The Mississippi River Sept 21 - 26

Grafton, Illinois was our first stop on the Mississippi. We spent a couple nights there eating out and walking through downtown.







As we headed down the Mississippi there were bluffs on the east side.

You may have to click on this picture to enlarge it but there is a fellow canoeing down the Mississippi. We saw him again a couple days later. I'm not sure how far he was going but he had tents and supplies with him so he was having an adventure.

Alton, Illinois was a larger city on the Mississippi. I skipped the gambling casino on the river and took my folding bike downtown to check out some of the historical and architectural sites.

This building and the one above were in the old downtown area.

Alton was the birthplace of the world's tallest man, Robert Wadlow (8'11.1"). Coincidentally, a few weeks earlier we had visited the town where he died of a baterical infection from a blister on his foot - Manistee, Michigan. He is buried in Alton.

This well preserved boarding house was on the edge of an historical district.

Anything Lincoln did in Illinois is documented and has a plaque. Lincoln gave a political speech at this building and since he knew the owner probably used the building for attorney duties in the 1840's and later.

Alton also was the site of a Lincoln Douglas debate and had a prison that held Confederate Prisoners during the Civil War.

Further up the hill from the river I found several Victorian homes. Some with plaques and some recently refurbished like this one.

About a mile south of our marina in Alton was the Melvin Price Lock and Dam. The locks had an excellent visitor center called the National Great Rivers Museum. The exhibits used videos, sand models and displays to explain the creation of rivers and how they are managed now to provide multiple uses including maintaining navigable depths for commercial traffic. The system of diversion dams and weirs along the Mississippi river serve to help the current flush out sediment and keep the main channel at desired depths.
One of the neatest exhibits was a simulation of driving a tow boat to maneuver barges into a lock, or through bridges. With hands on controls it was pretty realistic.

We left the Alton marina on September 24th. It was overcast with some sprinkles as we approached our first Mississippi lock, the Melvin Price lock. We had to wait about a half hour to get in so we dropped an anchor to hold us in place while we waited.

There are actually two Melvin Price lock. One is 1,200' long by 110' wide and a shorter auxiliary lock. We had to wait for a tow to clear the main lock before we entered. The gate is the type that raise up from under the water to close off the end of the lock. i.e. a vertical lift gate. We seemed like a small cork in the huge expanse of this lock.

I couldn't pass St. Louis without taking a picture of the Arch. It was not a very pretty day but the arch is still impressive. The St. Louis waterfront looks industrial and not very picturesque.

The river below St. Louis reminded me some of the Hudson River valley, partly because of the railroad tracks running right along the shore.

The current was strong in many areas of the Mississippi, particularly in bends of the river. This green can river buoy is typical of of the markers we see in the river system. The green cans are cylindrical in shape with flat tops and the red nuns have tapered tops. The shapes allow them to be identified a distance with binoculars even when the color is not discernible.

More bluffs on the river.

The Corp of Engineers manages the waterway. Revetments (man made dikes) are used to slow the flow on the edge of the channel and speed the flow down the center of the channel to keep sediment moving downriver. This is an example of one of the numerous revetments along the river.

Cape Girardeau, MO did not have a place to tie up to visit, but it did have an attractive mural on their flood wall.

One of many tows we passed. This one was had barges five wide and six long.

Our trip from Alton to the last stop on the Mississippi took three days. The first night we tied up at a lock on a side river called the Kaskaskia. The second night was up a small channel sandwiched in with five other boats doing the loop. The last night was at an isolated bay called the Angelo Towhead. I caught this sunset as stormy weather approached.

Heading south on the Illinois Sept 14 - 19

After leaving the Sheehan Island anchorage south of Ottawa we continued down the Illinois River enjoying the favorable downstream current pushing us along. Shore birds were frequent. An example was this bird which I believe is a Blue Heron that hunts fish and turtles by standing still and grabbing unsuspecting prey.












This beautiful bridge is, I believe, the I-80 highway bridge. Kaye and I have been on it many times heading west and east. It looks much better by water.















As we approached Peoria we encountered the stern wheel excursion boat "The Spirit of Peoria" heading up river.


















We pulled into the Hamm's Holiday Harbor Marina just north of Peoria. It was an unusual marina. There were two obsolete River Gambling boats moored there from Rock Island and other areas where at one time the gambling casinos had to be capable of moving. I understand this is no longer the case.
We did enjoy a visit by my cousin Artie (on my mother's side) from Bettendorf, Iowa. I am embarrassed to say that I have not seen her for what I think could be 45-50 years. Artie and her husband, Phil (pictured) spent the day with us and we all went out to lunch and a grocery store. We had a good German lunch and a great visit. Thanks!

After leaving Hamm's Marina we passed by downtown Peoria, home of Caterpillar's Headquarters.

After passing Peoria we saw several groups of these white birds. I'm not sure what they are called but they looked like white pelicans.

