with a bunch of blooper clips of people falling or doing generally stupid stuff. We were all amazed and distracted by the stupidity of people, so it was great entertainment for the kids (really for all of us). Plus, they had good beer, so Peoria was already a great stop in our book.
Peoria’s “Chewing Gum Museum” was apparently on the left side of this bridge support. The kids thought it looked like a great place to pose! Cray cray!
We had heard that a boat at the docks had a break in earlier this summer, so it would be important to be cautious while we were there. The story seems to have spread like wildfire among loopers thanks to several boating-based social media outlets. It’s hard to know exactly what happened, but that night before bed we took extra safety precautions. We left a light on in the salon (which was annoying and glared in my face all night). We parked away from the wall itself, on the furthest dock out–anyone coming to our boat would have to really try to get there. We locked our doors (like always) and actually set the alarm (like never). And of course, everything was absolutely fine all night long. And of course, I was also up about 8 times that night peeking around and making sure everything was absolutely fine.
Here’s our spot; all tucked in tight. The Spirit of Peoria Riverboat can be seen behind us.
The next day we were excited to head to the Caterpillar Museum (Caterpillar as in construction vehicles, not the creatures Tobin wants to collect) because we have heard great things about it from other loopers. There was a short movie about Caterpillar and it’s far-reaching impact around the globe. Best thing about the movie is we got to watch it from inside a GIANT dump truck. Super cool!! Then there were a bunch of huge construction vehicles for the kids to climb in and push all the buttons. They had simulators set up so you could attempt to complete a task by “operating” one of the vehicles and that was eye-opening. It definitely took some thinking to coordinate all of the controls and complete the task. A time line of the history of the company lined the walls, and it was very interesting to read. The kids liked climbing in all the vehicles, so it was a great stop for us. After that we headed for ice cream.
Here’s Colin trying out the simulator. You can tell he had to concentrate!!
The day started to turn rainy and we had a few other ideas of things we could do around town. However, when it came down to it, we decided to stay put and relax on the boat. We didn’t want to fight the rain and visiting the zoo just didn’t quite have a big draw on such a misty day. The kids had a great time making up some creative game in the salon and Mike and I relaxed on the sundeck. I love when the kids can work together and engage in imaginative play, but it just doesn’t always happen. So when it does, it’s magical. I think it’s just what we needed for the day.
The kids were so busy playing downstairs, they didn’t even notice when Mike and I walked down the dock to help Twin and Serenity tie up later in the afternoon. Since they are sailboats (and they had to wait forever at the lock the day before), they don’t travel quite as fast as we do–not that 9 mph is lightning speed or anything!! Regardless, it took them an extra day to reach Peoria and we were happy to help them navigate the different docking choices. We enjoyed a “you made it” cocktail or 3, and before we knew it, it was time to head back and see what kind of a mess the kids made and feed everybody dinner. A successful afternoon!
We made it through our 2nd evening at the dock with just as many lights on and just as few intruders, so that was good. Peoria was a lot of fun, and if it wasn’t so rainy, we would have loved to explore more. But, we were anxious to keep moving!! Thanks for reading and following along on our adventure!
Toby WOULD NOT look up…he was too interested in all the controls.
After hearing that there was a great town dock in Ottawa for FREE, we decided to move a few miles downriver from the marina and stay there. Free dockage is hard to pass up! We ended up arriving at the free dock mid-afternoon and Deb and Rhett from Twin were there to catch our lines.
After we were tied up and satisfied with our spot we took off on a walk/scooter ride to check out the town. We ended up in Washington Park which is the site of famous debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas for the Illinois Senate seat in 1858. We quickly learned this after seeing giant statues of the men and murals around town. These debates are famous mostly because Douglas accused Lincoln of secretly planning to abolish slavery, while he believed each territory should decide on the issue of slavery individually. We had a great little history lesson, thanks to the plaques around the park!!
We did some more exploring around town and found Tangle Roots Brewing Company which had great games for us to play while we tasted the brews and ate appetizers. Mike and Colin played Connect 4 while Hayley, Toby, and I attempted REAL Monopoly, which of course we didn’t finish. We also found an old movie theater with great discounted tickets and planned on seeing “Small Foot” the next day.
