We arrived in Racine in the late morning, and made our way into our assigned slips. The space was really tight here, we just made it into the slip with about 2 feet between us and the sailboat beside us. The fairways were kind of narrow, so pivoting into the slip was also a bit of a close call, but we got set in. I got busy setting up the boat and getting the electrical plugged in, while Louise checked in on the ROAM app. As with the past few ports, the app was not working here, so she had to call CPB to report in. Steve had some trouble connecting to shore power, and while he was sorting this out Chrisie went for a walk to see what was around us in the town.
After getting set up I thought I might grab a nap, but just before I fell asleep Louise texted that she and Chrisie were at a Tiki bar having beverages and listening to reggae. Steve was busy on his boat, so I went over to join them. The girls had some lunch, and we all had beverages. Half way through the afternoon, Chrisie asked the waitress what her name was. The waitress said "Christel". Chrisie was stunned, and asked her to spell it. "C H R I S T E L". Chrisie got really excited as that was her name, and in all her life she had never met anyone else who had the same name as her's. Was really a nice moment, as the waitress was so nice, and she even posed for a picture with Chrisie.
Christel and Christel
The boat launch here was massive and was even in its own separate harbour.
The fish cleaning station at the boat launch. The facilities here were first class.
Some of the catch that the local fishermen were cleaning. They catch salmon here.
The next morning was a bad weather day on lake Michigan, so we were laid up in port. Steve and I spent the morning washing our boats and getting rid of spiders. I washed the radar arch, flybridge and upper canvas. This took all morning, in 32 degree C heat and high humidity. Louise and Chrisie then texted us to say they were in the marina bar and told us to join them for lunch. We all had a really tasty meal for lunch, and then Steve noticed that there were lots of dogs around.
BELT sandwich for lunch.
Eevee inspecting the laundry. She checks out the bags every time we use them.
North half of the harbour at Racine. The facilities on these lake Michigan marinas are absolutely massive.
South part of Racine harbour.
Apparently it was national dog day, and so they had a special event in the bar for dogs and their owners. Steve went back to the boat to get Carter, and brought him to the bar, whereupon he enjoyed a few beverages.
This guy had a shirt with pictures of his dog on it. Lots of dog owners at the bar for dog day.
Some kids were playing with RC boats in the harbour.
Meanwhile, Louise and I went to the pool to cool off. Unfortunately, I went into the hot tub and stayed a bit too long. I think with the washing all morning in the hot sun, together with the afternoon heat and hot tub, I had a bit of heat stroke. All of a sudden I was not feeling well, so I went back to the boat and slept the rest of the afternoon. Louise stayed in the pool and enjoyed the water, Steve enjoyed the dog day at the bar, while Chrisie enjoyed walking around and talking to people.
Our next stop was Chicago. We had to do a bit of planning here, because Steve had to make arrangements for their engine part to be shipped to a marina ahead of us. The idea was that the part arrives at the marina a few days before we do. It turned out that he could get it shipped to Hammond marina, which is located close to the Calumet river, which is one of two entrances to the inland rivers from lake Michigan.
Originally, Louise and I had planned to stay in one of the big marinas on lake Michigan near downtown Chicago, and then enter the river system through the city itself. This would be a much more scenic route, but would also be much more expensive, as those marinas are pretty high end. With this route we would also have to contend with many lift bridges, and with an extremely busy lock at the Navy pier.
We went through several plans, including us staying in Chicago, then meeting Chrisie and Steve in Joliet, or us in Chicago then meeting up in Hammond. After doing some on-line detective work, we determined that it would be most cost-effective if we went to Hammond, stayed there several days, and rent a car to visit Chicago. This would also allow us to go to different stores to provision before entering the river system. Between us this plan saved several hundred dollars in marina fees.
The trip from Racine to Hammond would be 8 hours long, so we planned to get up at oh-dark-thirty and got underway just before sunrise. Just before we turned in to bed we saw lots of flashing lights on a police boat that was going out of the harbour. We turned on our VHF to see what was happening. There was a disabled boat taking on water. Another police boat had taken off the passengers, while the captain of the distressed vessel was trying to get the boat to the launch ramp harbour (in Racine the boat launch has its own harbour). Sounded sketchy, but the police followed the boat in to make sure he got back safely.