We are starting to see bigger tows. (They are called tows even though they all push their barges.) We occasionally have to call them on VHF radio channel 13 to determine which side to pass them on in a narrow channel.

This tow was stopped in the river and based on the cars on shore it appeared that this was a crew change location. The current crew was boarding the tow boat's tender to go to shore.

We passed by Beardstown (known years ago as the home of the Beardstown Ladies investment club who wrote a book about their high returns, before it was revealed that they were counting their contributions as part of their "returns.")

We anchored a few miles below Beardstown and dinghied back to tie up at a barge in downtown. We walked around downtown and discovered this old courthouse that was the sight of the trial where Abraham Lincoln defended Duff Anderson against a murder charge. Lincoln got the dependent off by using the Farmer's Almanac to document moonlight. This picture shows the room where the trial took place.

The Bar Island anchorage provided a pretty sunset.

The tows that operate in the Northern Illinois River or Chicago Sanitary Canal have pilothouses that can be raised up to see over their barges and then lower down to clear the low bridges near Chicago.

We have seen many ferries on our trip. This one was unusual in that rather than having a ferry boat that had its own power, this ferry had a tow boat (tug) attached to its side. The attachment was a pivoting link so that the tow (tug) could pivot around and push the ferry in the forward direction whether going east or west.

This is a different ferry a few mile further south that is the same design as the one above and shows the tow pushing the ferry onto the highway on shore.

We have been underway (anchored or marinas) for 10 days since we left Chicago. This view is looking back to the northwest to the Mississippi River that joins the Illinois River just above Grafton, Illinois.

To the Illinois River Sept 11 - 13

Charts of waterways leading to the Illinois River.

We left Chicago on Friday September 11. The day was clear and a contrast with the day we arrived. The DuSable Marina where we had stayed is on the right side of this picture. It sits on the lake in front of the tall downtown buildings and right next to the Chicago Harbor lock that separates Lake Michigan from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The Sanitary and Ship Canal was created to divert the Chicago River, which was essentially the sewer for Chicago, so that rather than draining into Lake Michigan it would drain south to the Illinois and Mississippi.

After passing through the Chicago Harbor Lock and the first bascule bridge this view is the sight we saw. The Chicago Sanitary Canal passes right down through the center of of downtown. The first bridge in this picture is the Michigan Avenue bascule bridge. Within Chicago we will pass under 29 bascule, 2 fixed and 1 lift highway bridges. There will also be 6 railroad bridges for a total of 39 bridges with 9 more on the way to the Illinois River. Chicago is truly the city of bridges.

This is one of the bascule railroad bridges that shows how half the bridge is raised up and with counterweights to balance the bridge weight.

Just outside downtown Chicago we moved into a narrow canal sheltered with high banks and trees on each side. Some of the sides are stone walls.

At 31 miles from the Chicago Harbor we reached the Carp Barrier! This is a 1/4 mile section of canal that has two different electrified wires running across the canal under the water. It was first created about 6 years ago when officials determined that the electrical stimulation would block the Asian Carp (a jumping fish) from getting into Lake Michigan. In August officials decided the Carp were getting closer and raised the voltage from one volt to two volts. Then the Coast Guard decided this posed a hazard to non- steel recreational vessels and banned movement across this "barrier". We heard about this about August 15 while in Lake Michigan. Within a few days they modified this ruling to allow passage if your vessel was towed through the barrier area by a steel tow boat. So here we are tied to some barges with two other boats in front of us waiting to be towed through.

This picture of two boats ahead of us shows how boats were towed. We first had to get advance permission from the Coast Guard (they also had a guard boat on site.) Then we had to disconnect all electronics and be secured to the side of the tow boat with another boat on the outside of us. Kaye and I had to go down into a cabin inside the tow boat - we couldn't be outside at all. All this for 1/4 mile and 2 volts. Oh, did I mention it cost $500 to pay for the tow! The final blow was that while on the tow boat another Great Looper called me to say that the Coast Guard just announced that starting the next day non-steel boats could go through the Carp Barrier under the own power and not be towed. Apparently the Coast Guard decided that the risk was minimal. We are still not sure what risk they were trying to protect us against.


Four and 1/2 miles past the "Carp Barrier" we reached the Lockport Lock. One of the other "Carp Barrier" boats is ahead of us. The lockmaster gave us lines to secure to the bow and stern.

The lock door at the upstream end was unusual. The lock door comes up from under the water like a sliding window. The door moves straight up to hold water in the lock or down to allow passage in or out of the lock.

The lock lowered us 40 feet which is not a huge drop but seemed big compared to the Canadian Historic locks we had been through most recently.
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal was joined by the Calumet River and Sag Canal 24 miles south of the Chicago Harbor. The Calumet Canal was an alternate path from Lake Michigan and had more bridge clearance for tall boats, but is not as scenic. It starts on Lake Michigan a few mile south of downtown Chicago. At the lock our waterway becomes the Des Plaines River.



