Eventually, the moon was intertwined into a band of clouds.
Denise will be driving a rental car back from Paducah, KY in a week or so and I was hoping that she could drop the car near Starved Rock, but the closest drop was 40 miles. Our new plan had Denise driving to Peoria and dropping her car at the airport and me cruising down.
This new plan meant I needed to traverse the Starved Rock Lock, just a mile and a half down river, alone. I didn't think this would be a problem as I would use the floating bollard, which we had learned was much easier than trying to hold the boat at both bow and stern. I called the lock as I was approaching and requested the float, but they said "negative", they were having a problem with them sticking. There were two boats ahead of me waiting to enter the lock and after they heard the radio conversation, they suggested over the radio that I go in first. I think they were worried about me being single handed and that I might crash into them or something.
Fortunately, the strong winds this day were blocked by the trees and the lock house and I was able to hold two lines from midship and easily made it through the lock.
The name Starved Rock comes from a battle amongst Native Americans in the late 1700's. The Ottawa and Potawatami Indians beseiged the Illini Indians at this rock, eventually the Illini starved to death.
Some might say that there's not a lot to see along the Illinois River after Starved Rock and that is probably fairly accurate. But I still enjoyed seeing the various barge docks for loading or unloading a variety of materials. Not surprisingly, alot of it is agriculture related.
And there are lots of cool bridges.
Up until this point I had only seen a few asian carp, which are noteworthy for their propensity to "fly". Actually, they like to jump and you could probably find videos on YouTube showing them even jumping into boats. There must be something about the disruption of the water that gets them going, there were times when there were dozens "flying" through the wakes behind the boat. There were so many at some points that all I had to do was snap a picture and there was sure to be a fish in it.
Many times I thought I had hit something in the river, but realized that it was one of these fish jumping before the boat was out of the way. They were jumping and hitting the hull.
While I was cuising to Peoria, Denise was driving and along the way she stopped in Toluca, IL. This was the hometown of her Grandmother, who came from Italy when she was 9 or 10 years old. There is a well known Italian restaurant in town that the family used to go to, but unfortunately it was not open on Mondays or Tuesdays. She was hoping to pick up a few bottles of their Italian salad dressing. Several years ago we bought it a case at a time.
She also stopped in, unanounced at a cousins house in Peoria. I pulled into a free city dock in downtown Peoria and shortly after, Denise arrived by taxi from the airport, where she left her car. It may be surprising to some that Denise even agreed to come back to the boat for more cruising, but she did and I'm glad, even though its only for another week.
My friend Bob, who lives in Michigan, was in town on one of his bi-weekly client visits at Caterpillar. It was Bob who introduced me to George 11 years ago. While sailing and cruising with
George, I learned about trawlers and then the Great Loop and the rest is history.
Bob met us downtown. We had dinner and then some time chatting on Tranquility.
Tuesday morning Denise and I were off fairly early, but only went a few miles before we had to stop and wait for a barge to go through the Peoria lock. It was interesting to watch the process of loading a larger tow. In addition to the tow who was taking the barges down the river, there was another tow available to help guide the barges into the lock.
We weren't the only ones waiting for the lock.
The weather forecast for the day was for cool temps and a chance of rain. I started out in my usual attire of shorts and a tank top, but it wasn't long before I had on a wind breaker. Pretty soon I was adding layers. Keep in mind, I am not packed for cold weather. The only thing I could do was add layers of what I did have.
We were planning on anchoring for the night, but when we came upon Beardstown, IL, there was another boat tied to a barge near downtown. The guide book talked about the barge, but until now it didn't sound like a good option. I pulled up to the other boat and they suggested there was room, so we eased in ahead of them, tossed them our lines and tied to a barge.
The guide book had also suggested that Beardstown was a nice historic town to visit, so after securring Tranquility, we headed to town, which was on the other side of a very tall flood wall. To get there we had to first get off the barge.
We walked a few blocks around town, read some historic signs, including one that talked about Abraham Lincoln's visit before he was president, we were hoping to find a bronze statue, but didn't, so we settled for this WWII cannon.
On the way into Beardstown, we had passed under a railroad bridge and while walking around heard a train whistle. I went to the top of the flood wall to get some pictures.
Beardstown is maybe best known for the "Beardstown Ladies" an investment club which started in the early 80's. These older women gained fame for apparently picking investments that far out performed the broader market. They wrote books and were quite famous, but as most "too good to be true" promises, their claims were challenged and eventually they were discredited.
Even though it was still pretty cool, we sat out back and watched the sunset.
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