Day 339-341
We left Chicago on Thursday after much debate. We had wakened to a terrible thunderstorm and it rained until mid-morning. Although our plans had been to leave that morning, the weather held us up. Finally, around noon it looked as though we had a weather window for our planned 40-mile trip, so we left. We entered our first lock since leaving the Trent-Severn Waterway in Canada right at the mouth of the Chicago River. We decided to take the shorter scenic route since we could get our boat under the low bridges along this route. I lowered our radar mast so our boat height would be just under 16 feet. The lowest bridges we would encounter along this route were 17 feet, The Chicago River winds right through the heart of downtown Chicago. It was quite a sight!
Soon we left downtown Chicago and the waterway became much more industrial in nature and we began to have our first encounters with "tows". Tows are tug boats pushing a series of barges and must be given a wide berth since they are not very maneuverable and take up a good portion of the width of the waterway. Fortunately, the captains are very helpful when they are contacted on the VHF radio by giving safe passing instructions.
We went through a section of the waterway that has been electrified in an attempt to prevent the Asian Grass Carp from getting into the Great Lakes.
We went through our second lock of the day and then finally arrived at Joliet, IL where the town provides a free dock including electricity to encourage boaters to stop in town.
We were hardly there an hour before Jake had a run-in with the Joliet police, but pretty soon Elwood, his buddy from another boat, bailed him out and they went on a mission from Dog.
We were planning to leave Friday but it was raining with more predicted, so we stayed. Later that evening all of the people we had met there, some we had seen before and some new friends threw us a dock party.
Saturday was predicted to be stormy all day, so we elected to stay then as well. We took an Uber to a local grocery store and restocked the boat with groceries and booze. Later we took an Uber to Mass at a local church, St. Patricks.
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