August 8 and 9,2011; Monday and Tuesday

Monday, Ottawa, IL, to Henry Harbor Marina, Henry, IL:  Another hot and humid day.  We had some fog early this morning.  We only had one lock to go through today and we planned it just right.  We called the Lock Master and he said he would get it ready for us to lock down.  About 5 minutes later a north bound tow called and the Lock Master had already started filling so he had to wait for us-that's a change.  Shortly after that, another tow called going south bound and we were already in the lock.  This doesn't happen that often either.  But when we got in the lock the lock had problems; 1st the lock door was stuck in the open position; 2nd when we got into the lock the floating bollards didn't work; and then when we were going out of the lock one of the door's wouldn't open completely.  I think it is time to call maintenance.  We got to our marina about 13:00 and we had to tie up on the "Old Lock Wall" as the slips were too shallow.   Then right after we got settled we had a huge rain, thunder and lightning storm and this continued the rest of the afternoon and evening, including tornado warnings.  Luckily none of the tornado's touched down by us.  While Keith was out putting extra lines on he saw "Asian Carp" jumping for the first time on the Illinois River.

N41 06.594
W89 21.046

How about this for a covered slip?

8-8-2011 Henry Harbor, IL

Tie up at Henry Harbor Marina

Old Lock Wall at Henry Harbor

Tuesday, Henry, IL, to Tall Timbers Marina, Havana, IL:  We had fog again this morning but it cleared within 1/2 hour and it was hot and muggy again as usual.  But today we had a nice breeze for most of the day.  We saw something on the river today that we had never seen before; bow and arrow fisherman.  They had a high platform built on the boat so they could be higher up and see the fish better; cool.  We also ran into a dredging operation at Mile 136 which took up almost the whole width of the river; passage in a narrow opening was done with caution.  We had a 9 hour day and got to our marina by 16:00.  There were 2 other Loopers (Married With Her and The Cats Meow) here and we all got together for docktails this evening.  It was fun and something we had not done in a while.

N40 18.364
W90 03.954

CO's comments:  If you look close at the RR bridge near Peoria, IL, you can see a coal train coming towards it.  We waited for 15 minutes for the train to come and then it got on the bridge and stopped.  At about that time I said a few words under my breath; that seemed to work because the train moved and then the bridge opened.  I hate doing circles in the middle of the river waiting on bridges, locks, etc.

RR Bridge near Peoria, IL-
One of the many RR bridges
we had to have opened

Tall Timbers Marina on 8-9-2011