Burntside Adventures: Into the locks

As I write this we are in the Illinois River system woking our way through the 8 or so locks to get us to the Mississippi. It's a mess. The locks are now open but there is a backlog of traffic, both tows and barges and "PC's" Pleasure Craft which is us. We have the lowest priority. We stopped at a free wall at Joliet Fiday night and at Spring Brook Marina last night and have been traveling with a really nice couple from South Haven, Michigan on a demasted sailboat. Friday night we went out with them to celebrate Chris' birthday, had a nice meal and drank a Zombie Dust beer, an excellent IPA. Yesterday we traveled with a group of 8 boats through the Brandon Road and Dresden Locks, and things went reasonbly well. Lost one boat, that went aground yesterday, a sailboat. Another boat pulled him off, but he then tangled his lines in his prop and had to find a diver to clear them. I sure don't envy that guy. The water here is about as ugly as I have ever seen. Dead carp, and all kinds of detritius floating in it. This seems to me to be the colon of middle America.