Mels Riverdock Restaurant
17 September 2012 | Hardin, Illinois
Saturday, September 15th – We awoke today to very heavy fog and gunshots. There are marshes along both sides of the river, behind the levies and that seems to be where they are hunting. We had a very quiet night with only a few tows passing, but leaving in the morning, we bumped a couple of deadheads and had to back up and try again. We only waited a short time for the La Grange Lock, and locked through with ‘Took the Plunge’ from Michigan and the small sailboat ‘Tango’ from Florida who will be finishing the loop soon! This was the last lock on the Illinois. In total we have travelled eight locks for a total drop of 161 feet from Lake Michigan. We tried to anchor behind Wing Island, with a reported depth of 13 feet, but we could find more than 5 feet at the entrance so we gave up and carried on to Mel’s Riverdock Restaurant where we tied up with three other loopers – Snowcat (Tobermorey), Tango (Montreal) and Maia (Bon Air, Virginia). The dock here is $25/night, no services. We all had dinner together at Mel’s and highly recommend it!