"We ran out of charts"

Our next travel day on the river was almost way better. We stayed in Joliet an extra day to wait out rain, and this is when we met Tim and Ramie. When we had pulled up to the wall in the middle of the night, we noticed other boats tied up as well. Other Loopers! We’re not alone! We knew we had to find more information about where we were going, and it was time to make some friends.

On the red tug in front of us we noticed some activity and spotted people. This was it, this was our chance to make friends! We nervously walked along the crumbling wall, frantically going back and forth trying to guilt each other into who was going to make the big move and talk to them first. We cautiously approached their boat, and with no time left to argue me into talking first, Emily bravely said, “Hi. Are you guys doing the Great Loop? Cool! We are too! So, we ran out of charts….. *lengthy pause* Do you have anything we could look at and take pictures of?” And thus began our first looper friendship! Tim and Ramie invited us to meet Ringo, their super cool dog, and to take a look at some of the 8 different sources of information they had actually acquired before leaving, like most prepared people tend to do. We also found out that they happen to be famous- google “Driving Miss Norma.” It’s the incredible story of how they took Tim’s 90 year old mom traveling in a motor home all over the country in order to live life to her fullest. Their motto is “Say YES to living!” and they have just embarked on their Great Loop journey. Follow their facebook page “Cruising Miss Norma,” and there is also a book!

Anyway, Tim and Ramie are super cool and helped us figure out our next few days. When we left the dock (along with our other new friends- Jill and her husband and 4 kids on a sailboat), the next day down the river was fabulous. It was sunny, warm, we knew where we were going, and we got through the first 2 locks promptly. Everything was going great until we reached the last lock of the day. Similar to our first day, our destination was about 2 miles past the lock. All we had to do was lock through and have a lovely early daylight finish at a marina with showers and friends, but we struck out again. 3 hours. We had to wait for 3 HOURS to get through the lock. There is nothing more defeating than having to drop the anchor as the sun goes down, knowing it’ll be pitch black when it we pulled it out of the water again.

The destination was Heritage Harbor, tucked inside a bay accessed by a completely unlit channel. Luckily a boat that had locked through with us was headed to the same place, so as they zipped away and then suddenly pointed at land and vanished, we were able to guess that we had to follow. However, unlike Joliet, there was no clouds-lit-by-the-city purpilish light to see by. It was pitch inky dark no moon encompassing boat swallowing black, and the teeniest bit of horizon light and our flashlight helped us pick out the channel. More terrifying than the night before, it was just barely possible to pick out the slight difference of the shoreline. It absolutely looked like we were aimed directly at land, and there were some scary moments before the channel opened up where we expected to drive into a tree. Thankfully we have good eyes and good instincts, and we made it to the dock. This time it was 9 pm, and we wondered how many more times this would happen.

The next day, we received the answer to all our problems. The harbormaster Jeremey grew up on the waterways in this section of Illinois, and knows every good spot on the river for 250 miles. Together with Tim and Ramie, and other sailors Joe and Julie, the six of us scribbled notes as Jeremey gave a detailed explanation of everything we should expect on the Illinois Waterway, and all the way through St. Louis. It was amazing. Our navigational capabilities expanded from a GPS with “not to be used for navigation” maps and a few photos of guidebooks, to adding 6 pages of Emily’s handwritten notes. We were saved! Thank you Jeremey!!

I would also like to add that since we knew our destinations for the next 2 weeks, we did order a Skipper Bob guidebook. Look out inland rivers, WE’RE COMING AND WE KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING!

Barges forever

Tiny houses?

Even more barges

The Joliet wall

WINTER IS COMING

Us watching the sun set as a monster tow with lots of barges pulls into the Marseilles Lock and we drop our anchor to wait