We found this beautiful old courthouse that replaced a courthouse where Lincoln worked when he practiced law in Illinois.
We were happy to see a big soccer field right around the corner from the boat and we watched some tows go by. It was a beautiful spot on the river, but parking underneath a bridge is just always so loud. Honestly, though, we were parked right by bridges in several areas in a row, so I started getting used to the constant road noise. And you can’t be too picky when dockage is free!!
Wall ball (a favorite game from the kids’ elementary school) under the bridge. Hayley wiped out pretty quick in those crocs, so I got to play nurse.
The next day we headed off to see an early showing of “Small Foot” at the theater, checked out an amazing kids’ book/toy store called Rock, Paper, Scissors, and brought Papa Johns pizza back to the boat for lunch. It was excellent being able to scooter so many places around town!
Colin found this awesome sloth at the toy/bookstore.
The winds were forecast to be around 25 mph that day, and while we didn’t think the winds would effect us too much on the river, we knew that was too windy to travel, and boy were we right!! The wind picked up mid-morning and blew like crazy until bedtime. It was soooo windy that Mike put extra lines on the boat, and I still got so nervous when he was gone playing soccer with the kids that I made a plan for what I would do if the winds broke our lines and blew us off the dock. Of course my plan was that I would start the engines and drive back to the dock, so it wasn’t rocket science, but that would be an awful lot of boat maneuvering for me, so I tried to figure out exactly how I would turn us. Good thing I didn’t have to test my plan!! Not only was it WINDY but it was HOT as can be, also!! We tried to open windows but the wind just blew in tons of dirt right through the screens so we ended up turning on the air conditioning. We went to sleep with temps around 90* that night which was craziness because we woke up to 50* the next morning.
The Ottawa Free Wall turned out to be a great stop for us. We loved the things to do in town and the history of the area. We loved getting to know Twin better and even met a new boat friend, Brian, who single-hands his sailboat, Serenity. However, when we woke up to that 50* weather, we knew it was time to get moving south!! Thanks for reading and following along!
The next morning Mike returned the rental car and came home with donuts. It was a perfect start to our 2nd day on the rivers. We left the Joliet wall (shortly after we inhaled the donuts) along with several other boats that were on the wall that night. A lot of the “deciding when to leave” depended on if you could get a spot in a marina 45 miles or so downriver. Again, due to the backup at the lock further downstream, many loopers were at a standstill. If the boats aren’t moving out, there might not be room for more to move in. We were lucky, though, and had secured a spot at Heritage Harbor Marina for the night so adios Joliet!! (Hayley pronounces it Juliet, by the way.)
Passing barges–our new favorite past time!
Our trip was *fairly* uneventful and scenic along the way. We had 2 locks to get through and we did have to raft up with another boat in one of them. It gave us a chance to meet Deb and Rhett on the sailboat Twin and get to know them a bit. We also traveled with the sailboat from the lock incident the night before another pleasure craft that was local to the area.
Look at these cute little “houseboats” we passed. More house than boat, but they were all floating!!Cows right by the 2nd lock.Our view of the loopers ahead of us and a lifted railroad bridge. The book says if they are down that means a train is coming. You cannot call to have it lifted, it just automatically lifts when there are no trains in the vicinity. Interesting…Captain checking out the view.I loved the Army Corps’ lock building and changing leaves on the tree. Beautiful view from inside the lock.
We were anxious to get to Heritage Harbor where we heard there was a great pool, playground, and other looper amenities. By the time we tied up on the dock, we were hot and sweaty and looking forward to jumping in the pool. The pool, however, was a tad bit freezing and only one brave soul from our boat went it. Of course, it was the pirate who doesn’t actually know how to swim yet. After a short time at the pool, the kids were, unfortunately, equally unimpressed with the playground. That left Hayley and I to inquire about borrowing the courtesy car so we could run some errands. Lots of marinas along the loop have courtesy cars where you can actually use a car, free of charge, for a few hours. This is an amazing thing for people who need to go to laundromats and grocery stores, like us. So, the girls were off taking care of errands while the boys took showers and checked out the cable TV connection.
