Joliet

         This was another gem of a town we’ve discovered on this avdenture.  We spent three nights on the seawall, and two days walking around the town.  In truth, there isn’t a whole lot of cute shops or touristy type places, and the big grocery is over a mile from the river, but Joliet is the county seat and the architecture of the buildings downtown reflect the magnificence of bygone times when people traveled to town to shop, and take care of business.  There is a lovely old train station (now an event center) a few blocks from the county courthouse.  

Joliet once sported steel mills, limestone quarries, and a historic prison that was featured in the opening scene of The Blues Brothers movie and was the filming site of the first season of the show Prison Break.  The famous Rte 66 also takes a swing through town.  All of this and more is featured in the historic museum, which is partially housed in an old Episcopal church.  

The museum encorporated the church’s stain glass windows into its exhibits.  This is an excellent little museum and well worth a visit for anyone passing through.  One of the exhibits that impressed us was about John Houbolt, a local farmer’s son who became one of NASA’s leading engineers.  Houbolt convinced the physicists working on the mission to land a man on the moon to utilize a separate landing module instead of trying to figure out how to land the entire spaceship on the moon and get it off again and back to Earth.  His engineering designs are replicated in the museum, along with his many conversations with his NASA colleagues.

Joliet is also known as the “City of Champions.”  This doesn’t refer to sports legends or its model, first-in-the-nation community college, but to its high school music program, specifically its orchestral and marching bands.  The city takes great pride in having a nationally acclaimed high school music program.  The museum has one large exhibit devoted just to this, complete with pictures, newspaper articles, uniforms and band uniforms.  Even today, when fine arts is a not considered that important in so many schools, Joliet still boasts a nationally recognized high school music program in each of its high schools.  

On Saturday (Oct 28) evening, members of our flotilla began to arrive on the Joliet seawall.  The wind had picked up and it was raining off and on, and we welcomed and helped tie up eight other vessels.  We will all travel together through the three locks that have been down for maintenance from June 1 through Oct 1.  We consider tomorrow the actual start of our river system portion of the Great Loop.

Here is Tommie, lounging in the one place she is not supposed to be.