Log 18
Day 94
Saturday, August 23, 2008

Houseboat on the Illinois River

Typical view on the rural Illinois River
A few homes like this are on the river in Southern IL.
This was our marina (???) for the night.


5:00 AM CDT
Location: Beardstown, IL.
Weather: 73* with 68% humidity

Didn’t get the best night’s sleep last night...if you see the picture of where we spent the night, you’ll know why. Tossed and turned and then got up at about 4:30 to get the day started. Actually a beautiful morning out. 73*, Clear skies, and no wind. There was a very heavy dew though, because when I got up there was so much water on the boat I thought it had rained.

Yesterday we left IVY Club in Peoria, IL at about 7:30 and tip toed our way out of the harbor because the river was so low. The weather called for 50% chance of showers, but nothing ever came. From the IVY Club it’s about 9 miles to the Peoria lock. I called them to ask for a lockage at 8:45; they let us in at 8:55; we were dropped 8.5 feet and left the lock at 9:05. The trip down to Beardstown we uneventful, and a little boring at times. Most of the way we traveled at 9 mph, but once kicked it up to 23 mph for 15 minutes to “blow out the carbs” in the engine (something recomended by the Volvo engineer I talked to this week). There are 3 pictures of what is typical on the river. A houseboat that was parked and then the river came down before he could move it. A shot from my window that is what most of the rural river looks like. And a house on stilts...not all that common...but several along the way. We had planned to stop at the 120 mile marker in Havana, IL...but the water was so low that I was concerned about getting into the marina so we came up with plan B which was to go on to Beardstown at mile marker 89. The only problem was that the only place to tie up to was an old work barge at a tug service (Logsdon Tug Service). If you see the picture you’ll know it was not much of a stop. In fact...when we got there they had 2 fires burning in 50 gallon drums on the barge and black smoke was billowing everywhere. Deb had to run and close the windows on the boat so the smoke would not go inside (As a favor to me the tug captain put the fire out later). To top it off they had no electricity (we had to run the generator all night) and they charged us $45 to tie up (same price as we paid the last 2 nights in great marina’s). While the barge and surrounding area looked like a bomb had went off and blew a bunch of stuff on this barge, it turned out to be an ok evening. Deb and I had time to fire up the internet and get caught up. We had a cocktail while we watched a little Andy Griffith on the TV. And we enjoyed dinner (leftovers) on the boat. We were both in bed by 8:45.

Today our plan is to leave at first light...actually in a few minutes, I need to get this done so we can leave. We plan to go through 1 lock in about 8 miles and then another 80 miles to Grafton, IL...where the Illinois meets the Mississippi River. I’ll let you know tomorrow if we made it.

BK.