We loved these cute signs by the pool area.Brrrr…
The next day, we weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do. The boats that left Heritage Harbor the day before got through the lock that was previously closed, but they had to wait for hours and hours to let the commercial traffic through, and then the lock broke down again. Supposedly it would be up and running soon, but we weren’t sure what that meant. The marina told us about a great website where the corps actually lists all the vessels waiting to pass through locks, identifies how large they are and if they are going up or downstream, and tells you how long they have been waiting. It is a very useful website at times like these. Also, the lockmasters were *generally* very nice (to us) and helpful when deciding when to take off in the morning.
Mike ended up finding some chores to get done on the boat and Hayley and I went for a run around the facility at Heritage Harbor. It is a growing community with homes, cottages, a restaurant, and who knows what else in the complex. It was a great place to explore on my first run on the loop. (That’s right–I’ve been lazy!!).
Mike needed to go to the access area under our bed to figure out why the air conditioning in our room wasn’t draining properly. Several hours, lots of water, and quite a bit of trouble shooting later, it is mostly fixed (good enough for now). Seems like they could have made that hatch a bit bigger!?Next up, he checked the strainers that collect junk from the river so that it doesn’t get sent through our engines (or something like that…)
My little runner chick (though this run was full of complaining about her ankle, sock, tummy, leg, etc…you name it!!)
We heard from our sailboat buddy from the day before, Twin, that they were at the town docks, just 3 miles downriver, and had power and dockage for free. They said there was room for us and a cute little town you could walk to, so we decided to untie the lines and head on down for some free dockage.
Thank you for reading about our stay at Heritage Harbor!! We love your comments and questions, so feel free to leave them at the end of the posts!! Thank you!!
We had a fun day at Heritage Harbor! See INNTW on the far right in this picture.
Cruising the Chicago River and 2 nights in Joliet (Part 2)
So after that looooong exciting travel day we were planning on heading out of Joliet the next morning. However, you’ll remember that we heard that there was a lock a few days down river that was closed for repairs. When that happens the tow traffic gets quite backed up, and since they have the priority when locking, we knew that we wouldn’t be able to get through that lock anytime soon. We had a perfectly sunny Sunday in front of us, and we were all set up at a free dock with power, so we decided to start thinking about what kind of adventures we could get into.
We had a few ideas in mind right away. The Tigers were playing their last match-up of the season in Milwaukee, which was about a 2 1/2 hour drive. Six Flags was about an hour and a half drive. Between those 2 ideas, Mike stopped looking for things to do and started looking for rental cars. Before we knew what was happening, we had an uber ride on the way to take us to our rental car. Thinking we were probably heading to Six Flags I quickly threw together sweatshirts, snacks, toys for the car, water bottles, phone chargers, and at the last minute, I grabbed swim suits in case there were any water rides open. We grabbed the booster seats from their hiding place waaaay in the front of the boat in a tricky closet and locked the boat up tight just before we jumped in our uber. It was a blur, but we didn’t want to waste good amusement park time thinking through all the details.
Boat kids having fun on a car ride. I’m not sure if Tobin was asleep yet or just being a booger, but he eventually fell asleep about 20 minutes before we got there.
After waiting a long time at the rental car place and getting a hot and ready pizza, we headed towards Six Flags. We quickly realized we needed change for all of the toll roads, so I scrambled to look through my purse for any loose change I could find. Luckily, I found just enough, and Hayley brought her purse which is always loaded with quarters (just in case she sees any quarter machines!), so that was a help, too. We were halfway into our drive when the sky started clouding up and we realized it wasn’t looking like such a nice day anymore. I looked at the weather and sure enough, it was supposed to rain for the rest of the afternoon. Hmmmm….not such a great day for Six Flags after all. We remembered that the waterpark we went to last year with Kelly’s brother was around here somewhere, so we threw that in the running as well.
As we got closer to Six Flags we decided to head to the waterpark instead. Hanging outside for the rest of a rainy-ish 65* day when we weren’t really sure if the littles would like roller coasters vs. inside waterpark when we all brought swim suits and could relax at a nice cushy hotel room. Decision made. And the kids were thrilled!!
Great Wolf Lodge has all kind of fun activities for kids. On this day, they got to decorate wolf ears to help them get into the Halloween spirit.Colin even made an arc of electricity between his ears.
Racing down the water slides.
