Monday - September 20, 2010

Start long041 073 lat 089 21 631; engine hrs 338.57 fuel 162 gallons

Left Henry's this morning at 7:45. Everyone was up early to get started early. The intended run was to Peoria. This was probably one of the most interesting and scenic part of the river so far. Little industry but a lot of parkland along the river.

Our friends on Lazy Dolphin caught up to us since they anchored up the river a short way from Henry's. Again there were lots of Asian Carp jumping, but the interesting thing is that we saw flocks of American White Pelicans presumably migrating south. We looked it up in a bird book and apparently their summer range extends from Texas through the Midwest and as far north as northern Alberta. I think the fact that we saw Pelicans this far north amazed us all. We all think of them as Florida birds. Lots of snow geese getting ready to migrate also.

The route traveled through a reasonably large lake which was really and extension of the Illinois River. Depth never exceeded 20 feet along the whole trip.

We arrived at Peoria and some of the folks went into a local marina which had a depth of around 4 feet - too shallow for The Old Grouch, so we went on to the town docks with Lazy Dolphin and Windsong where we tied up at around 1:00 pm.

Brenda and I went to lunch at a crab restaurant and the food was quite good. Took a walk around town and Peoria is not really much of a city despite it being the second largest city in Illinois. No shopping and it looks like all the stores are in malls. Lots of banks and the headquarters of Caterpiller is here.

We had dinner on Windsong which was prepared by Joan with some contributions from the other two boats.