Ottawa Illinois

We arrived at the complimentary dock in Ottawa at 11:00 last night. We left early enough but the locks give priority to barges and they are very slow locking through.  We waited at Dresden for 4.5 hours which gave time to do some chores, read and have lunch.  It was a pleasant anchorage so the wait was not tedious.
We arrived at the Marseilles Lock at 6:00 after dodging all the week end cottage traffic only to be told that there was a 3 hour wait for this lock.  We went back up river to try and find an anchorage but the river is quite shallow outside the channel so we went back to the lock to wait it out. We barely had enough room to anchor while we waited. The channel is 12 feet deep and it quickly turns to 2 feet outside the markers.  We anchored with one other looper and waited it out. We finally locked through at 9:00 with a small barge. We had 4 miles to go to get to this dock but it was a challenge finding it in the dark.
We will explore the town and possibly stay here a day or two.

Week enders near Ottawa