5/27/22 Decatur, Ill to Indiana Dunes Nat'l Park

 Friday, May 27

58 degrees this morning, so it was a comfortable night’s sleep.  We have breakfast at a nearby McDonalds and gas up at $4.19.  The nearby Scovil Gardens and Sculpture Park make for a nice start to the day.  There is a zoo and a Children’s Museum in the same complex - very nice for Decatur!

The day began overcast, and a half hour into the drive to Indiana Dunes National Park, the rain begins.  Very heavy rain at times and traffic is heavy as well as we skirt the southern suburbs of Chicago.  We do a detour around some of the worst traffic on I-80, I-90 per our GPS.  But when we get back on I-90 traffic is still very slow for quite a while.  

We arrive at the Dunes Visitor Center and a nice ranger named Cookie Furguson shows us the key places to visit on the map.  We ask and are given permission to spend the night in the Visitor’s Center Parking (thank you to someone on FB who mentioned this possibility!). The flag is at half mast for the school shooting in Uvalde, TX.   In the meantime we head to the WestChester Library in nearby Chesterton and spend a few hours on the computer and reading while the rain continues.  Really pleasant folks there.

We go back to the Visitor’s Center and watch a film about the park.  It was first proposed way back in 1916, but then came WWI, the Depression, WWII....and industry began to develop the area. Finally in 1966 it was made a National Lakeshore, effectively stopping industrial development,  and then in 2019 a National Park.  It is unusual in that it is segmented, with two steel mills, Indiana Harbor and a State Park all mixed in among the National Park area!  We learn a lot about the dunes and their movement and re-building.  Many of the dunes are becoming forested or are overtaking forested areas.

After dinner, the rains have stopped and we decide to go have a look at the dunes.  We wander a bit  and catch a sunset at Porter Beach.  

Beautiful sunset as we look across Lake Michigan to Chicago!

Quiet and cool night and when we wake up there are four others campers who’ve spent the night.

Murphysboro to Decatur, Illinois

 Thursday , May 26

67 degrees this morning.  We feast on blueberry pancakes and sausage this morning. Yum!  Back to the shower area, spotting a raccoon while waiting for a road crew to finish their trimming job. 

We leave Murphysboro and travel some miles to Collinsville, where we swing by to see the world’s largest catsup bottle.  It is a water tower built in 1949 to supply water to the company that makes catsup. Woo-hoo!

Lots of farmland, very flat.  Some is just plowed and a few fields planted.

A little further north, we stop at Henry’s Rabbit Ranch which used to be on the old Route 66.  It is a very old service station whose owner collects Volkswagon Rabbits, rabbit memorabilia, and on some days some real hopping rabbits. (He says he didn’t bring them today because it looks like rain.)  Back before the VW model, they just had gas and bunny rabbits.  Several “tombstones” outside where past resident rabbits are buried. I'm sure this is one of a zillion places that use Route 66 as a draw.

Not a lot of masks in evidence so far this trip.

Next stop is Carlinville, Illinois to take a look at a neighborhood of homes built from Sears Catalog kits in the early 1900’s.  This was a coal mining town and Standard Oil bought a million dollars worth of kit homes to create inexpensive housing for their workers here and in other areas.  When the mine closed a few years later, the homes were mostly abandoned, then sold off in the 1930’s for very low cost.  Most have been or are being remodeled and renovated, some with additions or garages added.  We couldn’t find anything except a small sign indicating the neighborhood, so we stopped and asked a wonderful red-headed mail delivery lady (yes, they still walk door to door), and she gave us quite a bit of information and told us which blocks to check out.  These homes were originally their own little town, but are now part of a larger neighborhood. There were two bedroom and three bedroom models. 

From here we decided to head to Decatur, to the Chevrolet Hall of Fame, a small museum full of classic Chevrolets,  assorted Chevrolet memorabilia (including the counter and inventory  

from an old Chevrolet parts store), models, etc.  Some pretty cool cars, including many Corvettes, Cameroes and others that served as raceway Pace Cars.  A few old models as well.  Most of this collection is owned by one man, although he invites others to display their models, etc.

