Illinois to Florida – The Final Chapter

Illinois to Florida – The Final Chapter 7/3 to

Left Illinois at 7 AM and the temp was 78 degrees. By 7:30, it was up to 79. We do need to come back this way when we have more time and it is cooler. I was born in Galesburg, grew up in Wataga, and Mom was born in Janesville, WI. I haven’t been back since I was 8 and, while I’m sure I won’t recognize anything, I still feel the need to go back. Southern Illinois is filled with state parks and lots of hiking trails and we’d like to explore them as well.

It’s still very hot and dry – the corn looks so bad, with its leaves folded up and grayish instead of lush, open, and bright green.  Although there’s a part of me that feels a kinship with this land, I’m glad we don’t have the heartache associated with farming, even though we will all suffer the economic effects of the drought.

We began our drive through Kentucky farther west than on out trip north and came across an interesting and large national recreation area called “The Land Between the Lakes”. Can’t wait to spend some more time here and see some of this 1,700 acre wilderness area.

We arrived at Cedar Creek in Mount Juliet, TN (same place we stayed on the way up) with a heat index of 100-110 degrees. The thermometer in the RV shows an ambient temp of 99. Got up early and headed out to Montgomery, AL near where our next stop is located. Heat was brutal and we headed out early on July 5^th for Falling Waters State Park to visit with Rick and Sam.

Heron in Cedar Creek

Anyone know what kind of bird this is? It's about two feet high and waddles when it walks.

Arrived at Falling Waters with no difficulties and got the RV cooled off fairly quickly in spite of the heat (which was not as bad as in the last week and a half).  Rick and Sam came out the next day and we had a good visit with them, and bored them with our photos.  The weather was still hot so we stayed tucked in the cool RV all day and headed home the next morning. Even after we got on the road, we didn’t have the anticipation of “home” as we usually do and are eagerly awaiting our trip with Lizzie and Charley at the end of this month.

Illinois – July 1-3, 2012

We hit Illinois fast and furiously – and it fought back. The evening of the 1^st of July, the temp was in the high 90’s at Fisherman’s Corner Recreation Area on the Mississippi River at Hampton, IL. The 2^nd of July saw 106 at 3 PM, when we arrived at the Gun Creek Recreation Area Campground. These two nights are the first time we were wishing we had gone for the second A/C on our RV.

Nice location at Gun Creek - lots of sites on the river, too.

I’ve tried to work on my laptop while we are traveling but the cursor just hangs up and doesn’t move – or if it does, it only moves a few centimeters.  I finally found that if I attached Rich’s mouse to the laptop, I could get it to work, but that’s just too much of a pain while we’re driving down the road.

Diesel is now, way more than regular - $3.63 and $3.19. I liked the UP better (it was lots cooler as well!).

One of several groups of windmills - none moving

The haze here in Illinois surprises me since it is predominately farmland – is it because of the oppressive heat? None of the windmills are moving and it is 87 degrees at 9:30 AM. There are lots of corn fields; in fact, in the country when we drive with the windows down, we can smell the corn plants.

We’re pushing harder than we have been, since we need to get back to Gainesville for our appointment at the RV dealership to get our fresh water tank problem solved before we go to the Smoky’s with Charley and Lizzie later this month. I have to admit – we really enjoyed the laidback travel we had prior to this. 

Rend Lake in southern Illinois

Just passed a sign saying that in Illinois it is a $10,000 fine and 14 years in jail for hitting a road worker. Michigan and Wisconsin had similar punishments as well. Hope it makes folks more careful.

Tomorrow we’ll be traveling through Kentucky and stopping in the Cedar Creek Campground outside Nashville – same place we stopped on our way up. Maybe it will be cooler there!

RV Park, Rhinelander, WI, June 27-28 and Blackhawk Corps of Engineers Campground, WI, June 28 – July 1

2012-6-28to7-1-RVpark, Rhinelander, WI, June 27-28 and Blackhawk Corps of Engineers Campground, WI, June 28 – July 1

The drive from the UP to Rhinelander, WI was beautiful – lots of woods, country roads, and little traffic. The RV park in Rhinelander was very natural and wooded but sites were mostly very close together and many were quite unlevel. They gave us a great site – level and easy to back into. The mosquitoes were awful and it was pretty hot so spent most of the time inside with the A/C on.

