Havana
It was a 43 mile cruise down the Illinois river to our next destination which was an anchorage on the left descending bank called Quiver Island. We delayed our departure in the morning on Tuesday which allowed us to see the Caterpiller Museum. We also had Peoria lock to get through just about a mile from Peoria itself. Once we arrived at the anchorage it was a bit of a tricky entrance to tuck in behind the island as it got a bit shallow but we made it in without incident. We arrived about 5 pm so not much happened after that. We didn’t even make it into the small town. We were treated to a brief celestial show when I noticed a weird object in the night sky. It appeared on the horizon just above the trees. It was a long white line with white dots on it moving at a pretty good clip. Just so you know I was not hallucinating due to too many beers Sue witnessed it also. Turns out it was the Starlink satellites. Really cool looking. There is an AP that will allow you figure out when to see it in the night sky.
Big Blue Island
Wednesday morning we were up and at it headed for Big Blue Island for another anchorage about 60 miles down river. We had another lock to get thru called LeGrange. Fortunately that went smoothly and we had almost no wait. We continued down river to our anchorage at Big Blue Island. It was about 60 miles so it took us most of the day to get there. The good news was it would make our next day of travel only about 40 miles to reach the tiny town of Hardin. We were excited as we would be meeting Marc Lindsey Rey from South Africa. We warned him that we would be in the river system and both getting to us and getting back to an airport would be a challenge. Being a world travel guy he scoffed at the challenge.
Mel’s Illinois Riverdock Restaurant
We got underway at 8 am and had a beautiful cruise down to Mels. The Illinois became a bit more narrow and the banks became more elevated. There wasn’t the same concentration of industrial encampments along the banks but no shortage of tows working up and down the river. We arrived at Mels about 1 pm and promptly got settled in. Now Mel’s restaurant is an establishment about 50 years old famous for the fried chicken and homemade desserts.
It is good old fashioned country cooking. The docks are there floating steel boxes right along the river with no services. It is an iconic Looper stop. About 2 pm our South African friend arrived. When we met he immediately quipped,” I see you picked a really choice spot to pick me up.” I immediately replied, “Hey, last time we met in Africa you drug us out to a remote camp in the bush. This is the remote American bush!” We all had a good laugh and the fun began. There happened to be a parade in the little town for the High school Homecoming. It was replete with marching band, fire trucks and floats not to mention the candy toss. Marc said he had never seen anything like it. He scurried to pick up as much candy as he could to take back to his two beautiful daughters. Well no small town visit is complete without a visit to the local bar. This place was called Big John’s. And John was a big guy. Marc found the characters in the bar quite fascinating. We made our way back to the dock and shortly after docktails broke out. We all went as a group to the Mel’s restaurant and had a ton of laughs. Yes the fried chicken was great as was the pumpkin chiffon pie.
Everybody loves a parade. A local woman who was watching her grandkids in the parade offered to come pick us up to go see the JV Homecoming game. How nice is that?
Our South African visitor. So what is your excuse to not come join us on the Loop???
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