Chicago To Ottawa, IL

After having traveled down all 300 miles of Lake Michigan, which by-the-way, contains 1.3 quadrillion gallons (1,299,000,000,000,000) of water, we arrived at DuSable Harbor in downtown Chicago.

Approaching Chicago

Fly Hunting While Approaching Chicago

View from boat

Beautiful night view from marina

Our friends, The Elwart's, along with other friends, Jane and Karina Kedo and Tim Wallace, picked us up and took us to dinner and a hilarious show at "Second City" (it's like Saturday Night Live, in fact many of the famous SNL players - Chevy Chase, Gilda Radnor, John Balushi, and many, many more, are alums of Second City).

Before The Show

The next day, we took a 90-minute architectural tour via boat all through downtown on the Chicago River.  We saw and learned about Art Deco, Post Modern, Organic and Repurposed buildings and of course, the Willis, a .k.a. Sears Tower and the Trump Tower, both of which we could see right from our slip in the marina. We also learned that Chicago is called the "Second City," not because it is second to New York City, but because it replaced itself after the great fire of 1871 that destroyed most  of the city. We also learned that it's called The  "Windy City," not because there's a lot of wind here, but because Chicago politicians were so full of hot air. It was fascinating tour and made our own trip on the same route a few days later, much more interesting.

Downtown Buildings

Chicago Merchandise Mart

That same evening, the Elwart's again picked us up and off we went for our bi-annual dinner at, "Fogo De Chao." It's a Brazilian Steakhouse and a carnivore's dream. They give you a round disc that is green on one side and red on the other. When you want more meat, you have your disc green-side up. When you want to take a break, you flip it to red. During your dinner, there are guys constantly roaming the room with large knives and long double skewers of all kinds of meat (and a few selections of chicken and sausages). When they see a green disc, they ask you if you'd like whatever meat they have, and if you say yes, they carve off a piece and your job is to grab it with the little ice tongs that are part of your place setting. The are several of these restaurants in the US - Boston, Philadelphia, Orlando, Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, Miami Beach, etc. They are great fun and we highly recommend a visit - but go VERY hungry and don't pig out on the fabulous salad bar (that's what they want you to do so you don't eat as much meat!).

Check Out His Knife!

While in Chicago, we didn't go to the top of the Willis (a.k.a. Sears) Tower, the museums or the famous Bean, because we'd been to them on previous trips to Chicago. That left us time to socialize with fellow Loopers,  "Off Leash," "What's Next? and "Second Wind." It also left us time to wash off the zillions of Shad Flies that had decided that "HUMBUG" was a good place to die.

Hiromi, Mike and Sidney from "Off  Leash"

 




We left the city by entering the Chicago Lock on a foggy morning and it took us about an hour to transit the downtown area on the Chicago River.

Chicago Lock On A Foggy Morning

Low Bridges In Chicago

Just Making It Under A Bridge

Nancy & Dave Gorzka Joined Us From Chicago to Joiliet

Almost immediately after leaving downtown Chicago, the scenery becomes very industrial and we began to encounter large strings of barges. At one point, we were forced to thread our way through a gauntlet of two gigantic tows. Each tow was two barges wide by three long which left only 25 feet
between them for our 13 foot-beamed boat to pass through.

In The Gauntlet

Traffic Jam (Big Things Are Barges)

After a while, we caught up with our new Canadian friends, Debra and Rick Chabot, whom we had met in Chicago. We followed them on their Mainship 40, "What's Next?" to Joliet. That night, we tied stern-to-stern with them on the town wall and the next day, traveled with them past some cement and chemical plants and later, beautiful, rolling farmlands and corn fields, to Ottawa, IL.

Ottawa was the site of the Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858. It was also where Wild Bill Hickok grew up.

Deb & Rick On "What"s Next?" Watching Barge Pass

Making Time On The Illinois River

Farm & Cornfields Along Illinois River

Such A Lovely Couple

HUMBUG will wait for us in Ottawa for two weeks while we drive home for Pete's nephew's wedding in Boston, drop off about a hundred pounds of charts and Waterway Guides and pick up another hundred pounds, and sleep in our house for the first time in over three months. We've traveled over 1,700 miles, burned more than 800 gallons of diesel and every second has been a blast.