We took our time getting ready to depart the Oakville, MO Elks Lodge and were finally on our way by 9:50 am rolling ever northeast on I-70. Within 5 minutes we had crossed the Mississippi going eastward for the first time in over 4 years into Illinois. We had a modest driving goal Sunday of 171 miles to a small Illinois town called Marshall where we would exit to spend the night at Lincoln Trails State Park where a blog follower is hosting for the summer. I had gotten a text a few days ago offering a pull through site from Ed and his wife Jackie who have been reading our blog for almost as long as I have been writing it.....but I get ahead of myself.
The Illinois (our sixth state on this trip) version of I-70 was smooth and flat.....very little up and down.....my kind of road! All in all it was a rather unremarkable day completely without drama. We stopped at a couple of Rest Areas to take breaks and were getting off the Interstate in Marshall about 1:30 pm....
......Lincoln Trails State Park is located about 5 miles south of I-70. The road is a straight and smooth 2 lane road, and the entrance to the park is easy to navigate for our 62'. Since we have not dumped our black tank since Oklahoma, or our grey tank for that matter, our first order of business was to utilize the dump station located right at the entrance, and also take on fresh water as we were down to 80 gallons....not low by any means, but you never know when fresh water will be available again so you take what is available.
As I filled our fresh water tank Ed walked over from his camp host site to introduce himself, and explain the layout of the park. Since it was Sunday most folks with workaday lives had already left leaving 90% of the pull through sites available for us. There are a lot of trees in this park, which is pretty typical of the countryside we drove through Monday so it appeared to me that satellite reception might be an issue, and it was. Oh well, we can live without TV for one night. Additionally, the broadband is a little weak here....we could get about 1 bar of LTE.....sometimes 2.....so streaming TV was not an option either. At any rate, we found a good pull through site and hooked up to 50 amp electrical. There are no water, or sewer hookups, but the 50 amp is strong, and steady.
The park is almost empty....we are all by ourselves in the last pull through site
Around 4:30 pm we walked over to Ed and Jackie's site to chat, and eventually have pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. The pulled pork was delicious! We ate and talked until after 7 pm before we walked home to change clothes and return about 8 pm for a fire and smores. We enjoyed the fire and continued talking until after 10 pm. Since we enter Indiana Monday where they are on Eastern Daylight Savings Time it was really 11 pm, so we bid our adieus, and headed home for the evening. Ed and Jackie are typical of the blog readers we have met over the years....good, salt of the earth people who are engaging and enjoyable to be around. After just a few hours we felt like we had known them for years. We also enjoyed meeting their 9 year old female collie, Sheba.
It took us a while to wind down after all that stimulating conversation, but we were in bed by 11 pm (really 12 am, right?). We're going to walk down to Ed and Jackie's site in just a few minutes to have breakfast them......Ed is a 'renowned' crepe maker!
Ed making crepes Monday morning
Sheba the collie....very sweet, quiet dog!
Thanks for stopping by!
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Wow...that is so Awesome! You can't beat the great people one meets living this life!
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