Month: September 2021

Nights 10, 11, and 12 were spent in Alton, Illinois. Yes, Alton is just a couple hours down river from Grafton, but for most loopers it is a “must do” stop. For one, it is the last real marina we will see in days. It is also a major fuel stop for those needing to top off before making the next long haul. Luckily we are still sitting fine with the 300 gallons of diesel we took on in Milwaukee. Thanks you, Arthur DeFever for giving us such large fuel tanks. And lastly, we need every minute of daylight we can eek out of these end of summer days to get to our next stop.

We spent most of our time in Alton taking care of minor boat chores, relaxing, and eating and drinking with new friends. The rest of the time was spent talking with our new friends about the adventures ahead of us. What time do you plan to leave in the morning? Where are you stopping the first night? the second night? Where will you anchor if we get caught at a lock?

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On our morning of departure, Tim and I were up at 5. I called the Mel Price lock, that is just a couple miles down river, at 5:30 to be sure the group of us could get right through. “Come on down”, I was told. Our group of 9 boats headed out in the dawn light.

Once through the Mel Price lock, we focused our attention on the Chain of Rocks lock that was 15 miles down river. A major sense of unease hit us when that lockmaster said, “ I wish you called me before you left the dock.” While he was empty, he told us that planned dredging just beyond the lock was going to be blocking the channel and we may not be able to proceed for a few hours. While I waited on the phone, he called the dredge for details. The decision was made that they’d delay beginning work for us and the for a northbound passenger boat. Whew!

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Once in the lock, we “floated”. This means we did not have a bollard or line to hold to. The skipper had to maintain the boat’s position in the lock.

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I cannot tell you how great it felt to be through these two locks by 9am. We had watched so many other boaters have major delays here and we were all so grateful to have gotten through so quickly. I also have to say how polite and helpful every lockmaster and lock worker we have encountered has been. These guys were fantastic. The same kudos have to be given to the tow captains. We have been so impressed by their professionalism and willingness to share the waterways with us ‘Pleasure Craft”. They have made a challenging journey so much easier.

Having the locking finished for the day, our next focus was St. Louis, the iconic arch, dodging debris in the water, and the very busy commercial area.

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Barges, fuel dock, houses perched on the edge.

Our destination for the night 13 was Kaskaskia lock. We would not actually be locking through here, we would only be tying to the wall along with several other boats. It is known as a safe spot just off the Mississippi on the Kaskaskia River to spend the night. After a wake up call of 5 am, we were ready for it when we pulled in around 3:30. Unfortunately there was very little room at the inn for us. Only one spot was available and it would prove to be too tight of a fit. Assured that there was enough water for us, Tim did his best to get us got the solid concrete wall. There was no way our 5’draft was going to make it. Luckily the river bottom was mud and it sucked us in and held us in place against a much smaller boat that was on the wall. With all the jostling, pushing, yelling, bow and stern thrusting, and heart pounding that was going on, I failed to take any pictures. It was a very stressful ending to a very long day.

The next morning, Tim skillfully maneuvered the boat out after the rafted boats behind us left. With deep breaths and lots of cheering, we were off again by 6:30.

Once back on the Mississippi, we had a beautiful morning on the river awaiting us.

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After hearing of a potential delay on the Ohio due to blasting of the old Olmsted lock, we agreed with SCOUT to bypass several anchorages on the Mississippi and head up the Ohio 8 miles to MM 973. Now going against the current on the Ohio instead of with the current on the Mississippi, we dropped from a speed of 10+ mph to a mere 5.5 mph. This made our 8 mile run up the Ohio, a slow, pokey crawl. We arrived at our spot and dropped anchor just as the sun was dropping to our west.

I am leaving you here. Our run on the Mississippi is over! On to the Ohio as we continue our adventure south.

We said “goodby” to Milwaukee and made the short run down to Racine where we continued to question the weather gurus. We found after being caught in the rain so often in Milwaukee that we were wary of leaving the boat without our rain coats. We would not be caught unaware again. So while we did get out and explore a lot, we also kept a keen eye on lake conditions.

Lisa and I decided to take a long walk to see the Frank Lloyd Wright designed buildings for SC Johnson Co. Unfortunately there were no tours that day, so we had to be satisfied with a peek through the fence. We

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Our plan was to stay 2 nights in Racine and then head to Kenosha for the holiday weekend. Lake Michigan didn’t like those plans. The weather began to deteriorate and we spent many hours looking at options. We would think there was an open window on the lake only to see it slammed shut. And other choices presented themselves that were enticing, but we weren’t urge anymore if we could trust that the weather would be as predicted and the predictions still weren’t great.

We delayed leaving Racine by one night to let the lake settle. We also abandoned the thought of going to Kenosha and chose to make a run straight to Chicago only to find that we could not get a slip in Chicago. So we had to continue on another 12 miles (1 + hrs) to Hammond.

