If it's Wednesday it must be ..ummmm..Starving Rock still!

I tell you...the days are hard to pin down when you are moving all the time. The weather was crappy on Wednesday morning and there were white caps on the river...yes, on the river!
This part of the Illinois River is wide and dotted with little Island-like things that the Pelicans (white) like to populate. The tows went through sporadically, and the wind was up just as one tow came past us going south, late afternoon, and I thought it was going to drift our way. It barely made the corner and there was a tow coming the other way (north). This made for a few slightly anxious moments on my behalf.
We sat around for a while, did some chores (it was trying hard to rain in the morning) and walked a bit. On our walk we encountered a Water Moccasin snake with a fish in it's mouth. It took us by surprise actually. We saw this...what we thought was a turtle, which are prevalent in this area...head that had a fish in it's mouth. It moved towards the banks and WHOA! that  is a SNAKE! and one of the most venomous snakes in the whole of the USA!!

We left it to it's meal and moved on. It was threatening to rain again:(

Another Looper boat that came in not long after us, the day before, was brave enough to tackle the white caps and the wind and go south, around noon. Rather them than us, and they are a much smaller boat than us. We decided to go to dinner at the Bar and Grill restaurant at the Marina, for dinner. Waz had the ribs and I enjoyed the garlic shrimp. We went to be early for our early morning start, the next day.

Thursday.

Waz called the Lock, just around the corner, just after 6am. We were up and doing already and all we had to do was take the electrics off and untie the lines. All achieved in 10 mins, and we were on our way. We waited about 10 mins for the lock gates to open and we were the only boat going through. We were told that the subsequent locks were all open and the wickets on the Dams were down. This was because  of the Flood waters. The water levels rose considerably the further south we went. Today was a 112 mile day, ahead of us. We wouldn't get into our anchorage until 6pm.

The wickets are like a row of solid foldable gates that form a dam. When the waters get too high, they are lowered into the river about 20 feet below the surface (might be less).
There was a fair amount of debris in the water and lots of tree trunks.

Waiting for the gates to open on the first Lock of the day.

Coming up to the little town of Chillicothe

 So many of these little towns along the river, and most of them are old and small, and often there are railroad tracks alongside the roads. Industry precedes them, very often, and they don't look very prosperous, any of them.

Lots of fertilizer plants, gravel, grain silos  and power stations along the river. Mainly coal fired, so they have docks to unload the coal, in a very slow fashion, I might add. We watched a couple at work, and agreed that there has to be a faster and more economical way of getting that coal to the furnace.

There is no river bank left, just flood waters into the trees.

 Large flocks of White Pelicans. Locals tell us that they came a couple of years ago, and some stay and others go south. They cant tell us what the attraction is, for these birds, but there must be plenty of food!

Homes along the River are built way up (3 stories for the most part) on stilts. Some of them didn't look that safe, to be honest. Love the stone light house:)

Well, if you have a wall, what are you going to do with it? Why, Graffiti it, of course:)

 We have seen so many water wheel Casino boats, and these were just two more. Not sure if they are even working anymore. Many aren't!

 Peoria, IL.

 The home of Caterpillar and the Caterpillar Museum. This is the town dock where we could have docked, but not right here. Not a good place to stop in a flooded river, with so much debris coming down the river. We have heard of other Looper boats that docked on the river overnight and were up half the night listening to Logs hitting their boats. Another one ended up tying up to a barge, and had to disentangle themselves from a large log before they could make way.

 The Paddle Steamer on the Illinois River at Peoria waterfront.

 The Nina has her rigging up and docking at the city downtown dock. We passed the Pinta further out as they had stopped to put their rigging up prior to entering the city.

 Dry dock for barges, on a bend, after the city of Peoria.

 As we rounded the corner to Peoria Lock and Dam, we called the lock to ascertain if the wickets were in fact down and we could motor on through. They were, and we did. We followed the High Water Sailing Line.

 This is the Lock...under water!

 This wall is normally many feet above where we motor though to tie up inside the lock.

It is hard to know just how high the river is, because we haven't seen it when not flooded.

There are lots of what is known as Barge Staging Areas, along the banks of the river. There might be as many as 30 barges tied together, just sitting waiting for a tug to take them away. It is always fascinating to watch people working on these huge barges. These men are tying the two together.

 This 12 x pack had to be passed, like several others, going our way. They are travelling at around 7 knots for the most part. We got up to 11.2 knots going down river, with the help of the current.

It is getting late, but we still have two hours to go to get to our anchorage for the night. Lots of lakes around us.

 Just another hunter's blind in the flooded waters.

 The water isn't as high as it was when these tree trunks were left high and dry on the Levee.

Our anchorage for the night was behind an island, just north of a Coal Transfer Station. We were happy to drop anchor in about 14ft. The current wasn't too bad there and we didn't have to worry about being swept away. It was just before dark that we set the anchor and were happy to relax after a long day.

The chart shows we have turned around the bottom of the island (though you cannot see the Island) to anchor.