Wave pools, lazy rivers, and water slides for hours. The kids loved that place just like they did when we were here before. However, Mike and I started to wonder/worry about our boat, tied up on the wall in Joliet. We started to think that driving 2 hours away in haste was maybe not the best idea. Maybe we should have tightened the lines. Or added another line. Or told a neighbor we were leaving. Mike worried someone could get on the boat and find all of our gold and jewels to steal. I worried someone would untie the boat and it would float downstream in the current until it crashed into a bridge. They both sound crazy, but that is the stuff that runs through your head when you leave in a rush and end up hours away, just floating down the lazy river on a TUBE and not your BOAT. Eventually, I tracked down one of the boats we saw slam into the lock wall the night before and we got in touch with them. It turns out they left their boat, as well, to run some errands, but would be returning to the wall soon and would check on the boat for us. Sure enough, an hour or so later, the call came in that all was well and they would keep an eye on everything for us until we returned back.
We had sooo much fun, it was hard to leave!!
We were relieved to hear all was well, and that helped us enjoy our last few hours at the waterpark. However, it didn’t ease our nerves enough to convince us to stay the night. We actually relaxed on those cushy beds, watched “The Lion King” on that big TV, and took hot showers (with lots of water) in that hotel room, but we did not stay the night. We were too nervous to leave the boat overnight, and we figured we would need to get an early start the next day, anyway. Let me tell you, it was hard to leave that hotel room with 2 beds unslept in. We checked out around 10 pm and walking away from those soft beds and unlimited water was very hard to do. But in the end, it was good to get back to the boat, too. We were anxious to get underway and get further down the rivers.
Almost home!! Sometimes it’s exhausting having so much fun!!
Thank you for reading and following along on our INNTW adventures!!
Cruising through Chicago and 2 nights in Joliet (Part 1)
We woke up on Saturday with nervous anticipation knowing this trip straight through downtown Chicago is one of the highlights of many looper trips. Not only would it start off right away with Lock #1 EVER for this INNTW crew, but we would also be passing under some pretty low bridges, dodging lots of tour boat traffic, and starting a part of our trip we have very little experience with. Plus, we were going to attempt a do-it-yourself pump out. Woah baby, what a day!!
At DuSable Harbor there is a pump out machine that boaters can use on their own to pump out their waste tanks. This is usually something that a gas station attendant does for you while you watch and feel thankful you don’t have to do that dirty work. However, today was Mike and Hayley’s day to learn something new. We have 2 heads (boat word for bathrooms) that each have about 20-25 gallon holding tanks. The only thing that goes in these tanks is whatever goes in the toilets. In our experience, if we are pretty much exclusively using the toilets on our boat, we can go about a week before the tank levels get dangerously close to the “full” level and we need to pump out. They weren’t near that full today, but we wanted to be as fresh and clean and ready for new adventures as possible, so why not pump out?! For free!! (Usually it costs us $10-$20 to pump out both tanks. Free is good!) From my perspective, the task looked pretty easy (my perspective was far away from the actual pumping out, for the record). Mike opened the tank, attached the vaccuum pump, Hayley pushed the green button, and then after a while Hayley pushed the red button. There was some fresh water rinsing and then more pumping. In the end, our tanks were clean and empty and we were ready for the next challenge of the day. No biggie.
Hayley was a huge help and she added great style points!!
We took lots of pictures leaving DuSable and got our life jackets on right away. Everyone helping a boat lock through is supposed to wear life jackets. This is not exciting for the kids because they wear life jackets all the time. Mike and I haven’t worn our life jackets since we bought them back in May. We also got out some work gloves and a few pocket knives. These are apparently other necessary items to have on hand when you lock through. Colin was excited to help with this new task and he knew about as much as we did about what was going to happen. He was ready!
We’re coming for you, Chicago!
We called the lockmaster and were instructed to pull in and hold lines on the starboard side, so that’s just what we did. Colin grabbed a line to hold onto from the cockpit. I grabbed a line to hold onto from the bow. Mike checked on us and made sure everything was going according to “plan.” The other kids sat “quiet and still” as instructed in any new or potentially tense situation. Then, it happened. We slowly dropped down about 1 foot over the course of 3 whole minutes before the lockmaster opened the gates and blew his horn signaling we were good to go. That was it. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
My view from the lock.Colin was so excited to help in the lock!
