We left Hennepin early Wednesday
morning. Interesting little place – a few stores and that's about
it – and a bar of course! Seems like even the smallest of towns
have at least a bar :-)
Another picture perfect day to travel.
Although quite warm. We were headed for Peoria – largest city
around this area. The town offers docks with power at no charge for
boats just passing through. Again – perfect for us!
It was easy to spot Peoria when we were
getting close. A very welcoming city – complete with a watch tower in the entry square by the port.
A walk a short ways to a place for
lunch convinced us air conditioning was going to be greatly
appreciated. Maybe when it cools down, Steve will ride to Walmart ….
we may be in need of something!
Turns out we definitely needed a new computer for me. And they had a small Acer laptop that I could use to replace the all-in-one desktop that is less than two years old.
It's not dead but is just not working right and honestly it didn't occur to me when I bought the desktop that it has no battery! Which means that anytime it has no power, it shuts down.
So every time we switch from shore power to inverter power to generator power, my computer shuts down. Not a big deal but when you add together a lot of 'not a big deals' they turn into a big deal!
The free town docks here are amazing. Right near restaurants, Walmart (bike ride) and a hardware store.
We were one of two boats here the whole two days. But then I think we're ahead of most of the Loopers so I'm sure it will be a lot busier in the next month.
One of the advantages of belonging to the Looper group is the Port Captains. These are folks that volunteer to assist anyone in the group with whatever needs a boater might need. 
Blaine and Pam are the port captains for Peoria and were gracious enough to not only receive several packages at their home but then drove them to us at the dock!
We needed a new VHF radio with AIS along with an antennae and antennae base. After they joined us for lunch, it was time to do some installation. 
Steve did the crawling under the flybridge this time to hook the radio 12 volt connections after he attached the antennae onto the side of the flybridge.
The radio is GREAT!! We can now 'see' the tows within 10 miles of us. No more rounding a turn and coming upon a tow headed toward us!! It's also a big plus to know the name of the tow we're trying to call (to find out on which side the captain would like us to pass).
We spent a couple of days - a lot of the time inside in the air conditioning with the quite hot weather.
Which, by the way, the rooftop RV air conditioner installed when we were in New York has worked quite well.
It can run at night without the loudness of the water cooled air conditioner that work fine but just not really reasonable if you want to sleep!
Early leave time on Friday - destination Havana - Illinois that is :-)
The best news of the morning was when Steve called the next lock and found out we were able to just drive right over the dam!
I think these are weir dams but not sure. Regardless they just lay flat on the bottom so the lock isn't necessary. Made our day - even though overall we've had great luck with the locks so far.
A large number of white pelicans lined one of the strips of shallow water we passed by. Always fun to see :-)
Oddest thing we've seen on the river? A couple of guys shooting Asian carp! Nets, yes, but arrows??
Didn't see any success but then that has to be hard, right?
Overall the carp are not nearly as jumpy as they were 6 years ago.
We arrived at Tall Timbers Marina in Havana early as thunderstorms were forecast for later in the day.
I think we were in the right spot!
Nice small marina. We were docked next to Su Sueno for the night. Saw them several days ago so we seem to be crisscrossing every few days.
There was a small farmers market in town. The cutest little eggplant - for the bargain price of $.25 :-)
Tomorrow - continuing south of the Illinois River. We should be on the Mississippi River in a couple of days!
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