Peoria, IL to Beardstown, IL — Taurus Tied to a Barge

Unlike many Looper boats, we prefer not to anchor, so unless there is no choice we are always tied up somewhere, usually a full service marina.  In the case of the Illinois River, there are very few marinas and essentially none that would have deep enough water at the current river levels to accommodate our boat.  For the 168 miles from Peoria to the first marina on the Mississippi river there are many anchorages, but only two places to tie up, none of which have services, which is not an issue for us. One is in Beardstown, IL (80 miles away and one in Hardin, an additional 68 miles). These are both long days both for the mileage and for the two locks that need to be passed.  We knew Beardstown was a tie-up to a working barge owned by Logsdon Tow Services and Construction. We also knew that Beardstown was quite small, but as with many things on this trip, the experience was far richer than we would have expected.

After leaving at 6:30 AM (very early for us) to catch the Peoria lock we arrived in Beardstown at 3:10 PM.  A very long and tiring day (see Tows).  When we called ahead, we were told they had a pilot on duty 24/7 (see Commodities for why) and to call channel 10 when we arrived so they could tell us where to dock.  As you can see in the pictures, these are definitely working barges.  We got tied up with no issues and one of the barge workers provided the following instructions:

1) If we want to go into town just climb over the three barges and walk up the tall flight of steps over there.  😲

Tall flight of steps felt more like a ladder!

We had to climb over equipment

Barges are all lashed together

2) They do have 20A power (see Electrical Blog) and some showers that are rarely used (they are for the tug crews).  We declined both.  

3) It's a really small town and there is not much to do, but we might take the elevator to a restaurant with a view.  

The restaurant with a view and elevator

4) Pretty much everyone works at the hog plant “where they treat everyone like dirt” or at the grain elevator.  One of the young guys that tied us up used to work at the hog plant, but is much happier working for the tug service. 

Deb and I went into town (Deb did great climbing over the barge).  There were no people to be seen and only a dog barking, which we didn’t see. We found the restaurant, but it was closed.  We also found downtown but it was fenced off so we decided to go back to the boat.  

We were quite disappointed that we didn't have much interesting to see.  After climbing back down the stairs to the first of three barges we needed to cross, we heard a voice calling us (which was unexpected).  Finally we looked up and it's the on-duty tug pilot calling us from the tug bridge, which is over 60' high.  He wants to know if we would like a tour of the tug.  We said “Yes please!” 

Tug Captain's bridge

You can see Taurus behind the orange crane.

We had a great tour of the tug, including the bridge and the engine room and had a long conversation with the tug pilot and the crew.  This was very timely and enlightening as we have been talking to tug pilots over the radio as we passed barges on the river.  When the tug pilot and crew are on-call (these are not the river tugs pushing 15 barges, these are the local tugs that get barges in position to be loaded, unloaded and put onto a river tow), the two guys are extremely bored, but when they are busy they are extremely busy.  The tour for us was basically their entertainment so the time passed more quickly. According to this tug crew, this does not happen very often since they are either busy or the Loopers just stay on their boat and don't engage with the tug boat crew.  This was a surprise to us since the Loopers we’ve met are looking for interesting things to do. Truly, this barge stop was one of the highlights of our adventure so far. 

Engine room has a lot of room to work around the equipment