Chicago Area!! – September 10-16 – Larry & Mary’s Great Loop Blog

We made it to Chicago and were so excited to see the kids and Grandbaby, Estella Ana! Erin, Noe and Stella spent the night on the boat with us the first night.

We walked around Navy Point and had a Giordano’s the REAL Chicago Pizza Pie – YUM!

The next morning, Julio (Noe’s brother) and Noe’s parents (Papa Rey and Mama Atta) came for a boat ride through downtown Chicago to the Chicago Yacht Works.

There were 27 bridges that we went under — some were only 17′-6″ , and our air draft is 17 feet! There was one railroad bridge that was 15 feet that we had to call to ask them to raise the bridge. After his co-worker yelled on the phone to him “Larry, open the bridge!”, we had to wait for a train to cross, then “Larry” opened the bridge.

We dropped off the Macias’ clan at Chicago Yacht Works for their drive back to Batavia.

We saw our first barge after that and we headed to Joliet, but when we got there we decided to push on further to Harborside Marina just 13 miles further. Unfortunately, we had to wait on the Joliet lock about an hour, so ended up getting to the marina in the dark by flashlight. Luckily there were 3 locals on the dock to help us tie up.

The next morning we left Harborside Marina to meet Erin, Noe, Juve (Noe’s sister), her friend Dan and her 2 boys. We picked them up at Spring Brook, a riverside restaurant/marina. After a quick lunch, it was a great day for a 2-hour boat ride to Heritage Harbor Marina in Ottawa.

Erin and Noe got to try their skills on Locking thru by manning the line and hooking the bollard.

After getting back to Ottawa, we took a few days break from the boating and went to Erin and Noe’s house. We spent time helping unpack boxes in their new home, and doing a few projects — install RING doorbell, install TV, new WIFI Mesh, new sprinkler controller, yada, yada… But there was still time for the park with Stella and one night we got to do date night with Stella in downtown Aurora.