And there before us was the fabulous skyline of Chicago!
All the kids were up top ready to watch us head through the big city. I had my Skipper Bob’s Guide and pencil ready and waiting to check off each bridge we passed by. The captain was ready to travel the busy waterway with a smile. We celebrated with more picture taking, starting a movie we hope to time-lapse down to a quick recap, and ducking down at each low bridge we passed under. (I’m sure that sounds silly, but it was really necessary a few times–those bridges are awfully low!!) The ride through the city was absolutely amazing. It was pretty cool being that close to so many boats and people right through downtown.
We locked through with this boat, Tanquilo, and after the day’s crazy experiences, they are now following our adventure!Look at how close we are to that bridge?! Every boat that travels this portion of the loop has to be able to fit under a fixed bridge height of 17’6″. We were 15’11”. Or something like that…Ever wonder what the bottom side of a bridge looks like?!
The kids loved passing by their fav playground–shown here on the left.
I took this one moments before crouching down so we wouldn’t hit the bridge. 😉
The city raises the bridges on a schedule few days in the fall and spring to allow sailboats to leave and enter winter storage areas down the river. Unbeknownst to us we ended up in one of those groups, so coming up to a big group of sailboats was a bit puzzling. It required some jockying of boats, but we were able to pass them by and head under the bridge before it opened. On down the river.
Not very comforting to come cruising down and see ALL THESE BOATS in the way! But the water taxi passed right by them all, so we did too.
These kids went crazy with pictures!! Notice Mike’s phone set up to do a time lapse video right in the middle of all the chaos there. We knew we might have to buy yet another new phone if it got bumped by all the tourists on our boat. Luckily, it did not.Hayley sets the Loop fashion bar pretty high!
After the city skyscrapers started to fade, we went through a more industrial area which was equally entertaining.
Looking back toward the city.We had to wait a bit for this railroad bridge to open. There was also a tow and barge creeping up behind us waiting for it to open, which was brand new for us and slightly unnerving.Passing right by empty barges docked on the side of the river.
Just when the big city buildings were ending and the train tracks were losing their appeal, we encountered some new excitement. There were some markers floating in the river along with lots of rowers. Apparently we had come across a rowing regatta. We had no idea how to proceed with so many boats in the water ahead of us and no one from the regatta came out to give us any direction. So, Mike attempted to hold the boat in place for a while against the current, just waiting for an opening to appear. Finally, after 5 minutes or so, someone came up to us in a little boat with a megaphone telling us that the river was closed and we needed to wait 3 hours to pass through. Mike and I were in complete disbelief that they could just close the river with no warning, but they assured us it was an official coast guard closure and was being broadcast on the Coast Guard’s daily updates. Of course, while we were having so much fun around Chicago, we didn’t happen to be tuning in to the Coast Guard updates, so apparently we had missed that info. Another boat traveling with us was equally surprised by the closure and turned back up river to head for some lunch. We weren’t quite up for that much excitement, so we headed back up river just a bit and tied up to an empty barge to wait for the closure to expire. It was a complete surprise to us and didn’t give us a good feeling about what other surprises the rivers would have in store. But, we had little choice, and we made the most of our couple hours by having lunch and playing ninjas.
Of course they were doing construction on this bridge and it was so loud there, we couldn’t hear ourselves think. And that is very difficult when you are trying to think through a problem…We got quite close to the rowers, but eventually turned around and headed back upstream.We weren’t hoping to get this close to a barge for a while, but we were given permission to tie up to this empty one while we waited for the closure to expire. It was both creepy and interesting being that close to a barge.This is me feeling disappointed about our slow down but trying to roll with the punches the best I could. I felt better when Tanquilo (the boat that was traveling right by us) contacted me and said this was not normal and completely unexpected for them, as well. What can you do?!Mike decided to check out the barge a little more.The kids decided to become ninjas.
2 hours later, the lady in the little boat with the megaphone came back to tell us we could proceed, and we were anxious to get underway. Just another 30 miles or so on the schedule for the day before we would arrive at our destination. We had plenty of barges to dodge along the river, but Mike did a great job calling them ahead of time and figuring out which side they wanted him to pass on. While their size and weight was intimidating, the barges were very friendly and we had no problems moving in and out of the busy staging areas where barges are tied up along the banks of the river waiting to move to their next destination.
