Friday August 12: Chicago!

 The lake gods continued to be with us as we moved from South Haven on to Michigan City - and the sand dunes continue to line the shoreline!

It continues to amaze me how much of this lake shore is sand. So very different than Lake Erie - at least around Cleveland.

The waves were again pretty much nonexistent. So much so that Steve decided to continue his sanding of the railing project.

Essentially it took an hour to sand 4 sections of the railing. There are 28 sections so I'm taking that to be about 6 more hours of sanding. And then of course 3 coats of cetol to be put on by brush.

Good thing we have lots of time - although it seems to take a long time to get work done on this boat. It's way more fun doing other things than working on cosmetic stuff .....

Tuesday was a long travel day so by the time we arrived to Michigan City, it was time to relax. We were staying an extra day for some down time since we had traveled 175 miles in the last three days.

Getting close to being on the rivers and getting more nervous that we were going to still get hung up on this lake!!

Rode to a nice little restaurant for breakfast on Wednesday. Apparently we are in a time warp though. I happened to look at a clock and I saw it said 8:10. And we were finished with breakfast! How did that happen? We knew we changed into Central Time but couldn't figure out what time it actually was! So our solution was to just have boat time - we could make it whatever time we wanted :-)

It was another nice day Wednesday. This is a view of the river that continues past the marina and runs next to Michigan City.

Great stop and Steve managed to find the bus that took him to Walmart and back so he did some stocking up. It's been a while -  not that anyone is in danger of going hungry on this boat :-)

Paul and Jill that we met at Beaver Island (and saw again in Charlevoix) drove over to meet us for dinner. They live in the area and had also offered to take Steve to the store. Nice couple - but Findley didn't get to come :-(  Maybe next time ....

The marina is serious about their flowers and plants. Really well done and taken care of - plus a fountain and pond.

Very nice facilities!




It was calm again when we left Thursday about 7 or so. Still on Eastern Time I guess as Steve didn't even have to wake me up!

The winds were going to pick up a bit - only 38 miles to Chicago!!






All by ourselves except for one sailboat and one very large freighter!

It was very overcast and cloudy but it wasn't too long before the skyline of Chicago made it's appearance!

It's ALWAYS fun to see the skyline of a large city as we approach from the water. Sort of just appears out of the mist .....

Today has not been a nice day with thunderstorms rolling through early this morning.

It's cleared up since then but is still very overcast and is to be this way the rest of the day.


The ferris wheel on Navy pier was visible. Not sure who would want to ride it in the rain though ......

Chicago truly is full of fun things. Sadly it's not going to be a great place this time for us but we've been here many times in the past.

A particularly memorable trip was when we met our daughter Rebecca here and went on the architectural boat tour downtown. Really good if you ever get a chance ....

Chicago Lock

We went through the Chicago Lock on that tour. Little did we suspect that we would some day be taking our own boat through this lock!

We had planned on riding to Chinatown for a REAL Chinese lunch but with the rain, that didn't happen.

Mmmm .... I'm sure they have cabs around here. Maybe it's not too late!

We'll leave tomorrow to go through the Chicago Lock and through downtown Chicago! Should be great!! This will connect us to the Des Plaines River and then the Illinois River.

The mast must come down to get under the fixed bridges in Chicago. Hopefully it will not be raining in the morning :-)

By the way? First rain we've had in .... can't even remember when. Ok by us that it rained today!