All of the other Loopers left Tall Timbers Marina at about 7:00 am this morning. We waited about 15 minutes to avoid the rush. However, the early start was important since we had a trip of 102.0 miles planned for today. Hardin remained right at or just below flood stage, and as a result, we still got a nice lift of about 2 mph from the fast flowing water. Two of the boats were going faster and were quickly out of sight. The picture at the right was our view ahead until they turned into another anchorage a few miles before the one that we had chosen.
The scenery today was pretty much the same, but we did get a great view of this bald eagle in a dead tree. We continued to see large flocks of white pelicans as in previous days. We had 9 bridges, including one railroad bridge that is remotely operated, which was another first for us if that counts. Fortunately, it was in the up position and we scooted right through. The clearance under all of the bridges on the Chicago and Illinois Rivers has never been clear. The charts and the guidebooks do not agree on the clearance, and NONE of the bridges have had a "ruler" in the water where you could read off the actual clearance just by just looking at the numbers on a vertical board in the water. Some of the bridge masters either cannot or will not tell you the present clearance (?). We had one railroad bridge near the end where the bridge master responded without hesitation 20 feet 2 inches. Wow, he actually knew the answer. The Admiral had called him since we need about 18.5 feet of clearance or we have to take the radar mast down.
Our ugliest boat of the day prize was easily won by this barge that had at some time been converted into a fake steamboat. Hopefully it looked better in the past, but today, it looked pretty sad as we passed by on Lucky Us. That is one of the problems with old boats is that people tend to abandon them...
We came to another wicket dam with the wickets down so we could pass right over the dam without going through the lock. The LaGrange (Illinois) Lock and Dam was our only one today, and to have the wickets down was a plus in our already long trip. I did a double take when I first looked at the lock, but sure enough, the entire lock is covered by flood waters. There is a small barge (white) in the lock doing some repairs, but the lock walls and gate are under water.
The picture on the right shows the upstream end of the lock where the gate is under water. You can see the railing around the lock wall, and it is covered in sea gulls. With the lock flooded, it is a good thing that this is a wicket dam than can be lowered.Otherwise, the Illinois River would be closed to traffic until the flood waters recede enough for the lock to be useable again. Pretty nifty solution!
We reached our anchorage about 5:30 pm, and after a long day on the water it was great to relax and crawl into bed early.
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