Thursday, September 14 - NOT Our Best Cruising Day

Thursday, September 14 - NOT Our Best Cruising Day

At Docktails last night, the consensus was to get up early, call Brandon Road Lock and Dam, two miles down the river, then head down, hopefully getting ahead of the barge traffic.  We got up early only to find fog!

 

Some boaters were told to wait when they called the lock, Danny was told to come on down.  So we did.  And we waited, for a long time.  Just hanging out with our friends.

Finally, after this huge tug boat, we got into the lock.  Since most of the traffic through here is huge barges, the bollards are far apart, so the lock master had us raft up to one another.

About 10 miles downriver, we passed Hollywood Casino.  It certainly was not glamorous.  Danny figured the casino part was floating and parking was on shore.

Waterway Guide said once we passed under the Interstate 55 Bridge, we could consider ourselves free of the greater Chicagoland-area congestion.  I think they are wrong.  There were still lots of barges.

And lots of industrial facilities.  I have no idea what they were, except big!

We saw leaves changing colors, and some cute little boat houses like the ones on Norris Lake, and even some cows.

You lose some of the benefits of a house on the lake when you have this many water lilies in front of it!

Dresden Lock and Dam was our second lock of the day, and had the shortest delay.  When a lock opens, we leave one at a time, making quite a trail of boats. 

Dresden is just below the confluence of the Illinois, Des Plaines and Kankakee rivers, so we are now on the Illinois River.  

What a great idea!  Some land owner, likely a farmer due to the location, set aside a strip of land beside the river and rents or sells small plots to campers.  There must have been 30 spaces. 

Marseilles Lock was our last one for the day thank goodness!!!!!  The lock master told us that we would have a wait, so we pulled off to the side and floated at first, then tied up to this huge concrete mooring for a while.  Danny got impatient no started floating again so he could fish.  There was a backlog of barges, but the reason for the long delay was a medical emergency on the tug waiting to log up.  We waited FOUR HOURS altogether.  Even emergency vehicles took a long time to get there! 

 

We finally exited the lock at 7:30.  It was so frustrating.

Most of the boats that came through the lock with us were staying at Heritage Harbor, about two miles downriver, and we all converged on the marina in the dark.  The people there were wonderful, calm and reassuring as we tried to find our way into the marina and then to our slips in the dark.  A guy was on the finger slip waving a flashlight to show us where to pull in.  We were so relieved to get in and tied up!  Danny had a much more pleasant facial expression at 8:07 than I did.