Ottawa to La Grange

Our stay in Heritage Harbor Marina was a short but pleasant stay.  We arrived about 9:00 and left the next morning around 8:00.  We left our Looper buddy boat Intuition behind, as they planned to stay a couple of days in Ottawa.

Lesson Plan tied up to the free wall in Hennepin,
behind the guard rail fence. You can see the bollards
of the barge near the red, whit and blue barrel.

Our next stop was Hennepin, IL for the town free wall. The "wall" is an old barge that is on the bank and has been filled in with dirt. There was a double high guard rail to climb over before we could go up to the town.  We climbed over the guard rail fence and went up to explore the town. We read in the guide there was a restaurant up the hill. It turned out the restaurant had closed and a bar opened in its place. They told me that they would start serving food on Thursday, its Sunday. I guess we will eat on the boat. The grocery store had closed at noon and the hardware store was closed. A quiet sleepy little town.

Sunset in Hennepin, IL

We settled in for a quiet night. Just after sunset we had a non-welcoming committee visit in a pickup truck. He (or she) did a doughnut in the parking lot just above the boat and sprayed mud and gravel all over the boat. I scramble up the companionway to take a shot at him, but it was to dark and the photo didn't show anything. I walked up the hill and closed the gate to the parking area.

The rest of the night was quiet and we left for Peoria the next morning. Peoria was 45 miles away which would make a short travel day, about 5.5 hours.

Eagles along the river are a sight to behold

It was an interesting ride. There is a section of the river about 5 miles north of Peoria where we spotted one eagle after another.  There were families of eagles on the banks. We assumed they were families, since there would be a couple of young eagles (young eagles do not have the with head and tail) and one or two adult eagles.

Peoria is the oldest European settlement in Illinois and is named after the Peoria tribe. Peoria is home to Caterpillar Tractor Company and the downtown is full of buildings with Caterpillar emblazoned on the side. It is the towns largest employer. We didn't get to explore much of Peoria, but we did take an Uber across the river to get fuel and then again to get dinner.  We couldn't get fuel at any of the marinas because the water was to low two of the marinas had 4 feet of water.  One told me If I could push through a half a foot of soft mud, I could come on in. Ahhh no thanks, I have already had me quota of running aground accidentally, I am sure not going to do it on purpose.

Gladiator

We saw an old friend on the way to Peoria, Gladiator. We were glad to be passing her, rather than overtaking her.

We left Peoria early on Tuesday, really early for people who are just out to have a good time, we left at 6:20 AM.   We had about 2 miles to go to the Peoria Lock and then 78 miles to La Grange Lock. We had to be to La Grange Lock by 5:00 PM in order to to get locked through today. The La Grange Lock is only open between 5:00 PM and 6:00 AM. They will Lock through PCs at 5:00, otherwise you have to get in line and they told us that some barges have waited 3 days to get locked through. Our buddy boat "Intuition" said they were going to try to lock through at 6:00 AM, good luck.

Sliding by a tow at the Peoria Lock
You can see the fog ahead

When we left the Peoria Lock the temperature was 59 degrees and the dew point was 58 degrees, so you know what that means, FOG. And the relative humidity 97% so you know what that means, HEAVY FOG. But we had to make it to the La Grange Lock so we tip toed through the fog. It was not fun. Steve was right up next to the wind screen on watch and I was at the helm. We were both on the look out for other vessels. Since the tows need to see well past the front of their barges, 300 + yards away they were all plowed into the sides of the river waiting for the fog to lift  (the tows just run the barges aground to wait out the fog).  As long as we could see a few hundred yards, we would have time to react at our blazing speed of 8 MPH.  It seems pretty fast on the river in fog, but I am sure you have driven faster in heavy fog in your automobile.

The fog lifted about 9:30 and we were making way toward the La Grange lock when we saw another old friend, the Lexington out of Paducah, KY (we passed her going up river a few days ago). Now they are heading back down river.

We anchored for the night just outside of the lock at La Grange.  We were temped to go down river a

Anchored on the down side of La Grange Lock

little bit, since we had some daylight left after locking through at La Grange, but Steve looked at the forecast and it looks like fog again in the morning. The anchorages down stream were just outside of the channel. Remember how I said the tow park there barges in fog? I think we are safer near the dam.

Lesson Learned: Navigating in fog on the river is not fun. If you recall I said the fog off the New Jersey coast wasn't that big of a deal. On the river it's different. The dangers are a lot more concentrated, it is very stressful.