Saturday, July 21 (Part I)

Saturday 8:30 a.m. and John and Kelli Peltier surprise us by making it to Chicago an hour early :)

After a quick tour of the boat, we were on our way towards downtown to the Chicago River.

While we were waiting for the lock and dam to exit out of the Michigan Harbor and enter into the Chicago River, we noticed many sailboats with flags and this sign.

Remember the sailboat race from Lake Huron to Mackinac Island?  It seems Mackinac is the destination!!! :)

We are now ready to go through the lock to enter the Chicago River and see the great city from the river view!  Both the Peltiers and us have been on the architectural boat tour of the city, but seeing it again, was great!  So much to take in, like:

Great buddies waiting for the lock to open.

Entering the lock to enter downtown Chicago.

Water spray over the Chicago River symbolizes the natural phenomenon of water . . . or Johnny Peltiers version is the joining of the two sides of downtown :)

First of many bridges with low clearance {yes, Danny, we used your Handy Dan D helpful design to lower the arch and take the biminy down :) }

The famous "honey-comb" residence (check out the cars and how they're parked . . . we can't think of the movie, but wasn't this residence part of a movie?)

If their residence wasn't enough, check out their boat slips :)

Look like any specific design you've already seen?

One last look at this great city before we head on to the Illinois Waterway.

A little further down the waterway, we see dragon boat races.

Much of the Illinois River began to remind us of the end of the Erie Canal.

Look at how the waterway is actually "carved" out.

Instead of going through downtown Chicago, we could have gone south on Lake Michigan for about a half-hour to the Calumet River (but we all know that we're soooo done with Lake Michigan :)}.  This is the convergence of the Chicago and Calumet Rivers to create the Illinois River.

 Beautiful waterfalls flow from each side (but where is the water coming from?) :)

After this convergence the waterway turned VERY industrial with many tows and barges.  We also saw many different types of material like this strange mixture:

Things were going great and then we saw this sign:

Then we saw another sign that told us we needed to wear life vests.  Confused, we decided to get the beautiful orange life jackets out as the Coast Guard approached.  They told us that the next part of the river was closed until 5:00 p.m., as they were doing testing of the water.  It turns out there's an electric barrier in this vacinity to try to eliminate the travel of Asian Carp into Lake Michigan.  At the time, it was 1:30 p.m.  With no where to anchor, we pulled along side the wall of the channel where some of the barges were and tied up. 

Crew member, John, works hard to find someway to secure the "Johnson & Johnson"!

Well, that lasted one hour, and then we were told by the Coast Guard that because of some tow activity, we needed to move.  UGGH!  So, we traveled about a mile or so and found another wall to tie up at, and there we waited.  Remember, that funny looking blue sand isn't too far away from us . . . are we safe?  At this point I lost my internet signal, soooo stay tuned for Part II of this day, to find out "the rest of the story" :)