The Heritage Harbor Marina is a fair way out of the town of Ottawa. To our delight, we discovered that there were bike trails running along the tow path of the old Illinois & Michigan Canal right behind the marina. We took the wooded trail the several miles into town, crossed over the bridge that was once the aqueduct for the old canal and arrived in the city of Ottawa.

One of Ottawa's claims to fame is that it was the site of the first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates - the debates over whether slavery was per se immoral or an institution that should be the subject of a popular vote in individual states. It propelled Abraham Lincoln to fame, that eventually brought him to the White House.

It is also the site of a 20th century tragedy commemorated by the Radium Girl statue. I recall reading about this sad tale in a science text book years ago on the topic of radioactive chemical elements. The Radium Dial Company operated in downtown Ottawa in the 20's and 30's, employing young women to paint radium-based paint onto clocks and dials so that the numbers and lines could be read in the dark. Many of them licked their paintbrushes to get a better point with which to paint - and as a result many were poisoned with radium and many hundreds became sick and died terrible and painful deaths in the decades that followed. Some of the sites where they worked had become dangerously contaminated and only recently were cleaned up.

The town is also the birthplace of the founder of the Boy Scouts and the scouting museum is also located here. We rode back to the marina and enjoyed an early dinner as we planned to strike out for Peoria the next day - another early start!