Month: August 2021

Tuesday August 31, 2021.
Temp: 80/69, Humidity: 67/92%, Top Wind: E9 mph, Precip: cloudy all day, evening rain, not as hot, Miles Traveled: maybe 20 miles by car

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The cloudy day felt really nice! It was still warm, but not stifling hot! We went into the office to pay for another night, then set out for a shopping expedition. Oh. Here is a shot of the marina, and the dock where we are. 😳. The water level is SOO LOW! Some of the docks are sitting on the ground. It looks like the water has dropped a few inches even from yesterday, because the rocks are wet a few inches up. There is no wave action in this marina, so it isn’t from any water movement from boats here. Hmmm.🤔. I keep looking at Island Girl, and hoping her bow isn’t on the bottom. This is why we did not park stern-in!

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Monday August 30, 2021.
Temp: 87/69, Humidity: 57/100%, Top Wind: E6 mph, Precip: none, not quite as HOT, Miles Traveled: 150 by car

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This was a really nice day with not much wind, but still too warm for us to be anchoring on the river with no A/C. The forecast said this would be the case, so we are glad to be staying put at IVY. I called Enterprise Rental Car at 8:00 and asked if they could come and pick us up for our 10:00 reservation. The manager was very apologetic, and wished that they could. But the Governor of Illinois just activated new COVID safety protocol rules effective today. All interior spaces require masks, and all transportation companies require a barrier between employees and passengers. REALLY? He said that they have their passenger pick-up van being modified, but won’t have it until tomorrow. (That’s probably just a story… I don’t think they do pick-ups in COVID.). He offered that if we took an Uber, that he could reduce our rental fee for the Uber charge – just bring the receipt. Really? That would be great! Now let’s hope we can find one!

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Sunday August 29, 2021.
Temp: 🥵 88/76, Humidity: 61/87%, Top Wind: SW14 mph, Precip: YES ⛈ and HOT 🔥, Miles Traveled: 71, Number of Locks: 1, down 19’ today

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This was going to be a long, hot day, but we only had one lock to do! YAY! The Starved Rock Lock was about eight miles down river from Ottawa, so we needed about an hour to get there. The next lock down stream from that is in Peoria – over 70 miles away, so it’s really hard to judge what tows may be coming upstream that could cause us any trouble or delays. I looked at the queue report for down-bound traffic and could see that a big split load had gone through the Marseille lock early this morning, but it didn’t show anything else. YAY! Hopefully it will be through the next lock by the time we get there. We hopped to it and were off the dock just after 6:30 since we likely had a hot, nine hour day ahead of us. We were treated to a beautiful sunrise!!!

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Saturday August 28, 2021.
Temp: 🥵 91/74, Humidity: 58/92%, Heat Index 103, Top Wind: S11 mph, Precip: None- sunny and HOT 🔥, Miles Traveled: 48, Number of Locks: 3!, down 80’ today

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You might think that’s a weird title for the day, but unless you’ve done the locks on the Illinois River, I don’t expect you to really understand. If you have done them, you totally get what a miracle this is!!
I got up at 6:00 and checked the US Army Corps of Engineers Lock Queue website for the Brandon Road Lock, which is the next one just a couple miles south of us. It showed that there was a tow in the lock coming up. Then I checked the Lockport Lock above us, and a tow had recently come through and was on it’s way down. UH-OH! I called the lock on the phone, and asked what he had in the queue, just to double check. He had what I could see, and said that if we got there before the downbound tow, he’d get us through first. REALLY? That never happens! Pleasure Craft (‘PC’ – also known as Plastic Craft) are the lowest priority for the locks. OK…. Captain, time to roll! We were up and on our way just after 6:30. There was no problem getting through the fifth of the Joliet bridges this early in the morning, so that was good, too. We arrived at the lock and were waiting by 7:00.

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Friday August 27, 2021.
Temp: 🥵 92/69, Humidity: 61/98%, Heat Index 104, Top Wind: S8 mph, Precip: sunny and HOT 🔥, Miles Traveled: 48, Number of Locks:2, down 42’ today
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We knew it was going to be a hot and kind of slow day, so we planned a reasonable start time. But holy cow! A midge invasion struck! Look at these bugs! About half of them were dead, the other half were flying up my nose as I tried to open all the windows. Sheesh!

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