Joliet, IL to Seneca, IL

Date             September 15, 2011

Day               79

Departure    Joliet, IL Free Dock  7:55 am

Arrival         Springbrook Marina, Seneca, IL 2:55 pm       

Miles                29.8

Cumulative   1629.4

NOTE: For a larger view of each picture, click once on the picture (This is new. No longer need to double click) 

Skipper Bob cruise guide recommends to call the lock before leaving this dock to determine the wait time.  The boat that left just before us did and the lockmaster indicated a twenty-five minute wait.  If we could leave in ten minutes, we would be at the lock before the end of the indicated twenty-five minutes.  We cast off with time to spare, and motored on down to the Brandon Road Lock and Dam.  Here we waited over an hour to enter the lock (so much for the twenty-five minutes!).  These locks are much bigger than the Erie Canal or Trent-Severn locks so they take much longer to fill and empty, about twenty minutes each cycle.  The boat behind us in the lock was near the lock door.  When the water got below the sill and was spilling in the corners, it looked like a waterfall going into the stern of their boat!

OK, we made it through, now 15 miles to the next lock.  As we traveled down the Illinois River, we saw lots of Great Blue Herons and Egrets.  We also saw this:

A duck blind.  This means the water is extremely shallow where the blind is and that in duck season, a reminder to wear orange!
There are three of us that want to go through the next lock, but there is also a tow with 18 barges coming up the river that needs to go through the lock.  Because the tow is too long for the lock, they split it into two sections.  They sent the first section of 9 barges up in the lock and then had to secure them on the lock wall outside the lock.  They are ready for us to go down and we had to travel the length of the first 9 barges, make a jog left and then jog right in front of the barges then enter the lock!  They brought the three of us down, we exited around the second 9 barges as we went merrily on our way.  This took about 3 hours.

Here are the two boats in front of us going around the 2nd 9 barges as we leave the lock

Goodbye Dresden Lock and barges!

Willow was so exhausted from all this waiting, she couldn't take it any longer!

We finally arrived at our destination, Springbrook Marina.  The marina has a courtesy car which we borrowed to go to Radio Shack.  Bob has been looking for a particular item for the computer.  We tried two Radio Shacks in Chicago with no luck.  This particular Shack was located in an Ace Hardware store along with a dry cleaner.  Believe it or not, he found what he was looking for!  After a busy, hurry up and wait type of day, we had dinner and went to bed.