Catmandu On The Loop: Tale of Two Springs

One Day – Two Locks (Friday 9/14)

Beeeautiful Day! Lots of sun plus great temps equals a great river run. Only bummer was the three-hour total delay waiting at the locks. This caused us to stop short of our expected destination. So what…we are in no hurry. Again we locked threw both the Brandon Road Lock (34 ft drop) and Dresdon Lock (22 ft drop) alone! Really cool!! We passed a couple larger tows today. But for the most part we had the river to ourselves. Tonight finds us at the Spring Brook Marina in Seneca, IL OHH! We think we saw our first lone Asian Crap jump in the marina. I’m sure there will be more!!

Our Looper gang are earlier risers...we haven't had
breakfast yet!

Guess the early birds...get through the bridge!! We had to wait till
10am for it to open again!!!

We missed the casino on our way in

Made it to the first lock...to wait

Get set...

Ready?

and go

...and go 34 feet down!!

Let us out

Another casino

Must stay out of the way of the Tows...One Whistle Pass!!!

Tied off waiting while they...

...brick the control room...come on guys let us threw!!

Happy Camper

From zero...

...down...

... 22 ft...

Time to go!

Passing a tow...don't get to close!!

How do these trees stand up?

Two Day – Two More!

Carbon copy of yesterday!!! We fueled up, emptied our nasty tank and followed the geese south. (Blog author changes here from Bill to Chris.) We hit the Marseilles lock with no wait!!!! Twenty-four feet down and we are on our way. Making good time and then we arrive at the Starved Rock Lock. The tow that we had been following using our AIS system, had arrived at the lock right before us and the lock master told us we would have at least a 1 hour and 30 minute wait as the tow and its many barges went down and the lock was refilled with a 2^nd tow in it and came back to our level. So we tied up and waited. Even a beautiful day with a view of the top of the dam and the viewing towers in the distance tried our collective patience. Once we made the 19-foot drop and Bill bantered with the people on the viewing platform, we made our way south again, meeting only two tows with barges and many pleasure boaters out on one of the last gorgeous Saturdays in September. We looked at our choices for the evening and decided on Spring Valley Marina. This private yacht club was very interesting. The slips were covered and most had hoists. They had a bar for the adults and it was kids night complete with a hamburger barbecue, movie and bounce tank. I had not considered that the river would be so alive with pleasure craft boaters so it was very interesting to see the pull of the water in a different form from the Great Lakes.