Full barges tied up along the wall of the river.Passing this tow on the 2.Look at all that congestion!! Most of the barges on the right are tied up and not moving. The tow on the left is pushing barges toward us. Lots of communication needed to get through this area.
One major difference we noticed right away between the river and the lake is that the river is SO BUSY and there is always a tow to call or a bridge to pass under. It isn’t quite “set your autopilot and just hang out” like so much of our lake travel was. This type of travel required much more attention from the captain. We were very thankful we installed AIS (Automatic Identification System) on the boat before leaving home. It allows us to read the names of commercial vessels around us, see which direction they are traveling, at what speed, and even identifies how close our 2 boats will get. All the other boats with AIS can also see all of that information about us, so the big tows and freighters know we are out there and can watch out for us. It was great peace of mind in these busy areas.
Industry is alive and well along the waterways. It was so interesting to see some of this action up close. This behind-the-scenes look at water industry isn’t something we know much about.
There is an electronic fish barrier along the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, meant to keep Asian Carp from entering the Great Lakes. We have read about this area of electrification and knew that there wasn’t much we had to do as we drove through it. We all put life jackets on. We brought the kids up to the flybridge so they were as far away from the water as possible. We turned our chartplotter and other navigation electronics off as an extra safety precaution. You don’t necessarily have to do this, but we had read some reports that people had malfunctioning equipment after driving through this area, so we figured better safe than sorry.
And that was about it. We hoped we’d see some jumping fish or maybe even have fish jump into our boat, as we’ve heard can happen. But nothing. No luck. Probably for the better because I hear they are bloody and slimy and gross and I really don’t like cleaning that much.
I tried to hang out on the flybridge as much as possible and be a second set of eyes for Mike, but he did a great job navigating and negotiating around the tows. I also followed other boaters’ travels on the Nebo app which is used by a lot of loopers as a tracking/messaging tool. (If you are a boater, check it out!!) It was nice to see some other boats were traveling the rivers, as well, and were most likely headed to the Joliet wall that night. Sure enough, when we pulled up to our 2nd lock (of the day AND ever) we were directed by the lockmaster to tie up along the wall and wait with 2 other boats that were already there. The half hour wait or so gave us a chance to chat with some new looper friends, and we also receive word that a lock down the river (probably 2 travel days away) was closed until further notice for repairs. We didn’t really know what that meant yet, but we took note to check into it more later.
When it was our turn to head into the lock, we realized it was freezing and also getting close to dusk. We locked through with the 2 other boats we had been waiting with and also a tow that was pushing barges downriver. In this part of the river system, the tows sometimes push so many barges that the whole vessel cannot fit into the lock at one time. So this particular tow had pushed 6 barges into the lock while the tow stayed behind. The barges locked down, and then I can only presume that the crew pulled the barges out of the lock and tied them up just downriver. The lock then has to fill back up with water (possibly with other boats traveling up river or possibly empty), and then the tow moves into the lock to go down at which point it reattaches to the barges and moves along down the river. The whole process can be quite a lengthy ordeal. We were lucky enough that this tow captain didn’t mind pleasure craft locking down with him.
The locking method here was a little different, and we wrapped our lines around a floating bollard that moves up and down with the water level. We only tied on in the middle, but Colin was happy to hold the line. He has since gotten to be quite fussy about locking and only wants to help if he can do it all by himself. That doesn’t seem very responsible to us, since there are 2 willing and healthy adults onboard to help, so lately he is boycotting this kind of manual labor.This was our view from the back of the lock. 3 pleasure craft on the port side and 1 tow on the starboard.I had to take a picture of Mike because I thought he looked hilarious. In his defense, it was freezing. Hayley is winning in the style category, for sure!Look at all that water pouring in through the lock wall. What a feat of engineering that that wall doesn’t just bust open and sweep us all downriver.
