The day was absolutely gorgeous and much too nice for me to stay inside the boat even with all the doors open. When we travel on the river I follow our route via the hard copy book of the Illinois Waterway Navigation Charts while Mark uses the electronic GPS system. So I took my chart book and my lemonade and spent the day sitting on the bow of the boat as we made our way south. I must admit that I often lost my place in the chart book because I was distracted by the peaceful calm of the river. It is too early here in the Midwest for the leaves to have changed colors but still I was totally captured by the way the tress grow along the river. It was nature at its best to see the water fowl that use these areas of the river.
We passed the city of Ottawa, home of the famous Lincoln/Douglas debate and made our way to the Starved Rock Marina. The plan was that we would stay here until Monday morning so that we could visit the state park and the fact that the marina had free Internet totally cinched the deal.
As we were settling in, a knock on our boat let us know that our new friends from Knot Home were also in the marina. They invited us to their boat for homemade blackberry pie that they had gotten at the farmer’s market in Ottawa. Never one to turn down pie, we joined them Saturday evening aboard Knot Home. There are two couples traveling aboard Knot Home and this is their second year and final leg of the Loop. I had a ton of questions for them about both their experiences thus far as well as the dynamics of two couples traveling together. They very graciously answered the myriad of questions that I had and then gave us a tour of their wonderful boat.
I had heard tell of fellow boaters offering their vehicles to Loopers but in reality I thought it was just a tall tale. However, the owners of the largest houseboat that I have ever seen in my entire life offered their car to Marilyn of Knot Home and they in turned asked Mark and I if we wanted to go with them to Starved Rock State Park. Mark and I had been planning to ride our bikes to the park, but a ride in a car sounded much better to us. We all had breakfast in the lodge which was built as a CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) project during the depression. Following breakfast we headed out to hike. (I awoke late that morning and simply was not thinking when I slipped on my comfortable but certainly not good walking shoe sandals - more about the repercussions of bad shoe choices in the next post.) We all walked up and down the park for a total of about six miles.
It was truly spectacular to see the river from up on the rocks as well as the natural canyons and waterfalls that are formed in the rock. Starved Rock arrived at its name during the 1600s when two Indian tribes took to battle. One tribe retreated to the top of the rock but the other tribe surrounded the rock literally forcing the first tribe to starve to death when the natural resources became depleted upon the rock.
After the park we all visited the charming town of Utica, Illinois. This is a weekend destination for motor cycle clubs and I was in hog heaven (pun intended) seeing all the bikes in town. For those of you who do not know me, I must confess that if I did not own a boat, I would be owning a Harley. My friend Will and I keep trying to convince our respective spouses that this is something that we MUST have, but our pleas have fallen on deaf ears to date.
Following a very physical day, Mark and I were again asleep by 9p. This is becoming a trend now and is not really a bad thing at all.
Hours on the water: 3
Nautical miles traveled: 20
Number of locks: 1
Time spent waiting at locks: 15 minutes
Tomorrow's Destination: Henry Marina
Lesson for the day: Wear sensible shoes when hiking
Obligatory knitting report: Finished a mitten for the Wunder Kids
No comments:
Post a Comment