Finally CHICAGO!

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We were very pleasantly surprised by Chicago. Being that I am not a big city kind of girl, I expected Chicago to be bustling, bossy and brash. Instead we found a friendly, welcoming city full of creative green spaces and areas just asking to be explored. We took an Architectural Boat tour along the Chicago River since we knew Subject to Change was too tall to travel under the Chicago bridges. The tour was excellent and gave us lots of history and interesting facts about the buildings in Chicago.

I am waaaaaaaay behind on the blog, so I’ll end this one here. Coming up- Heading south on the rivers.

Here’s a dump of more Chicago pics.

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For the first time in several days, we have decent internet. So today is the day for me to catchup on this blog.

We left Chicago, September 10, a day ahead of schedule to avoid some incoming weather on the Lake.

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We began our travel on the Calumet River, passing several industrial sites. The big pucker factor was the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Bridge with a fixed vertical height of 19.7 feet. This is the defining bridge for many loopers. If you cant make it under this guy, you can’t make it. We slowly slid under with about a foot to spare. Keep in mind, water levels are very low right now. If it were a year with high water levels, we could have been a foot too high.

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After an 11 hour day, night 1 was spent on the free wall in Joliet on the Illinois River.

Joliet does not hold a good reputation among loopers and while we had no problems that night, we have since heard stories from fellow loopers that keep that reputation alive. We talked to John, who we met in Chicago, who woke up the morning before only to find a dead body floating behind his dinghy. Upon calling 911, the responding cops weren’t too surprised. Seems they see this frequently. We also read about a group of loopers who woke up during the night to find someone untying boats from the wall. One boat was already floating loose in the river.

We were off the wall the next morning with a flotilla of about 10 others at 6:15. We had 3 locks to traverse this day and wanted to get a good start. When the first lock is relatively close to where we moor for the night, the plan is for someone in the group to call the lock master to see if he has any commercial vessels in the lock or waiting to lock and to let him know that we plan to lock through. Commercial vessels have priority over pleasure vessels such as ourselves. There’s no need to leave the dock at the crack of dawn only to wait hours to be locked through.

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The locks on the Illinois have floating bollards that we loop a line around and hold tightly as the water lowers. We have found that on the Illinois, the locks may only have 4, sometimes only 3 bollards to grab.

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To accommodate the large number of loopers wanting to go through at a time, we usually have to raft off to each other. With Subject to Change being one of the larger boats, we usually find we are the “Mother ship”, the one that grabs the bollard and then lets a line of other boats grab on.

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After a long wait at the Brandon Road Lock, our numbers had grown. We now had a group of 17 pleasure boats waiting for lockage. It was going to be a tight fit.

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At Marseilles Lock, we had to wait for this triple wide to restack his barges For his up river run. Locks on the Illinois can’t take in triple wide loads, so tows have to unstack the triples and take them thru in stages. Of course, this adds to our wait time.

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After a long 12 hours on the river, we tied up at Heritage Harbor Marina in Ottawa. We spent night 2 and 3 here resting up.

We left Ottawa at the dawn and continued down the Illinois River. We planned a relatively short run to Henry, Il.

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While many other loopers have the option to dock at marinas along the Illinois, we do not. Water levels are so low right now that we are unable to get into most of the marinas we pass. So, we have been getting creative when it comes to choosing places to tie up to for the night. Many loopers use an app called NEBO to create a track of their travels. It is the app I use for posting pictures showing our track to help you see where we are. This app allows other loopers to also see where you are. I have been using it to follow friends and to follow boats that also have deeper drafts to see where they spend the nights. It’s one way I found our spot for night 4 in Henry.

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We tied to an old lock wall that was used up until 1910. Yes, it was rustic and a bit unconventional, but it served its purpose and we had a wonderful, quiet night.

As we continued down river, we passed remnants of the past and flocks of white pelicans making their way south.

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After a short day, Night 5 found us just south of Peoria at Kuchie’s on the Water restaurant and bar. Unfortunately, Kuchie’s was closed that night, but the owner graciously told us to make ourselves at home and stay as long as we wanted.

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We couldn’t have asked for much nicer weather. The water was calm, days were warm, but the nights were cool enough for sleeping with windows open and just a fan. And most importantly, Maggie was happy that we provided her with grass to do her business on. Beardstown was our destination for night 6. Again, we had to bypass marinas and ended up at Logsdon Tug Service where for $1/ft you could tie to a old barge for the night, head into town for dinner and have somewhat decent WiFi.

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The wonderful weather continued to bless us, so we opted of make a long day of it and head to Grafton and a real marina for some major chill time.

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After another 12 hour run, we were thrilled to dredge our way into Grafton Marina. Even here, we were digging up mud to get into a slip. This was home for nights 7,8, and 9.

