HOT HOT HOT on the Illinois River

Apparently we have made it to the midwest in time to experience one of their record breaking heat waves!  In an attempt to beat the heat of the day we were up and running the River with the sun this morning.

On our way passed the City we saw The Spirit of Peoria, a passenger touring boat.  It is a real paddlewheel boat propelled solely by it's 21 foot in diameter paddlewheel.  It travels up and down the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers.

We had called the Peoria lock before leaving the dock and found out that they had a double locking of a large tow in about one hour....we were 45 minutes from the Lock...yeah, we powered up Miss gg and traveled fast to beat the tow.  The first bridge we would go under was high enough but as we looked down river the middle of the channel under the bridge was nearly all filled with a three barge wide tow.

I was glad when it cleared the bridge before we had to go under it.

Near the Lock we heard the other tow calling the lock for locking up river. The Lock master told him he would be lowering the water for him as he brought the PC down... that's “pleasure craft” … this is what they call boats like ours.

Here we are approaching the Lock waiting for that gate to open all the way and for the horn to blow signaling us to enter the lock.

They allowed us to "float" in the lock with engines running instead of tying up since we were the only boat in the lock.  Nice!

Leaving the Lock we saw the tow and understood why it would need to be separated to be put in the lock.  WOW!

On the front barge of every tow there is a pole with a little flag. We asked one of the tow captains what it was used for....he told us when he is pushing empties he needs to know from which direction the wind is blowing  … I guess this guy would have to use binoculars to really SEE the flag it was so far in front of his tug boat!

Then the second tow scared me... it looked as though we would have no room at all to pass this guy and still stay in the channel!

Walter called that captain and we listened carefully to understand what he was saying... half the time we don't really know what they are saying as they talk very fast.  He told Walter that we could not get around him on his starboard side but to hang close to the blacks.  The what?!  I wanted to call him back and ask him what the “blacks” were... but my Captain said it was the green cans.  Okay! Traveling down river toward the “sea” which is the Gulf of Mexico in this case you keep the green markers on the starboard side (right) of your boat and the red ones on the other side. The reds are called nuns and are kinda shaped like a nun's habit and the green markers are called cans are just that shape.. like a can.

But I noticed one green can up on the shore... sitting in the MUD.... we hoped it was just out of place.... ya think?!  But most of the others were really close to shore also... so shallow over there... we slowed way down and made it around this guy!  Whew!

After passing 5 or 6 tows we mostly had the river to ourselves....not one other boat...not even a fishing boat!  Kinda weird.  Perhaps those folks were smarter than us and decided to avoid brain damage in this heat!

While I piloted the boat for a while Walter swept the cobwebs off the deck railing.  We always have spiders and cobwebs!  Seems the spiders are getting bigger, too!

 

On one side of the river all we could see was man-made dikes.... we guess that this was done to keep the river in her banks during the flood season.

Our plan was to stop early about 12noon which we did but I couldn't believe the marina we had picked.  I was on the fore deck readying the lines and I kept calling to the Captain to tell me the depth!   And I also pointed out several times things like, “There are NO big boats in here!” as we stirred up the mud!

Walter reached the owner on his cell phone in town somewhere. So no one was here to tell us where to go... I feared we would stop right in the middle grounded for sure!  But the Captain skillfully worked Miss gg over to an empty dock and we tied up. The marina is called “Tall Pines” but haven't seen a pine tree yet.

So glad to be in the AC this afternoon and tonight....... we will wait out the heat hoping the forecast is correct for cooler weather in a few days.

We miss our family & friends so let us hear from you. Good night all.