On the Des Plaines River we reached Joliet and tied up for the night for free on a wall downtown. The town even supplied power stands to hook to. The next day we passed Ottawa and anchored near this cliff pictured.

The next day we took our dinghy back up river to see the town of Ottawa. Several downtown buildings were decorated with painted murals.

One of Ottawa's claim to fame (beside being surveyed at the same time as Chicago) is for being the site of the first Lincoln Douglas debate on August 21, 1858. You will remember that these two men were contesting the a US Senate seat and that their seven debates were largely about the issue of slavery. I had forgotten that until the 17th Amendment become part of the Constitution in 1913, Senators were elected by their state's legislature, not directly by the people. This debate occurred on the main square of town and is commemorated with signs and statues.

One other claim to fame is that Ottawa is the birth place of the founder of the Boy Scouts in the US, William Boyce. We passed his gravesite while on the way to Ottawa on the dinghy and we also toured a Boy Scout Museum in town.

Chicago Sept 8 - 10

We voyaged across Lake Michigan on a cool day. I cut across the bottom of the lake which meant we were out of sight of land for a few hours until the Chicago Skyline started coming into view. Due to foggy conditions we didn't get the best view, but it was still impressive. We stayed at the DuSable Marina which was right downtown Chicago.










We arrived early enough in the day that we had some time in the afternoon, so we decided to walk over to the Navy Pier. This pier was originally used for lake freighters. Over the last 60 years it has had multiple uses but more recently has become a convention and entertainment center.












One exhibit we wanted to see at the Navy Pier was the Stained Glass Window Museum. This was a free museum provide by a family that had begun buying/rescuing stained glass windows 30-40 years ago when many old Victorian homes were starting to be torn down in Chicago. At the beginning of the 20th Century Chicago had 50 producers of stained glass windows. They were very popular in the houses of that day.








The images I captured were only a small portion of the display.







































While we were strolling around the Navy Pier we stopped to rest and a lady offered to take our picture. There we are like two tourist on a holiday.















Kaye decided that she could get more conversation out of Bob Newhart than me, so joined him on the couch. Bob, of course, is the famous son of Chicago and his first Bob Newhart show was set in Chicago.










The next day I took off to tour the downtown. Kaye decided that there would be more walking than she could stand and she was right. I hiked several miles in seeing the sites. The sky was dominated by tall buildings. (Which reminds me of a song by the immortal John Hartford, "In Tall Buildings" about leaving the outdoors and going to work "in tall buildings.")









The El or Elevated train makes a circle in downtown - the famous loop. The raised tracks are supported by a massive iron framework. But it made it hard to figure out where to get on the train. I walked around several blocks trying to find a particular stop on the Red Train route. I wanted to check out where I would pick up the train to take out to the Chicago White Sox baseball field,







The Chicago Sanitary Canal goes right through downtown. This was the route that I intended to take south passing under some 40 bridges. Tour boats take tourists for a trip to see the bridges and buildings.

In 1830 US Government Surveyors plotted the proposed Illinois and Michigan Canal with two towns, Chicago and Ottawa, which led to Chicago being organized as a town in 1833.






The decision to go to the White Sox game was sort of last minute. I had to figure out what train, how to get tickets, and at which stops to board and exit. The field is south of downtown out past China Town. I enjoyed seeing Chicago play the Oakland A's but the game was tied after 9 and I had told Kaye I would be back at the boat by 11:00 so after 11 innings I left (the game went to 13 innings before Chicago won.)

The next day I took another hike around town. The texture and design of the buildings were particularly interesting.

In 1682, French explorer Robert Chavelier visits the "Portage de Checagou" a Potawatomie word meaning "wild onion" or "garlic". Chicago is the only large city in the world named for a vegetable.

One building that was more impressive on the inside was the Chicago Cultural center. It had served as a library and other functions over the years. The interior had this beautiful marble. There were two stained glass dome ceilings including one done by Tiffany.

This was in the GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) room.

The old Marshall Field department store has a center atrium that goes up through the center of the store for over 7 stories.

As the sign says, Chicago has more movable bridges than any other city in the world. They maintain 32 bridges of which most are on the path we will take to the Illinois River.

At the McCormick Bridgehouse and Chicago River Museum at the Michigan Avenue bridge, I learned that to operate the bascule bridges there is a small electric motor (roughly 25 HP) and a set of gears to pivot open each half of the bridge. There are counterbalancing weights so the motor is just overcoming the friction and inertia of the bridge half which weighs 4,100 tons. The "balance" is so sensitive that when they paint the bridge they have to adjust the counterweights to compensate for the weight change.
These gears are for the Michigan Avenue bridge which sits at the site of Fort Dearborn erected in 1803.

WGN radio (and TV) is famous and the building bearing their name is suitable impressive and as I recall was the Tribune Tower, as in Chicago Tribune.

A short distance away was the Pritzker Military Library. I have heard about it for many years and enjoyed a short visit to the extensive book military book collection.