23 September 2014

Another colder night with temps in the upper 40′s, but a great clear dawn morning. Since we were only going 24 miles today, and no locks we had a chance to leave the dock later.

I got off the boat to go into downtown Henry about 20 after 7 to hit the hardware store. I’ve lost the nut from the port wipers and I’ve been trying to find a replacement. Hardware store was great and I got a sample of nuts to try and some other odds and ends. Hardware stores are like boat stores, if I can get outside for less than $50 I’m having a good day.

We did a video call with the grand baby! She has really grown in the last 5 months. She is now standing and cruising around the house. Pretty soon she will be walking and running. We got kisses over the video and that was really nice.

After trying the nuts (none worked), fixing the helm with a new screw (that worked) and spraying spiders (die, spiders, die) we pushed off the dock and watched the carp splash behind us.

Another pretty day on the Illinois River. Lots of quiet shore line. We passed two tows coming upbound. Only one was big – 3 wide – six long, and the Captain was good about talking about what he wanted me to do.

We pulled into the Illinois Valley Yacht Club (known as the IVY Club) at lunch time. We found our slip and there were two people to help us dock. We talked over the Army Corps of Engineers plan to put the wickets back in on Wednesday. I called the Peoria Lock, they will start at 8, so we need to be off the dock about 6:30 to get past them. No problem. (When the water level is low, they put big boards into the dam to slow the flow and raise the water level. With the high levels three weeks ago, they had pulled the boards to reduce the level. Now that it’s back down, the boards go back in again)

The Ivy Club is home to the Gold Loopers on Adagio. We had met them in Killarney at Sportsman’s the same day we met the Canadian Coast Guard. They had finished the loop in Lake Michigan, and then traveled down the east coast of the lake. I’ve been following their blog on our trip.

The Captain was nice enough to run me into Peoria. I’m down to the last 15 Canadian brews and I’ve been hording them. He took me to a local store, and I was able to stock up on 22 new beers from Illinois and Wisconsin that I’ve not had. I really should get another tasting list started. We also stopped at a drug store so I could pick up some odds and ends.

About 5PM the Andiamo and the Chesapeake came into port. They had followed our plan A from two days ago, they had a much shorter wait at the lock.

I got good news on the wiper repair, the company will send me replacement nuts. I’m having them sent to Grafton, so I’ll have them for the weekend. Next rain forecast is next Tuesday so that will work out well.

Around 5:45 PM I heard a tow horn sound “Wooo” Ok, passing on port side. “Wooo” Sorry, Starboard side. “Wooo” ?!? Backing up?!? Wait, that sounded close!! I went out to see what was going on. No problem, it was the Captain of the Chesapeake announcing that Docktails were being served with his conch shell horn. Alrighty then, Docktails!

We all chatted about where we sarted from, places we had been, how our trips had been, things we were looking forward to and so on. We’ve grown to love Docktails! Turns out that the Chesapeake home port is on the Sassafras River, the river south of us on the Chesapeake Bay. It is indeed a small world. We continue to meet the nicest people

Dinner was at the Peoria Hofbrau. Fine German beer, fine German sausages, fine Spaetzle, all in all a great dinner. It was a recommendation from Adagio. I always jump on the local recommendations, so far, other than the dive pub in Canada that was only open because they were the only pub in town, they have been great recommendations. So 146 nights of recommendations from total strangers continues to pay off.

Tomorrow will be an early start. I’d like to get through before I need to lock through, so we will try to be off the dock by 6:30 AM CST. But I’ll call at 6 to see what the locks plan really is. Then a easy 40 mile ride down the river. One lock on Wednesday and one on Friday then we are in Grafton for a break. Can you tell that I can’t wait to get there?