Peoria

I actually planned today’s trip yesterday, and it went exactly as planned. Got into Peoria at 4;00.

I’m quite keen on these municipal visitor’s docks with power. I’m relying on AC all the time now for heat. So today’s trip was 80 miles with one lock at Starved Rock not far from Ottawa. I got underway at 0600, caught a break at the lock, and noodled along the rest of the day.

This is my wake at my slow speed cruise, 1000 rpm. Quiet, no fuss, and double the fuel mileage of a couple of mph faster.

I realized when I got into the quiet straight stretches like the one pictured above that the last two days were pretty stressful. Operating from inside combined with heavy commercial traffic and congestion in spots and lots of wind plus very long days. It was nice to slow down and relax today. I was outside for a couple of hours total – still cool and gray but no wind today so tolerable in short bursts. I saw a big eagle. I didn’t bring any real winter clothes, by design, and wear sandals pretty much all the time. With socks.

I had a marvelous pizza last night and had a couple of beer with dinner. Was completely ready to crash when I got back to the boat. Did a bit of trip planning, did my daily ER check, and was going to bed when I realized the temperature inside had dropped a few degrees. Turned out the cooling system was clogged with debris.

I’ve learned to keep an eye on the flow out the side from the a/c system, and clean out the filter when it goes from a stream to a trickle, and cleaned it in Chicago once. That’s easy. But when I opened the filter last night I found a bunch of solid crud like twigs and leaves. And cleaning the filter didn’t resolve the issue. Anyway, it took me a couple of hours to finally clear the blockage by hooking up the dinghy pump to the outflow and the shop vac to the intake to clear it. Crisis resolved, but it was after midnight when I was done.

This river is interesting. I wouldn’t call it clean. Lotta stuff in the water. I think tomorrow I should check the motor cooling filter as well as the a/c.

There is rain changing to snow in the forecast for tonight. Think I’m going to sleep in tomorrow and see what the day brings. I may well stay here for a day or two. I’m interested in the Catterpillar visitors centre right next door and there’s a museum and historical society very close.

I only took a couple of pictures today. This one was of a bridge from about a mile away. I was tracking moving cars across it with my radar. The Doppler stuff is pretty cool, I’ve been having lots of fun with that, and am very impressed with the capabilities.

And here we are tied up in Peoria. I don’t mind the look of the radar mast. It works as designed, I’ve popped up and down a couple of times to go under bridges.