Chicago

We successfully finished our trip to Chicago. We pulled off the dock before 5:30am to make a short day of it to Chicago. But as usual, the locks got in our way. We arrived at the first lock at 6:15 and wanted to get through it and all the bridges in Joliet before they went on restricted openings for the morning commute. The lockmaster held us up for an hour because he "thought" another tow and barge were headed his way. After we waited an hour, he finally locked us through. No tow came in either direction. What a waste. As my wife likes to say, "You can't teach stupid".

So we get through the first lock at 7:30 and have to wait another hour for the bridges to come off of their restricted schedule. Finally at 8:30, the first bridge opened and we proceed through a series of 5 bridge in Joliet. We have been on the water now for 3 hours and have covered a whopping 16 miles. At this point, all we can do is laugh because we are punch drunk and it sort of summed up the adventure from Mobile.

From there on, the rest of the run up the Illinois River and the Calumet Sag Channel went as expected. We came out onto Lake Michigan a few minutes after 1:00pm and ran the 10 miles to the 31st Marina in Chicago where Mike's wife Lynn was to meet us.

We pulled into the marina at 1:40 and began to top off the fuel tanks. I moved my stuff off while Lynn moved her things aboard. We wished each other well for our coming trips and I jumped in Lynn's rental car and headed to the airport bound for Toronto.

We covered 70 miles today in just over 8 hours. Mike and Bob were both gentlemen and it was a pleasure to help Mike bring his new Tiara onto the Great Lakes. I'm sure the rest of his voyage on to Detroit and the DYC will be a good one. Cheers.

Total miles traveled from Mobile to Chicago: 1,314
Total fuel consumed: 2,297 gallons
Total hours on the water: 85.5

Internet is slow, but I will try to post some pictures later.














Mike, Lynn and Bob