Travel Time: 6 hours
NM Today: 35
NM Total: 1529
Locks Today: 2
Locks Total: 72
We decided to seek out a brochure on Chicago architecture before traveling the Chicago River to help us identify the buildings as we passed by them. Clark planned on walking the River Walk to find the brochure. I suggested that bikes might make more sense. Bikes certainly allow us to cover a lot more territory a lot faster, so we grabbed the bikes and went out on our mission to find the brochure before departing the marina.
Unfortunately, my mind-reading skills failed to warn me that, shortly after leaving the marina, Clark planned on turning left, so basically he ended up cutting me off as I expected us to go straight. I have asked him repeatedly to signal intentions, but he just won't do it. Today I paid the price big time as I swerved to avoid hitting him as he crossed directly in front of me. I was thrown from the bike and splayed across the sidewalk. I have wounds on both arms and legs although the only bad skin abrasion is on my left elbow area.
My watch face is scratched beyond repair, and I used my shirt front to clean the sidewalk - it is now brown instead of blue! Needless to say I was (and still am) not a happy camper. I pealed myself off the sidewalk and biked the short distance back to the marina to wash my arms. I didn't notice my watch or shirt until quite some time later. I'm hoping the dirt washes out of the shirt as it is a favorite of mine.
After I cleaned myself up as best as I could in the marina sink and reamed Clark out for failing to signal, we got back on our bikes to resume our mission of finding the elusive brochure. As the air hit my arm while riding it stung like a son of a gun acting as a constant reminder of how angry the incident made me as it could have been avoided had Clark indicated in any way shape or form what he intended to do. I have to hone up on my mind reading skills because he's not going to start signaling his intent. Even after this morning's incident I couldn't count the number of times he stopped short in front of me to get the perfect picture.
Although my arm was stinging the whole time, the bike ride on the River Walk was very nice. Being a Monday, the walk was not crowded like the area had been on the weekend, and I could enjoy the trail with minimal aggravation of dodging pedestrians.
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| Bicycles built for two and for four along the River Walk in Chicago |
We did ultimately find a brochure for the architecture boat tours which gave some information on location and names of buildings, but since they want you to pay for their tour, the detail on the brochure is highlights only.
We biked back to the boat and found a note on our railing from Blue Haven docked in front of us saying they started their Great Loop adventure three days ago and were anxious to talk with us. They were not on board when we got back, and we left the dock within about 20 minutes of getting back from our excursion. Clark left a boat card at their boat before we left and as we traveled downriver today, I got an email from Lila from Blue Haven saying she had read my latest blog entry saying we were leaving Chicago and hoped to see us downstream. She said they will be at the AGLCA Rendezvous in October, so we will look for them if we don't see them before that.
On our trip down the Chicago River we saw too many interesting buildings to catalog them all. I tried to look them up based on the tour brochure as we went along but found that I couldn't enjoy the view with my eyes on the brochure and the internet, so I gave up with the idea of looking them up real time and I will try to match them up at a later date. Chicago is known for its building architecture. Here are a few samples.
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| Trump International Hotel & Tower |
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| Marina City Residential & Parking Garage |
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| Chicago Tribune |
I took the helm as Clark took the pictures shown above. All told we went under about 40 bridges on the Chicago River. When we planned this route, we hoped that we would not have any height clearance problems with everything folded i.e. antennas and radar tower. Just before we departed the dock, I got an email from a fellow boater saying they folded to 16 feet height and made it the length of the Chicago River with no issue. Fully folded we are about 15' 9", so we felt confident that we could travel this route instead of the less interesting Calumet River alternative.
We had one bridge that we had to call for an opening, but we had to wait for Amtrak to get off the bridge before it could be opened.
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| Waiting for Amtrak so we can get a bridge opening |
We passed under several bridges listed as 17' vertical clearance. In those instances I felt like I could reach up and touch the bottom of the bridge as we passed under. As we left downtown Chicago the view changed to more industrial with some dilapidated buildings in the mix. Eventually even those buildings were replaced by trees and wildlife like the bird in the photo below.
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| Egret on the Illinois Waterway |
As soon as we entered the Illinois River we started to encounter barge traffic. At one point we had to pull over into a barge slip on the side of the river to wait for an oncoming barge to pass by since the barge was too wide to allow room for us to pass by him in open water. We knew the probability of the lock being occupied by barge traffic was high. When we reached the Lockport Lock, we called the lockmaster to request an opening. He called an approaching tow and asked the captain if we could lock through with the tow. Thankfully he said yes, so we had a relatively short wait at the lock before we were allowed to enter and lock through.
Only 2 miles downstream from that last lock for today is Joliet. Joliet, IL invites boat traffic visitors by offering free tie-up on their river wall with free electricity as well as free WiFi, all provided by the City of Joliet itself. We made it to Joliet just before 6:00. Now that we are in Central time, sunset occurs around 7:30 or so. We were able to get ourselves settled for the night and eat dinner in daylight but just barely.
At the wall behind us is Sea to See whom we first met on Drummond Island and then saw briefly at DuSable Harbor. Clark went over to chat, and they invited us to travel and "lock through" with them tomorrow. Clark agreed that we could be ready to leave at 8:00, so I need to publish this blog and get to bed, so I can get up in the morning to be ready. Before we leave we plan to call the next lock which is not too far downstream from Joliet. Clark read that it is better to stay here on the wall until it is good for us to lock through instead of hanging out in front of the lock itself avoiding barge traffic, so we might be ready at 8:00 and find that the lock is not ready for us. We shall see.
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