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Grafton has been called The Key West of the Midwest. It is a party town with lots of bars, restaurants, and live music. The perfect spot to regenerate, wash clothes, eat good food and enjoy new friends. Oh, and wash Asian Carp scales off the side of the boat.

As I write this, we have just spent our first night on the Mississippi and night 10 of the rivers at Alton Marina, just 2 hours down from Grafton. We will be here 3 nights as well. I’ll tell you about Alton when I write again.

The theme of today’s post is don’t believe what the weather people in Wisconsin tell you. They are just guessing and probably don’t have a clue. I’m sure they do the best they can, but the reality is that this big ol’ lake we’re on is in complete control and she can be as fickle as they come.

Let me take you back a couple weeks. We had a nice run south from Port Washington to Milwaukee. On arrival we pulled into the fuel dock for a pumpout and when Tim found out the current price for diesel, it was a no brainer that the time had come to fill up the tanks. 300 gallons later, we were on our way to our dock.

I have to be honest with you, I was not expecting much from Milwaukee. I’m not sure why, but I guess I pictured an older big city that was somewhat run down. After our first stroll into town, I felt I was right. We walked down Brady Street into an older section of town that reminded me of Baltimore and brought images of NOLA to Tim. It was lined with sad bars and was kinda dirty, just not a spot I’d want to walk through in the dark. Hoping to find something better, the next day we put the dink in the water and headed up the Milwaukee River.

It started off as a nice day, overcast, yes, but “the weather person” said we had only a slight chance of rain and if it did come, it would be around 4:30.

Heading up the river, condos and apartments lined the waterfront. Many of them were constructed in old warehouses, some were newer construction, but they added a warm feel to the riverside. I was really liking how the city kept a lot of its history by repurposing the old brick building.

As we neared this bridge, horns began to blow announcing that the bridge would be rising. No way that bridge was going to go up for us in our little dink, we figured somebody big must be coming. Tim decided we ought to wait before going under to see who was on the other side.

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Sure enough, glad we held back.

More views from the river.

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After an enjoyable cruise, it was time for lunch and a beer. As we ate, Tim did a radar check on the weather. To give the weather person credit, yes, storms were in the forecast, however they were not predicted until 4:30. Looking up at the dark sky and rolling clouds barreling between the rows of condos along the water, we thought otherwise. Tim had barely time to ask for the check when the clouds were upon us with a blast of wind. Unoccupied chairs began scooting across the deck and full ketchup bottles were tossed in the river as the full force of the storm hit. We ducked inside the restaurant with Maggie and the rest of the customers as we waited for calm. Back into the dink once the worst had passed, rain was still falling as we made our way on a now very choppy river. As we rounded the corner to leave the river and head out into the harbor, the chop became waves and then became rollers. Emergency boats were being called into action and we did not want to be the ones in need of them, so Tim turned our little craft around and we sought shelter at another restaurant along the river. Luckily the waitstaff took pity on the three drenched boaters and allowed us to wait out the rain and let the waters settle before we attempted to cross the harbor again.

The Milwaukee Munincipal Marina is huge, and we were happy to be placed on a T head, away from the crowd. This keeps Maggie quieter since she has fewer people to greet. Being on the end also allows for a bit of badly needed grooming. Both Maggie and Tim got a good trim by me.

Again, we decided to set off to explore Milwaukee. This time we chose to take the bikes. Of course we checked the weather and again the weather people said we were good to go. So off we went. Milwaukee has some of the most amazing bike trials. I am totally impressed as trails go off in many directions- North and south, along the lake, into town, to the beach, to the park. We chose a trail that runs north along the lake and then took a turn onto a more wooded trail. All was great until we again looked up at the sky. The sky and the radar weren’t telling us the same thing. Having learned our lesson well, we decided to head back to the boat. Sure enough, you know the rest of the story. As soon as we got onto the dock, the sky let loose and the winds began to blow. We were soaked to the bone by the time we got to the boat. Maggie and I dashed aboard while Tim laid the bike down on the dock to keep them from being tossed into the lake by the wind.

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I can’t have you thinking that we spent all of our time in Milwaukee avoiding storms. We had some beautiful days as well.

The day finally came that our dear, old friend, Lisa arrived. (As blog editor, Lisa is taking the opportunity to note here that she prefers the description “long-time friend” as opposed to the more accurate “old friend”…just sayin’!) Tim has known Lisa longer than he has known me and Lisa was a major factor in my getting together with Tim. We only had one day in Milwaukee with Lisa before we untied the lines and continued south to Racine. We decided a dinghy trip up the Milwaukee River was the best way to show her the city. Do I need to say more? Yes, rain was in the forecast, but in our defense, it wasn’t predicted to hit until later. Yes, this time we did bring rain jackets, but it didn’t keep us from getting drenched. There are many things in life that I am thankful for and the fact that I don’t melt has just topped my list.