October 8th finally came and we're on our way!

We're anchored out at Buffalo Rock tonight (see picture below) after a beautiful trip down the Illinois river to just above Starved Rock State Park.

Last night, our son, Stephen and his girlfriend, Beth came down to the boat and made a fancy dinner for us including a champaigne Bon Voyage. We were having breakfast on the boat with them before departing when 6 dear friends surprised us by showing up with coffee, donuts and fruit salad for all. How nice!

We made excellent time today because we never had to wait for a lock!! When we fired up the diesels at our marina, lots of marina residents came down to wish us well and we called the closest lock (Dresden) and found that they were just filling to take pleasure craft down. We left in a hurry, and got to the lock as they were opening the doors. It takes a while to get this big boat up on plane now that we've loaded her to the gills with clothes, food, gear and full fuel tanks ($3.10 today). A tank of fuel costs one "boat buck".

After a nice stop-over to walk Daisy at Marsailles Island, we cruised up to the Marsailles Lock just as they were letting boats in for the trip down. Lock wait time = zero all day!

We anchored at Buffalo rock, ran the dinghy to take Daisy again and had a nice dinner on the aft deck after watching a rather uneventful sunset.

Everything worked great today. Good fortune and a host of mechanical items all coincided to produce an "normal" day, of which there actually very few. I can't post pictures because I'm using my cell phone modem (slow 14.4K).

One day done.........and we're on schedule. Lots more days to come.