Day started wonderfully with sunshine and quickly warmed into the 70’s.
We left Starved Rock Marina at 8:25 and we were thru the first lock by 9:10. Fastest locking we have has so far. When we reached the lock they were up and had just cleared several barges from the lock so we got into the lock and locked down and the tow with his remaining barges were waiting to enter to go up and re-assemble the large tow.
The river is quite deserted but we did see probably 5 boats with fisherman. The sun was around to about 1:00 and then it clouded over and we had some rain for maybe 1/2 hour.
Lenore commented that she was disappointed that we had not seen any asian carp yet. Well about 1/2 hour later I heard a noise from the stern and it turned out an asian carp had jumped into the dingy and was flopping around. I fished him out with a landing net and put him back in the river. He did get the inside of the dinghy all bloody for the 2 or 3 minutes he was in there.
Lots of nice autumn color coming out along the river as you can see in the photo. This is not everywhere but some spots are really great.
We arrived in Peoria at the IVY Club (Illinois Valley Yacht Club). We were able to get all tied up, Candy fed and walked before the thunderstorms moved in. The temps were already into the low 50’s by the time we docked.
We need to get further south as soon as possible!