Not much in the way of camping around, so we stayed at the Decatur Walmart along with a few others.

MAY-JUNE 2022 INDIANA DUNES, LAKE SUPERIOR, WINNIPEG

 Tuesday, May 24, 2022

We are off on another adventure.  This time to two more National Parks - Indiana Dunes in Indiana, created in 2019, and Isle Royal, which is on an island in Lake Superior (I think part of Minnesota.) We are thinking north = cooler temperatures too.

Very overcast as we left Spring this morning to head north to Arkansas.  We will stop at Mike Freeze WMA, a bit past Little Rock and just off of I-40.  We've stopped here numerous times and always find it quiet and pleasant. No amenities at all, but a nice place to park in the trees. 

 Uneventful ride with the usual crazy number of 18-wheelers on I30 and I40.  Suprisingly, gas prices were lower in Arkansas than in Texas!  We even found a $3.99 spot.  A few months ago that would have been crazy high, but right now anything under $4.00 is amazing.

A short walk and some sandwiches for dinner.  Quite a storm came through as we went to bed but at least it cooled things off for comfortable sleeping!  We had a lovely chorus of frogs as a serenade.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Back onto I-40 this morning amid lots of rain, heavy at times for the first couple of hours.  Lots of trucks too. 

We turned north on 55N just before Memphis, and paralleled the Mississippi River on the Arkansas side.  Didn't see much of the river, as it snakes its way along, though there was a lot of standing water so it was difficult at times to tell what was natural streams, lakes, ponds, and what was recent rainwater!  

First stop, as the rain dwindled then stopped, was the Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge, just for a diversion.  Some pretty areas with wildflowers, and we spotted opossum, ground hog, many bluebirds, geese and other birds.  

At one point we began dragging something and Greg found that a metal plate under the Trek had rusted through part way and was dragging.  Glad it happened here at 20mph instead of on the freeway!  Greg, king of zip ties,  was able to use zip ties to hold the plate up!  McGyver's got nothing on him!!  Good thing there was zero traffic, as he just stopped on this road (in a light rain of course).

Next stop was in a small town called Wilson and the Hampson Archeological Museum State Park.  Dr. James Hampson, a pioneer and amateur archeologists uncovered and preserved a great many artifacts from his property near here.  5 Centuries ago, way before Europeans arrived, about 1,000 American Indians lived in this area. Nicely done museum featured quite a few items, including tools and their signature red and white pottery (called Nodena after the Plantation where James Hampson lived and made his discoveries). Various universities have continued excavations here.

Found a few postcards for the grandkids and the ranger there filled us in on the history of the area, which is trying to establish itself as a resort area. Many of the newer shops are built in tudor style.

We stopped at Fondren Hardware in Blytheville next, for some tin snips and more zip ties should we need them down the road.  No big box stores here!

We crossed the Mississipi and moved  into Illinois, where we headed for the Little Grand Canyon in Shawnee National Forest. 

 The rain had stopped but trail was slick with wet rocks and leaves.  We opted for a short trail which ended when the "trail" sign continued down a rocky area which because of the rain was a stream.

Maybe another day....   we have been surprised at how wooded this part of the state is, with plenty of farms tucked in between.

Nearby Murphysboro Lake State Park provided a nice campsite by the lake, with electricity!  They also had a shower house. Very pretty area but the campsites were very close together and many were closed off.  Fortunately we camped in the middle of three available sites and had no close neighbors!  Some of the sites had rv's on them but no people around.  We surmised that people were reserving spots for the coming Memorial Day weekend.

Lots of geese and lots of fishermen.  It was extremely windy so we didn't sit outside for very long. More rain later in the evening.

The sun came out a few times!

The baby geese - goslings - were about half grown already!