When I was in elementary school my church put on a musical called “Get On Board, Children.” It included several memorable tunes, including “No, No, Noah!” but the one that’s been stuck in my head lately is “What Do You Do On a Rainy Day In an Ark?”
Our progress has stalled since we returned last week from a quick sprint through NYC. First there was some scheduled engine maintenance, then we had to wait for a missing part to come in, later just as we were about to leave the fuel dock a pin blew out and our port engine cooling system failed. Diesel engines are not as simple as I’d like them to be. On top of all that, the weather has been … variable. As a result, we spent about 5 days longer than planned in Hammond, Indiana, and honestly the planned length of stay was already too long.
To be fair we never actually saw downtown Hammond and it could be lovely. The town is about 7 miles from the lakeshore, which is ribboned by railway tracks for Amtrak, the South Shore commuter line, and multiple freight trains serving the industrial plants that made up our view from the marina: an oil refinery, Cargill plant, and Unilever soap factory. Oh and we were also right next door to a massive casino.
The only “walkable” services were on the other side of a ¾ mile long express fly ramp built over the tracks to provide access to the casino. We visited the Walmart and the IHOP. We skipped the many opportunities to purchase cigarettes and fireworks, which I assume are more legal and/or cheaper in Hammond than just across the state line in Chicago. Also drive-through liquor stores. I ranted to Felix about the failings of Indiana’s health policy (skipping the part about multi-generational drug injection leading to an HIV outbreak). During the high winds and thunderstorms, we caught up on math class and re-watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Finally the sun came out and we made the short 2-hour trip up to Chicago, where after a couple of tries we got ourselves tied onto a mooring can right in front of Millennium Park.
You can’t beat the view – except that the sunny window was brief, and for the last day or so it’s been so rainy and foggy we can only see up to about the 30th floor of the skyscrapers. And a mooring can is not the most comfortable place to spend a stormy night. A little sway in the seas can be soothing; more than that and the lines in the front of the boat start to make eerie creaking sounds while in the back the waves slap up loudly against the swim platform. And the bouncing can be nauseating, especially if you had red wine and fried calamari for dinner. (Things happened, and we somehow ended up at the Capitol Grille ... we all make mistakes.)
There’s another more pressing problem with all this rain, too: the Illinois River lock repairs, which were scheduled to be completed this weekend, have been delayed due to high waters. The inland rivers are essentially inaccessible from here until those locks re-open, which means we can’t head south as planned for at least another week, maybe longer.
Chicago’s not a bad place to spend a few extra days, for sure! We've become delighted members of the Field Museum - it's within walking distance and has decent wi-fi, so we can even do conference calls from there.
We've explored the Museum of Science and Industry and Lincoln Park Zoo, tried deep-dish pizza (Felix: "I don't get why you would eat pizza with a fork"), enjoyed a comedy show at Second City, cheered as the White Sox hit a surprising string of home runs, and caught up with more long-lost cousins. Send recommendations if you have them - we've got time! And send warm thoughts too, as it's getting kind of damp and chilly on this lake.