Ok, so we were only on the big lake for
about 10min this morning but it still counts! We have entered the Calumet river
and are now on the Illinois river. This was our first experience in the really
big locks. These things are huge compared to what is on the Trent Severn. We only had two locks today, the first on
dropped us a mere 2 feet. The second one dropped us 40 feet. The bridges; and
there are many; are not too high(see picc, the blue stuff at the bottom of the
picture is our top). The one I have in the picture is a fixed bridge so if we
could not go under it, we would have had to turn around. The next picture is a
bridge that does open and we thanked god for that. We also had the pleasure of
going through the Electric Fence designed to keep invasive species of fish out
of the great lakes. There is a large current going through the water and the Asian
carp supposedly are turned around before entering the great lakes. We did not
get shocked and none of our equipment went squirrely so I'm all good with it
now.
Most of this river system is industrial on
both sides and there are many barges. Today the largest one we saw was 3 barges
wide and 2 barges long. I took a picture of one that was 1 wide and 2 long. Apparently some get as long as 40 barges. I
sure am glad we did not meet one here today. Some areas are really tight and
they get the right of way of course. In the pecking order of this water way; recreational
boaters are 4th.
Today was my first day in shorts and
t-shirt in about a week and it sure is a nice change of pace. We traveled with the veterans on "Priority". That's Sherri and Randy I introduced you to last night. They thought us the ropes of navigating these rivers and it was sure nice to have them along. About half way through our day we met up with the Chicago river and are now on a river that all boat can come through.
We are now in Joliet Illinois at Billie Limacher Will-Joliet Bicentenial Park. Across from this park is the Harrah Casino. Apparently people like to gamble near water? We had cocktails with Sherri and Randy again tonight but this time it was on our boat. Now I understand why they say people who do the loop need AA and weight watchers when they get home. Hopefully my liver survives! We also got a visit from the Harbor Hosts, Dale and Brenda. They saw our boats parked here and decided to come down and see if we needed anything or needed a ride to anywhere. How nice is that?
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