Day #65: Up at 5 A.M. for cinnamon Kringle, grapefruit and coffee. We looked at the weather which is calling for rain most of the day. We have decided to wait here in Joliet one more day as we will have three busy locks when we depart. We let "TxAu" know as they were going to leave with us, they have decided to stay in Joliet as well. We have small boat jobs that we are planning on completing otherwise we are going to have a quiet day on the wall in Joliet. It rained moderate to hard all day so we stayed on the boat cleaned, read books and worked on condo business. At 11:00 A.M. we had lunch aboard the boat. At 2:35 P.M. I sent "TxAu" a text to see if they wanted to have a drink, Mike was outside Nancy invited us over for a docktails, "Baytripper" joined us. We had a great time joking and laughing like we had been friends for a long time. "Recess" came down to talk to us about the plans for leaving in the morning as they were trying to coordinate all boats leaving together in hopes that the bridges and lockmasters would help us out if we were traveling together. All 5 Looper boats ("Baytripper", "Change of Pace", "Parrot Bay", "Recess" and "TxAu") decided that we would all leave early and at the same time to aid in bridge openings and lock availability. "Recess" had called the lock but Mike offered to call as well. It took Mike about one hour to get in touch with the Brandon Lock & Dam. Mike talked to them about the bridge opening times as they will not open between 7:30-8:30 AM and we need to have lock availability which means no tug/barge traffic on their way to the lock. If the lock is not available that will mean that we will need to stay on the Joliet wall until after 8:30 A.M. for the bridge to open and then coordinate a lock opening. We have been told that once you get out of the Illinois river that the Mississippi locks are a bit easier. The plan is for us to get to Heritage Harbor Marina in Ottawa staying there for at least 2-3 nights.
| One of the small tug/barges for the day. |
This has how it has been all day tug/barges up and down the river. 
This one was up close and personal. 
This is what the free wall looks like in Joliet. It is in pretty rough shape but it's free.
 This tug was pushing the biggest load that we had seen all day.
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