Henry, Illinois

We left Ottawa early this morning, passing sandy shores, grain elevators, and lots of barges. One tow that we passed was 5 barges long by 3 wide, all pushed by one tow. As it happened, we caught up with him just where there were several bends in the Illinois River, so we had to wait until a straight stretch to get permission to pass. One lock today, at Starved Rock, which is situated by Starved Rock National Park. According to a native legend, a group of Illinois Confederation (Illini) pursued by the Ottawa and Potawatomi fled to the butte in the late 18th century. The Ottawa and Potawatomi besieged the butte until all of the Illini had starved, and the butte became known as Starved Rock. It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1960 (from Widipedia).  
Ever since we passed the Eletric Fish barrier on our first day out of Chicago, we have been looking for the Asian Carp. We have seen pictures and videos of them jumping out of the water, and the booklet about Ottawa even described a fishing tournament where you go out with nothing but a net to see how many you can catch; the fish will jump right into the boats. In fact, they talk about people in this tournament wearing helmets and protective gear, and still some are hurt. Today we say a few fish jumping out of the water, assume they are Asian Carp, but nothing like we had been anticipating.
Would have liked to go further today, but the next good stop was Ivy Club, sounds like a nice marina, but they report only 2 1/2 ft of water at the entrance, so neither Dream Fever nor us could get in. The person we spoke to at Henry told us to tie up to the old lock wall, just inside and island. The only wall we could see was rough stone with, we thought, nothing to tie to. Well, there are some or hoops in the rock, quite a long way back from the water. However, we had no way of reaching them. Finally, Dream Fever pulled up beside a low dock which we later found out was the gas dock, Eddie jumped off and secured their ropes, then came and got ours and secured them. We walked up to the bar (to which a couple of dozen motorcycles had just roared up) to pay for the night. We are secure, these rocks are not going anywhere, and we are out of the main channel. Got together with Nancy and Eddie for dinner. Will leave early in the morning. Cool all day today, but sunny.