Chicago to Ottowa

One of the "obstacles" in the route leaving Chicago is the fish barrier. This barrier was installed in an attempt to keep the invasive species of Asian Carp from being able to migrate into Lake Michigan. This barrier is nothing more than a several hundred yard long stretch of the river that has been electrified with low voltage to keep the fish from moving north. Apparently there are ongoing discussions in the Illinois legislature about constructing a more permanent type barrier that would essentially close this waterway to all traffic. Let's hope this doesn't happen.

One of the many tows we encounter on the Illinois River. This will be an increasingly common sight as we work our way into the Mighty Mississippi River.

There were three locks we had to "lock through" on our way from Joliet City dock, where we spent our first night after Chicago, to the town of Ottowa, IL. Since  

"Pleasure Craft" (PC) have the lowest priority on the river when it comes to locking through, we were required to wait two hours at each of the three locks so that the tow boats and their barges could lock through first. Here you see two of the four boats we were traveling with today "hovering" in place waiting for our turn to go into the lock. There was no place for boats waiting to lock through on these particular locks to tie up to a wall, etc. so we floated in place.

Same process, different lock.

At the last lock, the tow Captain was kind enough to allow four PC's into the lock with him because he had so many barges he was pushing that he had to break them apart into two loads for the lock.

As you can see, we are packed right beside the tow boat as we are locking down.

Not much room to spare between us and the tow and barges.

Hanging onto the lines to keep us close to the wall as we descend in the lock.

The PC De De that traveled with us this day. Once we were at the bottom of the lock, none of the PC's could leave until the tow had reattached all of his barges together and then pushed them out of the lock and on downriver. In the meantime, all of us in the lock just tended our lines, hung on, and waited. De De is a very small but well made boat built by the owner and powered by one outboard motor.

A restaurant that came highly recommended to us was Hank's restaurant in Ottowa. For those of you from southern Indiana, it reminded me very much of the Log Inn in Evansville.

Same great food!

They even have peacocks roaming the parking lot.

We could certainly tell we were back in the farm country of the Midwest with cornfields stretching to the horizon as the sun sinks in the west.

One of the great things about small towns is the treasures they sometimes don't reveal to you at first glance. Case in point is Ottowa. We were on our second day here and no where in the literature of the town that we received was mention made of the fact that this was the site of the first Lincoln-Douglas debates.

We visited the beautiful little park in the center of town where Lincoln and Douglas debated the issue of slavery and whether the Declaration of Independence statement that "all men are created equal"  included the negro slave. Lincoln's position of course was that it did. He went on to win the senate race and ultimately the presidency.