After we were done locking down, the tow captain was nice enough to let the 3 pleasure craft boats out of the chamber before him. On the rivers, commercial vessels have priority over pleasure craft which quite often means that looper boats wait and wait and wait at locks while tows and barges get to go first. It doesn’t seem fair to this elementary school teacher, but that is the way the system is set up based on the revenue that the tows and barges bring in. But I digress. So, ahead of us, the 2 other Loop boats both had big time trouble trying to get out of the lock and it was slightly terrifying to watch, this being our 2nd lock and all. The first boat was a sailboat that got turned all around and ended up slamming into the lock wall, knocking his dinghy off the davits on one side so that the dinghy was getting dragged behind by just one end. We couldn’t figure out how that had happened and we felt stunned and sorry for their damage, but we thought maybe they just didn’t know what they were doing (I mean…who did?!). Then, as the trawler ahead of us went to pull out, he suddenly spun sideways with black smoke billowing out the back, and also hit the lock wall. At that point I was still standing on the bow and so perplexed by what I was seeing. I yelled up to Mike that the tow in the front of the lock must be pushing water out of the back and sending some kind of weird current towards that lock wall. We were already in motion and the trawler was still pinned against the lock wall, struggling, so we didn’t really have much time to troubleshoot. I sat down quickly and held on, not sure what to expect. Mike made the decision to throttle up and put some power behind us to get out of there safely and not get pushed around by the tow’s wake. We felt bad, thinking that we could have waked (rocked) the trawler that was struggling against the wall, but we didn’t want to end up getting pushed over in the same direction and slamming into him, either. In the end, Mike made a good choice to just get out of there. We only had 3 miles or so to get to our destination for the night and we talked about what in the world happened getting out of the lock the whole entire way to the Joliet wall. And we ducked down 3 good times to make it under 3 bridges in a row at 17’1″.
We tied up easily in Joliet and were thankful to have that long day over with. It was much anticipated, it was exciting, it was nerve wrecking, it was longer than we’d hoped, it was a little unsettling at times, it was exhausting. In the end, we were glad to have a day of river experiences behind us. We felt confidant in our abilities in most respects, but our experience with the river closure and the lock gave us a bad feeling about traveling in the rivers. We weren’t planning on particularly liking traveling on the rivers and day #1 left us wondering what would come in the days ahead.
That being said, this is such a looooong post, I’m going to split it into 2 parts. More to come about our time in Joliet soon. Thanks for reading about this exciting day and supporting our adventure.
Enjoy this awesome video of our trip down the river!
**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.
The kids did some reading along the way.And apparently they had morning PEZ….what?! Not sure how I missed this…Hayley got her first lesson in cat’s cradle. My 80’s girlhood heart was overflowing!
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.
The view from our slip. Amazing!The kids loved the bean!!Toby was firing up his jets to run out of the picture about half a second after I took it–can you tell!? He has started finding creative ways to let his exciting personality show through in pictures.
This was part of a huge multi-level play structure in just one section of the playground. So much fun. So many places to lose your kids.T insisted on sitting in this boat for quite some time. Maybe he is a sailor at heart?!
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.
Storm rolling in.Amazing night view from the boat slip.
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!
The kids thought this turtle was so hilarious. What is it with kids and potty humor?!
Hoping we don’t see one of these up close and personal in the Bahamas. Can you believe creatures like this actually exist?! I’m still wrapping my mind around it…
More downtown exploring…
Hard to believe we’ll be going down this river IN OUR BOAT in a few days!!
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…
What a fun playground for kids!!Toby jumped down off this climbing structure about 100 times asking me to take pictures and video of every.single.jump….
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!
Their personalities really shine through in this one… Lord help us!
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.
Everyone got to hold a sword. Of course Mike and I had to explain at least 3 times why we could not bring a sword back to the boat.If you wonder where he learns it from….I think I might have an idea.
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.
Working on fixing a stove that won’t always heat up.Tobin did some writing practice copying his name and the pre-writing shapes.
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.
Toby got all spiffed up for the occasion with some blue hair gel. He even celebrated by taking his first selfie!Hayley playing with light!Tobin and Colin making a tornado.Hayley was chosen to stand in a giant swirl of water vapor during one presentation.I love their curiosity!Toby loved turning the crank to send the balls up the conveyor.Mike had just as much fun as the kids figuring out how to operate heavy machinery.Finally Hayley had her turn!And Colin!Mirror Maze!!We had to go back through again to find the “hidden room” that we’d missed in the beginning.
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!!