Next morning we were up in the dark, and made coffee before getting prepped to go. When I opened the door to go outside it was still dark, so I was very surprised to get hit with heat. It had to be 30 degrees C outside, and it was only about 5:30 in the morning! It felt like mid-afternoon on a hot August day in Ottawa. To add to it, the humidity was easily over 90%, you could FEEL the air. Wow.
We got underway just as it got light enough to find our way out of the harbour. The ride on the lake started out a bit choppy, then smoothed out once we got to Chicago. It was a sunny, absolutely wind-less day, although we could see a kind of haze as the humidity was so high. Along the way we heard two pan-pans on the VHF. The first Coast Guard broadcast alerted that that there was a disabled boat in distress in the Milwaukee river, and needed assistance. The second involved a boat being towed somewhere on the east shore. Both events were pretty far away from us, but the Coast Guard sends out a really strong signal, and so you hear things from all over the lake when they are transmitting.
As we moved south, the city of Chicago slowly became visible. We could start to see buildings when they were about 35 km away, they would appear as shadows on the horizon, and over about 5 to 10 minutes would become more solid. Each time we saw this we thought we were seeing the city, but each time it was just suburb high-rises. There were three bunches of these buildings spread over about 30 km of coast line. Then the downtown resolved. You could clearly see the John Hancock Centre and Sears tower (I know it is named something else now but it will always be the Sears tower to me). As we got closer we started to hear lots of chatter on the VHF from various commercial boats around downtown. Each one trying to be more nonchalant than the other.
As we passed downtown, Miss K sped up to get some photos of iFloat in front of the city. She then maneuvered so that we could take some photos of them from a similar perspective. Along the way we had to do a "crazy Ivan" turn. We came up on some kind of pole sticking out on an angle in about 30 feet of water. Thought it was a wrecked sailboat, so we kept clear. I then saw another stick close by, this one just above water in front of us, so there was something substantial there. We both did crazy Ivan turns to keep well clear of whatever that was.
Miss K passing Chicago.
iFloat passing Chicago.
Passing downtown the skies started to change. What had been beautiful blue skies with wisps of clouds became kind of overcast. At this point it was 35 degrees C, and 100 % humidity - we were dripping with sweat, and the sky was looking like we were going to get some rain. We were driving from the flybridge most of the day to enjoy to breeze, but I now decided to close up the flybridge and move downstairs in case the skies opened up on us, indeed one of my weather apps was predicting rain soon. Driving inside was still comfortable as we had all the windows open, but not as nice as being up top, and we were only about an hour from our destination, so no big issue.
At this point the Coast Guard got on the radio and issued a pan-pan weather warning. Strong thunderstorms and winds in the area north of us were approaching, so they put out an "all boats seek immediate shelter" warning. We looked behind us and could see the dark clouds, and could also see them on radar, but luckily we were far enough south of them that it would not be a problem for now. However, this kind of warning over the radio kind of gets your juices going, even though we knew we should miss it. We arrived at Hammond marina, got fuelled up and tied into our slips. The slips here were also really narrow, and built in the style of Mackinaw City with posts on either side. It took us a while to get set up as we had to adjust fenders and lines to sit well on the dock. There were no restaurants nearby, except for one at the Casino attached to the marina, but we did not want to pay their prices so ate on the boat.
As we were finishing dinner, the nasty thunderstorms arrived. The skies outside got darker, and you could see the clouds rolling towards us. We went outside to see a thunder cloud that looked like a UFO from Independence Day.
There were lightning flashed inside the cloud and it was headed our way. It looked so low you could touch it, and we could see the clouds roiling. We checked around the boats to make sure we were all closed up and tied securely, and then the winds picked up and the temperature dropped. We only got a bit of rain, as we were just on the edge of the storm, but it was really windy for a while. The marina staff were running around removing canvas from awnings and shelters.
Enjoying the cool breeze (more of a gale) as the storm passed over.
Samba in the rain.
Both Louise and I were pretty tired after the long day, so we went to bed around 9, while Chrisie stayed up to watch the storm. It rained most of the night, and she got some amazing pictures of lightning strikes.
