Day 130-131. September 30-Oct 1 Visting Jan, my Zeta sister and college roommate, in Chicago via South Shore train and L train and lay day in Hammond

 Woke early to get the Uber to the south Shoreline train station. 

Got to see the landscape between Hammond and Millennium Park.  As we got off the train and headed out of the station and up into the city.  As we turned west to walk up Randolph to State Street,  we passed several Chicago landmarks.  

We were amazed at the contrast between and old and the new buildings.

Continuing our walk we found the Lake station for the L (elevated) train.  We are getting good at this train stuff!!

Getting on the L we headed out to Jan's apartment in the Edgewater/Andersonville area.  Along the way we saw Wrigley Field and many apartment buildings that occupy the old warehouses and businesses along the rail line.

Getting off at the Thorndale Station, we walked a few blocks and met Jan, my sorority sister, so she could guide us back to her apartment.

We spent the morning catching up with stories of leaks and family and boating adventures.  During this time Bill also bonded with Jan's cat.  Then we took a grand tour of her lovely apartment.  I especially liked  her box collection and Bill admired her many drawings of the places she has lived and visited during her time in Europe.

After that, we were hungry so we walked to a local eatery, M Henry.  There we managed to sate our hunger and clean our plates!!  Was a very popular place.

On our way back to the apartment we walked the neighborhood, taking in cute shops 

And we saw parks and lovely homes and apartment buildings.  Bill posed with young Abe Lincoln.

Of course, we had to have ice cream.  Bill got the biggest serving!

Time for our visit had come to an end so we said our good byes and retraced our steps back to the L Red Line and walked to Millenium Station to catch the South Shore Line back to Hammond.  

We only went astray once, so we managed to get back to the boat before sunset!

Day 131    October 1

Woke to a beautiful sunny day and got some boat cleaning chores.  Now the boat is a lot cleaner!  Next we took the boat out to the fuel dock to top off the diesel tanks and pump out the holding tank. 

Here is Bill with our favorite dock hand having a discussion about their favorite music.  

 Then we took Crustacean out for a spin on Lake Michigan to check to see that the repairs we had done to the boat are truly fixed.  

A friend took a picture of Crustacean as we were on  out on Lake Michigan today.

Well, the GPS worked like a charm, but we still had  little bit of oil leak.  More to puzzle over.  Below is Bill deep in the engine room, puzzling and puzzling!

Returning to the dock we got reconnected to water and electricity and filled our water tanks.  So now I have no excuse to not do laundry, Yeah!??

While waiting for the wash, we researched the Ohio river segment of the trip.  We will be on the Ohio River for about 50-60 miles and hope to be there in about 2 1/2 weeks.  Rumor has it that one of the Illinois locks is still not up and running.  Keep your fingers crossed that they are open on October 7 when we are scheduled to go through.  Just got word that all the locks will be up and running before we go through.  I am still keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

We met some interesting Loopers from Montana who came had read about us on other Loopers blogs.  I guess we are famous!!!   Later we had a couple from Alaska who are looking for a trawler stop by to ask to see the boat.  Is fun meeting people from all over who have boating in common.,

Bill took some drone shots of Hammond Marina and the Horseshoe Casino complex.

If you look closely you can see the chicago skyline in the distance in the photo below.

This is a picture of all our crazy boat friends we have met and often share docktails with them.