Sunday, September 6, 2009

We were up early to give the boat a good cleaning. She was extremely dirty after passing through the heavy industrial areas on the Chicago S&S Canal including the 6-hour wait by the barge filled with mulch on Thursday afternoon. We were expecting Brian and Lin, Maureen’s brother and sister-in-law, to arrive for a visit later this afternoon. Maureen worked on updating blog entries first and then the owner/manager of the marina, “Moe”, offered the use of his vehicle so we could pick up some groceries. While Maureen went out for groceries, Gale stayed back at the boat and began cleaning the outside. Moe was kind enough to loan us the marina’s power washer for the task. When Maureen returned and unloaded, she began the inside cleaning. We finally had things looking nice by 4 pm, took our showers, and greeted Brian and Lin as they walked down the dock at 5:30 pm.

After a rainy start for the day, the late afternoon became sunny with temperatures in the lower 80’s. The marina was buzzing with all kinds of activity including a solo artist singing “Jimmy Buffett” at the bar and grill, people selling tickets for a drawing and accepting donations for a couple of different charities, a vendor selling sandwiches, someone else selling beverages, and a truck unloading several big speakers and setting up for some serious music. We left all of that behind and headed downriver to find the Buffalo Rock anchorage we’d been hearing so many good things about.

We took a leisurely ride downriver, navigating between and around the many boaters out enjoying the river this evening. We arrived at Buffalo Rock shortly after 7 pm and were pleased to find only a few other boats in this beautiful spot. We dropped anchor in front of the limestone cliffs, poured some drinks, and had a few hors d’oeuvres before Gale started the grill. It is said that the Indians used to drive the buffalo over this steep cliff into the water where the Indians waiting below would kill them, if they weren’t already dead.

Brian and Lin broke open a lovely bottle of Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine, and we shared a toast to family, friends, good fortunes and safe travels. Over a wonderful meal of salmon filets, sweet potatoes and asparagus we caught up on each other’s lives, told a few lies and solved a couple of the world’s problems.