Pretty campground in Rhinelander, WI

We never unhooked from the RV, so we were on our way in short order the next morning and on our way to Michigan to see one of Rich’s former Navy buddies. 

 

I was surprised to see that there are mountains in Wisconsin – for some reason, I’ve always thought of it as being pretty flat with a few rolling hills. Near Nekoosa we saw an Ocean Spray cranberry receiving facility – didn’t know they grew cranberries in Wisconsin, either. Near Tomah we drove through some beautiful rolling hill country. Also, a sign on a store: Pawn, Liquor, and Gun Shop. Hmm. One stop shopping???

Pretty drive in Northern Wisconsin with mountains!

Nice farm

We passed a lot of dairy farms, some dairies, and some cheese stores, but could never manage to get stopped in time. I wanted to give Wisconsin cheese another try, but fate was against me.

There were lots of very small, unincorporated towns (one giving a population of 237), and these usually had a volunteer fire department, a tavern, and a gas station, but not much more.

Our "partially shaded" campsite at Blackhawk

We arrived at Blackhawk Campground and see that the park is actually three loops – what looks like the original campground with electric and lots of big trees, then a new section with electric hookups and 8’ trees, and a non-electric loop that we didn’t even drive through.  It’s going to be a while before you get any shade from those little trees. The good thing is there were new restrooms that were nice and clean (and close to our site).

There are all sorts of birds – about 270 different species along the Mississippi - and there are birding trails all over the place.  I’ve seen red-winged blackbirds, red tailed hawks, and some kind of falcon. We have to come back here when it’s a little cooler. The highs have been in the 90’s since we got to Wisconsin.

One of the gondola cars with two piggy-back cargo containers

We drove south on Highway 35, which follows the Mississippi River for a long way as does the train track. There is a lot of train traffic here and many times they had piggy-back cargo containers piled two-high in gondola cars. 

We also saw tugs pushing barges down the river – up to 15 barges at a time (three wide and 5 long). They have to break the barges in half to get them through the 29 dams that are on the upper Mississippi. One “tow” (15 barges) can haul the same amount of grain as 870 tractor trailers or 225 railroad hopper cars!

A newly repaired barge and a fellow in a fishing boat - makes the barge look huge!

While I was walking Dickens in the campground and noticed a lot of small holes (about 1-2” in diameter) in the ground with what looked like bleached-out crab legs next to them. I asked a ranger about it and, although he hadn’t seen them before, was able to tell me that they were turtle eggs that had been dug up overnight by the raccoons. Poor turtles.

We’re in this part of Wisconsin so we could see a former shipmate of Rich’s. He and Jerry Strok were in the Navy on the Chilton together back in 1965-67. Jerry came out to the campground after we got settled and we had a great chat, catching up on the past 45 years and getting to know each other all over again. 

The next day we met up with Jerry and his friend Harry around noon to take a ride on the Mississippi in Jerry’s boat. We were lucky – it was just the four of us – sometimes he has as many as 15 on the boat.  They had done some work on the boat and wanted to be sure it was running right (I think they brought us along to help row). We started out on the Black River, where Jerry and his wife live, then headed to the Mississippi and north to the Lock and Dam #7, which is just north of I-90 in La Crescent, Minnesota, where we headed back. 

Nice house on the Minnesota side of the Mississippi

The water in the Black River was high and we only had about three inches of clearance when we went under it!

One of the strangest things we saw were lots of structures built on floats – from what looked like aluminum sheds to small cottages and everything conceivable in between. The powers-that-be have been trying to get rid of them, but the float fans keep winning.

Some of the float houses on the Black River

A real Green Bay fan's float

Another strange thing to this Floridian – a sign on a store “we buy furs, hides, and ginseng”.

Later that evening, we went to dinner with Jerry and Mary at an upscale Mexican restaurant where we had a great time and wonderful dinner. We got home around 8:30 that night – poor Dickens! 

The next day we headed out, just driving around, and found an A&W Drive-In, with car hops and everything! ended up crossing the I-90 bridge across the Mississippi to – you guessed it – Lock and Dam #7, where we wandered around for about an hour.

Roller dams in the foreground, tainter gates in the rear

Red-winged blackbird

 We headed back to La Crosse in time to meet Jerry and Mary for lunch, hit the library for some wireless for my computer, then picked up some groceries, and headed back home to poor Dickens where we put things away to get ready to start the trip back to Gainesville. Bummer!