Great Loop

October 23 The Muddy Mississippi Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ... hmmmm ... let's try a different cliche .... Good looking from afar, but far from good looking!  Yep, that works.  The Mississippi from afar: Up close, not so much.  It is muddy.  The river banks are devoid of life, either natural or man made.  The services for pleasure craft are non existent. And the traffic consists of massive barges that have full command over the river and require all others to yield.  However, painting the picture this way could not be more wrong. The correct metaphor is "beauty is only skin deep".  Whereas the Mississippi is clearly not the belle of the ball, she is the true bread winner of the world.  Macro economist viewing competitive advantages by country and geographical region credit the Mississippi for providing the USA with unparalleled advantage when moving product in scale at rates unimaginable elsewhere.   According to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the Mi

October 14 Flotilla 4 The Illinois waterway had been closed since July due to maintenance on three locks; Brandon Roads, Dresden Island and Marseilles.  They opened on schedule, October 1, but requested that Loopers wait until October 6th before traversing allowing the backlog of commercial traffic to ease.  Even with this, the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) would only commit to allowing 16 pleasure craft through per day.   There are ~275 looper boats this year.  With the 16 boat limit, we organized into Flotillas of 16 with each leaving in subsequent days.  We did gain agreement from the ACE that if other non looper boats were at the lock as well, they would permit a second lock through. I was the leader of Flotilla 4.  This made a lot of sense when I thought Jim would be on the boat working with me to get through.  With the 5 day shift from 10/1 to 10/6, I lost Jim due to his golf schedule.  I found myself solo leading a total of 15 boats (one dropped out) down the Illinois waterway. 

October 4 The Chicago Loop A journey starts with a step....ends with over 100,000 and a memorable adventure. As Aubrey introduced in his last blog, I will be the guest blogger, Jim Hauenstein. My invitation on the journey was to assist, in Terri's absence, guiding Shorebilly, Too through a series of locks and damns, starting in Lake Michigan and heading to St. Louis.  Being a novice boater, this was truly an adventure.  But a delay in the repairs of the locks pushed the start date of the Illinois River trek back 5 days and, due to a prior commitment, I would not be able to assist Aubrey with that specific journey.  But, my plans were altered to allow me to be a guest on the Shorebilly, Too while she was in Chicago, a city I had never visited.  The journey begins. As Terri departed from Midway International Airport, I arrived.  After a brief provisions stop, Aubrey and I made our way to his boat's current holding spot, Hammond Marina, Indiana.   There I was taught the workings o