The next morning Chrisie and Louise picked up the rental car, then the four of us went to West Marine in Chicago. I needed some parts for our upcoming oil change, so had ordered them from West Marine and arranged to have them shipped to the Chicago store. While we were there we also picked up a spare anchor, and some other odds and ends for the boat. After hitting West Marine, we went to Costco to get some provisions, then to Aldi - a local grocery store - and finally to Walmart. Expensive day, but now we were fully set for the scheduled engine service coming up in a few more engine hours, and we were provisioned for entry to the inland rivers.
Heading downtown for West marine and Costco.
One of the things we wanted to do in Chicago was to get a Chicago-style pizza. Chrisie did some research and found a couple of pizza places nearby that were highly rated. The first one we went to was more of a take-out place, so we did not stay, and instead went to Beggar's Pizza for lunch-dinner. The deep dish pizza takes 40 minutes to bake, so we passed the time talking with Rhianna, our waitress. We told her about the loop and some of our adventures, and she passed on some advice for going to Chicago and places to visit. The pizza was fantastic, and we really enjoyed it. We also could not eat all of it, and so brought some back to the boat with us for lunch the next day.
Chicago-style pizza. It was awesome.
Deep dish pizza. They put the cheese on the bottom, the sauce on the top, and bake it 40 minutes.
The crust is like a corn-bread. Very thick and very good.
After our lunch. We had a great conversation with Rhianna, our server. It was nice talking to someone who was interested in our loop.
The next morning, Louise, Chrisie and I set off for the city in the rental car. Our first stop was the Griffiths museum of science and technology. We especially enjoyed the model railroad and airplane exhibits, and spent some time talking to one of the volunteers who built the Wright brothers reproduction plane.
They had several human cadavers on display, each dissected to show a different system in the body (nerves, blood vessels, organs etc). This one had all the systems shown in an "exploded" format.
The girls with the model train layout. It showed track and landscape all across the country, from Chicago to Seattle.
The aviation section. The Stuka was very cool, but smaller than I expected in real life.
They had a tornado display, and a bunch of young people got to be part of the show.
This part of the model shows how the underground road system of Chicago actually looks from the river. The whole city is built like an aircraft carrier or Disney World, with a service level underneath the surface level.
Us in front of the big train model. It is all maintained by volunteers. I bet they have a waiting list of people who want to work on this exhibit.
This display was at the entrance to their space technology entrance. Looks like someone snuck something into this one.
Just before noon we got back in the car and drove downtown. We were following GPS maps from a phone, which kept sending us to a non-existent parking lot on the surface. After circling the block 4 times, Louise finally figured out we had to go underground, and we managed to find a ramp and head down.
After the great fire, downtown Chicago was rebuilt like Disney World. There are two levels of streets, underground and above-ground. The underground roads are intended for service vehicles, and provide services like parking. This keeps commercial vehicles off the upper streets. Took us a while to figure out how to get to the lower levels. Once we got down, there was construction with lots of mis-leading signs. We ended up going the wrong way down a one-way street to get to a parking garage. We were not the only ones, as the bad construction signage had made a one-way effectively into a two-way street.
We got parked and made our way to CAC cruises to take a boat tour of downtown Chicago via the Chicago river. Really well-done tour, and we got to see a great view of downtown.
One of the first buildings on the tour, this is also one of the newest. Hard to make out what it was because the sign was so small.
The Sears tower. It has actually been renamed, but I have no idea what the new name is, nor do I think I ever will. Everybody here called it the Sears tower.
Traffic on the Chicago river.
Heading through the Chicago river. I cannot remember the name of the round building, but it has been in a lot of movies. The bottom 10 floors or so are parking, which you can easily see when you get close. Lots of really interesting building styles here spanning the last 100 or so years of high-rise construction.
When the cruise finished, we got back in the car to try to make it out of the city before rush hour. We had not eaten lunch, so decided to go back to Beggar's pizza for more deep dish. Unfortunately Rhianna was not working that day, but the pizza was still great.
The Hammond marina is so big they put washrooms half-way down the docks. These have to be pumped out, so they use macerating toilets.
After dropping off the rental car, we set about getting the boat ready for the river. This required lowering the radar arch, as many of the bridges we would be going through were low, and we could speed up our journey if we did not have to wait for bridge openings. I also did an engine inspection, filled our water tanks, and got set for the next day, which would be our first on the inland rivers.
Boat name of the day: Bow Movement
