Monday, September 03, 2007

 

The River System: From Chicago to Joliet, Illinois




Saturday, September 1. Cruising through the heart of Chicago in the still of the morning on our own boat will be another image stamped indelibly on our brains. Reflections of skyscrapers in the glass-smooth river more than doubled the impact of the architecture itself. Then we passed under bridges, bridges, bridges until we were outside the buzz of the city. One of them, a fixed railroad bridge, is only 17 feet high. This is the controlling height for boats wanting to pass through downtown Chicago to get from Lake Michigan south to the Illinois, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. Several other low fixed bridges were white knuckle events, but we held our breath and squeezed under, once just as a train came roaring by. (The alternate, but less scenic Calumet Sag Channel route includes a fixed 19.1-foot clearance bridge that cannot be avoided in doing the Great Loop.)

Continuing down the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, we experienced the industrial face of Chicago, an entirely different world. The channel is narrow, so we had to dodge tows pushing barges filled with sand, chemicals, scrap, and who knows what else. The tow captains were invariably polite and helpful, wanting to get us out of their way as much as we wanted to dodge them. To the left and the right we saw various plants spewing smoke. The water looked toxic, but we’ve been assured that it is merely “polluted.”

After a long, long day, we pulled up to the free town wall in Joliet, Illinois. We were met by a cadre of Loopers who not only took our lines but graciously invited us to a potluck party in a few hours. We are still amazed to be meeting new Loopers every place we go. Most of this group (SeaSea, Skinwalker, B and B, Puffin, LeGrace, among others) had been tied off in Joliet for nearly a week, waiting for the flooded southern rivers to recede. We swapped stories, ate well, than crashed. This had been a tiring day, but we were on our way home!


# posted by Second Wind @ 5:59 AM
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