The clinking sounds of moving around and the sweet smell of pancakes cooking over the crackling fire greeted us as got up. Over a few pots of coffee we talked over plans for our ride. After checking our tires one last time and loading up our gear we road out of camp.

The warm morning sun sparkled across the canal. The canal at first clogged with lily pads eventually gave a way to a clear channel of water. Random fisherman sat silently in the middle of the channel repeatedly casting in towards the banks. The warm sun and morning stillness were broken only by the intermittent low whirr of crickets and the occasional distant tractor from the fertile farmland that lined the towpath. Spaced here and there along the banks were fallen trees, which had become sunning places for huge old turtles that jumped with a mighty splash into the water as we rode by.

The blacktop paved towpath crunched under our bicycle tires like sandpaper over softwood. Covered in some places with pea-sized gravel, apples or walnuts the towpath ran ahead with arrow like straightness under tunnels, past locks and over the Green River. This engineering marvel that would go over rivers and across the entire state was the first canal to use concrete.

While plans for the Hennepin Canal may have began as early 1834, congress did not finally authorize the plan until 1871. Construction did not began until 1892. In the 1907 the enormous task was finally finished shaving the distance between Chicago and Rock Island to 419 miles. The Hennepin and the I & M Canal are the only two canals between the Illinois and the Mississippi Rivers.

Read about the making of the Hennepin Canal at:
http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/Landmgt/PARKS/R1/HENNPIN.HTM