Current Location: Rock Cut State Park, Loves Park, Illinois

We were on the road today by about 8:30 AM. The drive was pretty uneventful. It got windier as we got further north. Only affected fuel economy a little bit. We got to Rock Cut State Park around 1:30 PM. We didn’t have any reservations, but that wasn’t a problem as the place was fairly empty since the weekend was over.

We got a nice, long 50 amp site on a small loop. This park is interesting in that there are occasional water spigots, even in the RV areas, but no individual water hookups at each site. Since Malcolm puts a little water in the tank each time he hooks up and unhooks our water connection, it turns out we’ve got plenty of water on board, so it won’t hurt to use some up. Other than that, the site is fairly unlevel from front to back. You can see in the picture that our front landing gear is extended pretty far (even with some “Lego blocks” underneath them).

Our site

Shortly after we got set up, Malcolm’s best friend from high school, John Boehm, and his three children came by to visit. They live about an hour east of here near Chicago. John’s wife, Nicole, is out in California to hike the John Muir trail this week. We had a great visit with John and the kids for two or three hours. We gave them a tour of the trailer, sat around in the air conditioning, listened to records and talked about old times.

Blurry picture of the Boehm crew visiting us

After the Boehms left, we fixed dinner. After dinner, we headed to the nearby Meijer store and picked up a few grocery items and filled up the truck with diesel at $2.44 a gallon. Tomorrow, it is on to Wisconsin.

Today’s license plate count, same as yesterday – 25 of 51 plates.

License plates

Current Location: Camp Lakewood Campground & RV Park, Effingham, Illinois

We started our epic journey west today by traveling due north. We left the KOA in Nashville about 8:30 AM and headed up I-24 to I-57 in Illinois and stopped here in Effingham about 3:00PM.

Crossing the Ohio River

This park is really a nice little park tucked away behind some residential areas near a shopping center. Everyone was very friendly and helped us get to our site with no problems. We have a nice shaded pull-through site. Fortunately, we called ahead to reserve a spot – there was a No Vacancy sign on the door when we left after dinner to run some errands.

Our site

Woodsy view

Today’s stop makes state number 31 we’ve visited. State 30 was almost a year ago (Colorado on Aug. 24, 2014). We had a little trouble trying to find our state stickers since we’ve changed rigs since the last time we stuck one on.

State 31 – Illinois

While the trailer cooled off once we had it set up, we drove over to Menard’s and looked around. We also stopped by Murphy Oil and filled up the truck for 2.489 a gallon for diesel. We ran out after dinner and stopped at Culver’s for dessert, then stopped by the Dollar General to pick up some paper products we needed. We also took time to scavenge at the Goodwill next door, scoring several old record albums for 99 cents each.

Back at the campground, we relaxed the rest of the evening. There was a nice sunset we almost missed, but the trees were hiding most of it.

Sunset on the lake

Today’s license plate finds – 25 of 51 plates.

License Plates