CHICAGO!!

• The yellow pins that you see is me starting to add last years trip to this. That turned out to be a “triangle loop”. Eventually I will write just one post on everything that went wrong last year. and- what went right.

Ok, many of us have been to Chicago. We were just there last year prior to now or almost now-( we are currently in VT) but there is something special about arriving to Chicago on your boat that originated in VT just a few months prior — and of course really in Florida oh so long ago—

We stayed right downtown and it was just amazing. So much fun!!!

• Taking the dogs on their nightly walk at the marina. Our view was breathtaking.

We stayed next to the Columbus Yacht Club, which is literally on a ship.

We had some looper friends staying there and we decided to go to dinner on the ship our first night in Chicago. It was fantastic! What a blast. We had such a wonderful dinner and it was so nice to visit with fellow New Englanders. We really had a wonderful night.

1. The Yacht Club

2. Entering the ship

3. Elevator on ship to take us to bar/restaurant

4. The bar

5. The foyer to the restaurant

The next two days we explored the city. — again—We biked bike trails that were amazing, had pizza with some other loopers and got to visit Aaren Williams. If you recall, we visted her brother and family in South Haven.

• All pics are from bike path

Aaren took us up to North Chicago to visit her neighborhood and how much fun we had. We loved the area. It happened to be Art Hop night and Mike was lucky we were on a boat and I was in a “minimalistic” mode. What a lovely night.

We had the almost full moon over the marina and the full moon over North Chicago. Just a wonderful stop!!

• The moon. You can tell the one taken with Mike’s iPhone 14. I am so trying to get my hands on a 15. Then I can do even better!! I am still on a 12….

We are done with the Great Lakes On this trip. We did 3 of them. I would like to boat to Lake Erie from VT and then on another trip, rent a boat to do the North Channel again, boating to Lake Superior as well. Maybe drop an anchor into Lake Superior. Then we will have seen them all! They are amazIng.

We did well over 500 miles on Lake Michigan because we backtracked to Mackinac and went into Traverse City. I think it’s like 450 miles straight down. It is just a massive lake . I can’t even describe traveling down it In the context as a whole.

MaD Cruzn Sep 2023.pdf

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• Our Lake M trip in entirety. Best I can do ….

The weather gods were so kind to us. We kept hearing about westerly winds and washing machine affects for waves In the Fall. I was a bit nervous., But we didn’t have any of that.

I did look up the formation of all of those sand dunes and they are indeed formed from the ice sheets and all those westerly winds, so they do exist!

Thank you weather gods for looking down on all the loopers that needed to boat the Great Lakes during this fall.

Something the loopers really love to do is to boat the Chicago River to the inland rivers. There happens to be a broken Amtrak Bridge with an 8 foot clearance and even our wonderful new set up can’t get us that low.

On the morning that we left Chicago we took the boat down the river for a few miles (which happens to be the most scenic) allowing us to get our trip down the river- so to speak- We then turned around and left Chicago once and for all.

• All pictures of the River. The last one is of us. Our looper friends from Boston happened to be on an architectural tour and saw us and snapped the picture.

• Their boat was too high to travel under the 18 bridges that span the first two miles of the river. With our new set up- it was a breeze to drop that pole. We couldn’t go farther due to the broken Amtrak bridge with a clearance of 8 feet.

From Chicago we traveled to the real armpit of the Chicago area so that we would be close to the first lock on the Illinois river. We were on Lake M one last time for about 10 miles and then started our decent down the Calumet River to Dolton, IL.

1 and 2. We aren‘t on Lake M anymore.

3. The marina - not the best pic

MaD is now in a very industrial and I guess rough part of town. But all of the people we met there were very friendly. Although there was a bit too much partying going on the one night we stayed there. Maybe we are just getting old 😅

While it is in a rough part of town, it is also in the middle of nowhere - except for a very busy highway and active train surrounding it- the whole property is gated and secure. That being said, I don’t need to stay there again.

After said night of partying, chicken wings and McDonalds were strewn across the land.

Who found all this stuff, specifically the chicken wings? ( although no bones were eaten.) Gizmo and Ollie. 🐾

Ollie is a mill dog with a stomach that can handle many things. 🐶

Gizmo , Aka Gordo-meaning the endured one-(Yes, he was endured and SPOILED by his human mother in a formal life)😈

Gizmo is high strung, high maintenance and has a stomach that no dog would be proud of .🥴

So here I am on day of flying home, texting and asking 2 of the kids who are now more versed in animal nutritional heath protocols then I am ….“ would you make him throw up this day old chicken of which he ate “some”“.???Whatever some was..🤮

At the end of the day, I decided to leave him be. That I was overreacting. But we did have a queasy Gizmo for about 4 hours, and an antsy Gizmo on the plane. It made an already very tough travel day a little tougher.

We are now in VT until the 10th and in Florida until the 16th when we will return to Dolton to resume our trip.

• Goodbye for a bit MaD. Not sure about the hand 🤷‍♀️

**********if you wish to take a breather from reading now is a good time********

Onto the inland rivers!!!

I haven’t touched much on this, but the locks on the Illinois river have been closed all summer . We belong to American Great Loop Cruisers Association and this group has turned out to be amazing and worth every penny.

With the lock closures, they have been keeping us informed and working with the record 278sh loopers going through the locks this fall.

They have worked with the Marine Corps and have created groups of “flotillas” to lock though on designated days and keep us all in organized chaos. 😆

The captain and I decided that we didn’t want to be the first to go through. So we chose Flotilla 17 which at the time coincided with the 17th of October. Then the marine corp backed us by 5 days. Now we leave on the 22cnd.📆

Things are going well with earlier groups though so perhaps we will get out of the armpit prior to the 22cnd. ✌️

Now the dilemma … We have tickets back to Chicago on the 16th. We will leave Dolton somewhere between the 17th and the 22cnd. Do we change our tickets and go somewhere else for a bit, stay in Florida, what? 🤔🎲

At the end of the day, the answer is that we will go back to Chicago and can be on call to leave if we can get through earlier. 😎

However, we have the armpit! No Way are they getting us to stay on MaD more than the night before we leave . Dilemma solved. we will stay at a hotel. How we used to travel…… 🏩

I feel bad leaving MaD, but we can’t do it. We can’t hold up in the armpit for days on end!

One last thing. Yours truly is not comfortable with all the barges. The Mississippi has me nervous. Thank you Chuck for calming my nerves a bit on the phone last week 😎 . I’m also nervous about anchoring out in places the dogs can’t get to shore.

I am going to have Sod sent to the boat. Yes, I am crazy and have actually tried something like this before to get the dogs to do their business on the boat. Hint- last time was an EPIC failure. 🤣😜💩

And…………What do you do, when you are outside of your comfort zone? You become the leader of a Flotilla!

So, yes, not only are we Flotilla 17, but I am the leader of Flotilla 17. Which means the captain has to be part of this leadership as he is actually captaining the boat. I communicate, he drives…. 🛥️

It is keeping me occupied and busy though . I don’t need to think about all the other stuff and that is ultimately good for the captain . 😅

That’s it. I will take this back up when we are back on the water and in the rivers. Somewhere between the 17th and the 22cnd. - or later if things get dicey for a bit-

✅The next big milestone will be navigating the inland rivers to Mobile Alabama.

• Moon is still going strong in Vermont!