Eagles and Barges

Yesterday, we packed up the whole family and met Jane in Sycamore for a fun adventure to Starved Rock. Our first adventure was to find where the seatbelts attached in the back seat of Jane’s car. Hilda had volunteered to sit in the middle, and the middle seatbelt clearly had to attach in two places. We had to get out the owner’s manual. The end of the belt hooked to a buckle that was buried in the middle of the seat behind the driver. I was concerned that I would have the buckle rubbing on my tailbone for the whole trip, but in fact I did not feel it at all.

Onward. We arrived at Starved Rock at 11:30 and proceeded directly to the lodge to try to beat the lunch rush. We were too late. Unable to seat us at a table for five in the main dining room for 20 minutes or more, the hostess suggested that we go to the lounge, which served food from the same menu. The lounge had an open table with six seats.

Hilda and I ordered the special, a roast beef sandwich with provolone and horseradish sauce on brioche. The beef was delicious. It had a rub on it that made it slightly sweet and barbeque-like. They were a little stingy with the horseradish sauce. I had the house-made potato chips. Hilda had sweet potato waffle fries. Jane had a turkey burger with chips. She reported that the turkey burger had spices mixed in with the meat which made it exceptionally tasty. Dad had a pork cutlet sandwich. Terry ordered the ham and potato soup with a side of fries. He found the soup too strongly flavored with the ham.  He didn’t like it very much. “And,” he quoted Woody Allen, “the portion is too small.”

We got one box for Hilda to take home our leftover fries, sweet potato fries, and chips. Even so, we ate too much.

Terry and I went out to the deck, where I saw the first eagle flying down the river valley. After a brief stop in the gift shop, we drove down to the visitors center. As I was looking at the fish tank, I heard Jane’s voice from the other side say, “I’m not dead, and I’m not stuck.”

My first thought was that Jane was stuck, but it turned out that she was reading a sign on the fish tank: “I’m not dead, and I’m not stuck. I just like hanging out in this log. I’m a flathead catfish.”

I took a closer look at what I thought was a mottled side branch of an upright piece of driftwood. It was most of the body of a fish, its tail resting on the bottom of the fish tank and its head stuck through a hole in the driftwood. I could see it breathing, but otherwise it was perfectly camouflaged.  I couldn’t think of a good way to get a picture.

I found only one small plaque explaining the geology of the area. Erosion from glacial melt. Nothing about the history before that.

Terry called me over to look at a display of the emerald ash borer. Neither of us has seen a specimen of this insect. It was smaller than we imagined. I thought it would be the size of a box elder bug, but it was about 2/3 of that. It fit easily on a penny with room all around.

We got back in the car and struggled with the seatbelts again, since we were going out on the highway.
“It’s like playing Twister,” Jane remarked from the front seat.

Terry noticed that the Kentucky coffee trees were still holding onto their pods. “The sycamores haven’t dropped their balls yet either,” he continued.

His phrasing and inflection struck Hilda and I as hilarious. We got such a fit of silent giggles in the back seat that we had to wipe our eyes.

We went back over the bridge and turned on the river road to go to the Illinois Waterway Visitors Center and Starved Rock Lock and Dam. A barge was just leaving as we got there. Another barge was waiting to enter the lock.

A barge leaving the lock just as we arrived

Unlike last year, there were eagles on Plum Island. I saw as many as four at once, and I think there might have been five or six total.

Four eagles--two at the top and two in the lower left

Periodically, the eagles took off and flew up and down the river. These are the best of the 40-some pictures I took.

One eagle in flight, two others in the trees at the right

A spotting scope inside the Visitors Center was on an eagle on the island. Here is a picture Jane took with her cell phone.

Jane's photo through the spotting scope

While we were eagle watching, the lock was filling with water so the next barge could enter. That took about 20 minutes. The barge was really 8 barges, two rows of three and one row of two. It took the second barge 50 minutes to get all the way through the lock. The highlights of those 50 minutes are in this 8 minute, 25 second video. It shows the lock gates opening, the barge coming in, the barge sinking as the water left the lock, the downstream lock gates opening, the pilot boat moving from the side of the barges to the middle, and the barge leaving the lock. The geese on the lawn next to the lock made a racket as the barge scared them off. I regret that I missed the horn that the pilot boat sounded when it started moving.

The signs on the far wall of the lock indicated that the lock was 600 feet long, as long as two football fields, and the barges took all of that space. The barges were held together by steel cables.

Steel cables holding the barges together

Note how high the barge is when it enters the lock.

The barge entering the lock with its sides several feet above the edge of the lock

And how low it was when it exited.

The barge leaving the lock with its sides several feet below the top of the lock

Jane pointed to a display about life jackets and told me I had to have her take my picture for my friend Pat, who worked for the Red Cross for many years.

Don't just pack it; wear your jacket!

I was chilled by the time the barge was on its way down the river. Nevertheless, we tried to find ice cream in Utica. The ice cream store that we loved last year was still closed for the season. (Last year we went on March 6, which was too late for eagles, but at least we got ice cream.) We stopped at another place that advertised ice cream (and wine and fudge) and sent Terry in to investigate. We were totally not going to undo the seatbelts just to check availability. He came back chewing.

“How’s the fudge?” I asked.

“It’s good! They had a whole plate of samples. No ice cream this time of year, though.”

Jane suggested we go to Culver’s in Sycamore, where we arrived an hour later. She pulled into the drive-up so we would again be spared the seatbelt ordeal. I hate drive-ups and rarely use them when left to my own devices. Thus, I was surprised to see a drive-up trash can (that is, having the opening off to the side and extended so one could reach it from the driver’s window) before the order window. I suppose those who use drive-ups routinely have to throw away the garbage from their previous meal before they get their next one. What a way to live. As Jane drove past the trash to the speaker, Hilda said, “I was ready to order at the garbage can.”

“Hello! Hello!” I said. And we had another giggling fit. Hilda doesn’t use drive-ups much either.

Jane’s cone came in a dish, but we didn’t like to send it back. Instead, she pulled over for a few minutes so she could have a free hand for her spoon.

Jane dropped us off at our car in the Jewel parking lot. We were home before dark and before Winter Storm Linus had dropped the first flakes of snow. More on that later. We had a very fun day.