It was another ground hog's day of travel, only with fewer barges to pass. There was a ferry crossing, something we haven't run across in a while. And it included the (apparently) required two hour hold at the lock added to the planned seven hour day. At least it was the last lock we will run across on this trip. There are none on the planned route for tomorrow.
We are also on the last planned anchorage for this trip. Somewhere along the Illinois river between its East bank and a chunk of land called Willow Island is where the hook hit the bottom. It is kind of a desolate looking place that is very, very quiet and very still. Generally those are two good qualities for an anchorage but it is also very hot and muggy. I suspect mosquitoes will be our main companions for the evening. It is kind of a narrow channel as well so, in other places this tight swinging would be a concern. But there is just enough river current running though the channel to keep the boat pointed in one direction. All in all not bad for the (planned) last night of the trip. Why the parentheses? If there is one thing we have learned since putting First Light in the water at Duck Creek Marina on November 3rd 2022, it is that what is planned to happen and what does happen can be two, very different, events.
Six hundred and eighty five days ago I didn't have a pacemaker stitched into my chest. Deb didn't have a plate and screws holding her wrist together. We had not spent months traveling with Grandson Eldest. First Light didn't have near as many new parts as she does now. The boat had not been dropped in the Big Chute Railway, nor had we come near to being run down by a couple of barges. None of those events, as notable as they are now, were in any of our plans.
The planned events, Delaware Bay, New York, the Hudson River, Canadian Waters, Great Lake Waters, and rivers this far from an ocean, were rarely, if ever, what we expected them to be. Some were far more spectacular and fun than we suspected. Others were far more difficult and uncomfortable than we expected. That is usually the way it works when one goes a-wandering.
Tomorrow's (planned) last day of travel to our new home marina of Alton, IL is just shy of 40 miles and a bit over 5 hours. So, somewhere around noon to early afternoon, this little foray into being river sailors on “Motor Vessel First Light” should draw to a close. I am guessing it will take a few days to get relocated back to the apartment in St. Louis, with grandkids (6) once again nearby. Pretty much everything we own has to be packed up from its rightful boat place. Then loaded up, hauled over the bridge, unpacked, and put back in its rightful apartment place. I am guessing it will take more than a few days to get used to being land dwellers again. True, we have only been gone for 5 months or so rather than the near six years we were on Kintala. But I still expect to wake up at night a few times, concerned that the boat wasn't moving and wondering if we had run aground somehow. Or have the thunder wake me into scrambling to get the hatches and ports shut before the rain arrives. Good habits on a boat that make one feel silly on land.
But, for tonight and in this place, I will simply enjoy being on a boat that is riding gently to its anchor. No shore lights, no traffic noise, just sky, trees, and water. The good news is, even after getting settled in to land living again, First Light will be near at hand and ready to go out for a day, a weekend, a few days...whatever we can work out and whenever we feel like doing it. We might take a couple of days and motor right on back up here for a visit, hopefully with a few grandkids aboard. Sounds like a good plan to me.
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