Upstream Approach to Lock 11, I&M Canal

We had such light rainfall this past Fall that Lock 11 on the old Illinois & Michigan Canal was dry. I rarely get the chance to walk through a lock, so this past November I took advantage of an unseasonably warm day and did just that. Just wish there had been some overcast... I'm standing in the middle of the old canal bed. Back when this was a superhighway of commerce, the only link between the trading post of Chicago and the Mississippi River (via a connection with the Illinois River), the canal was six feet deep and sixty feet wide. I would have been over my head in water when the canal was in operation. Olympus E-1, Zuiko 14-54mm.