Saturday Aug. 17 

49 miles    Joliet to Ottawa, IL

We left Joliet at 0616 to another beautiful sunny day that got up to about 80 degrees. You could defiantly tell it was a weekend; there were a lot of pleasure boaters out. We went thru 3 locks today. The first one (Brandon) at 0630 that dropped 34’, the second (Dresden) at 0830 that dropped 22’, and the third one (Marseilles) we arrived at 1200 but didn’t get to lock thru till 1450. There was a tow with barges coming up in the lock and there was a tow with barges waiting to go down. In this situation we are considered 2^nd class citizens and must wait till all tows have locked thru. The lock master was very gracious and let us tie up next to the lock to wait the 2 ½ hours till it was our turn. We locked down, the gates opened and sitting “right” outside waiting to go in the lock was, (you guessed it another tow and barge).

Along the way we passed several very fancy duck blinds and a lot of marinas (which explains all the boats we saw today). So far we have not seen any Asian carp jumping out of the water.

We stopped for the night at Ottawa IL at another free dock with power. We want to do some biking and dinghy riding so we will stay here an extra day.
 

This was coming up to the Brandon lock first thing

in the morning with a tow ready to come out.

 

 

Anyone want to go duck hunting?

 

This is called a ballard. We tie a line to this in the lock.

It raises and lowers depending on which way you are going in the lock.