Miracle Cure & Fun on the River at Millpoint

Tuesday October 4, 2011
Millpoint Park
Peoria, Illinois

Aren’t we lucky, another
MIRACLE RECOVERY.
I took one aleve when I went to bed,
slept nearly 10 hours
and woke up feeling much better
and ultimately fine by noon.

So of course, we had to go out and explore the river.
Here is Winnona and you can see the river
off to her left.  As you can see, mid week
October and we have the place to ourselves.
Really FINE!
A great place we are definitely enjoying.

The campground has canals to buffer the river
and we are walking down the road toward one
of them to put in.
Boy do I LOVE being able to launch
by just walking 100 yards from the site.

Storing the carts in the kayak for the return trip

Ok now how do I get in without
stepping in the mud??

Did it and off we go down the canal.

And into the river

We decided to go upstream today.
The Illinois is a big river, very wide and
quite calm today.
So we figured we could paddle up and back
without needing to take the car and leave it somewhere.
More points for the campground!

The river seemed to have “our side” which was
more shallow and tree lined with a Nature Preserve
just north of the park.

And the “other” side where we saw a barge going
up what must be a channel.
Notice the “green thing” in the middle of the river.
More on that later.

Someone had built a “sea wall” and a fishing spot.

 

And just across from it, in the middle of the river
was that green thing I mentioned in the barge
picture.

From further away at the canal/river entrance,
I had thought it and several others in the distance
were islands.   But when I looked through my
binoculars, it looked like trees piled on top of each other.
What??

I pointed this out to David who said I don’t know
what it is but I’m not going out there, it could
be 5 or 10 miles away. 
Those of you who follow this blog know that
we had an experience on the Great Salt Lake
which David has clearly not forgotten.  :-)

But it really didn’t look 5 or 10 miles away to me
(to be fair neither did the one at GSL)
but unlike GSL this lake was glass.
So I said I was going out there.

And I did.
David watched.

So what do you think it is?

Any better idea now?

Hey, I’m going in.

Finally I coaxed David into coming out
and checking it out for himself.
It was 150 strokes not 5 miles away.

A fun adventure in the middle of the Illinois River
on a gorgeous Fall October day.

Fun for us that is.  Not so fun for
the ducks for whom these were built
and are rebuilt apparently in great ritual
after every flood.
Pick your time to visit this great campground
based on your desire to duck hunt or kayak.

Time to head back

and down the canal toward home.