Turkey Run

Today is Wednesday and we have been at Turkey Run since Sunday.  We have never gotten to the park this many days before the festival so we just relaxed on Monday.  We didn't even get in the car one time.  We read, slept, played chicken foot dominoes, and just contemplated life as we enjoyed beautiful fall weather in God created world.  It was very nice for a change not to be in the car traveling some place.  Today I decided to give a brief synopsis of the last few days for my travel blog.  Sunday, we drove to the park.  Monday, we rested.  Tuesday, Carol had a doctor's appointment so we drove back to Decatur for that and he mowed.  Wednesday, we drove to the three towns that are the biggest part of the festival.  

This is the an roadside motel with cabins.  It was probably a great place to stop back in the 30's, 40's and 50's.  The last time we came through here the cabins were still here and the area was filled with lots of brush so you could barely see the cabins.

Evidently, someone with an idea, brought this land, cleared it out, and turned the cabins into storage units.  It is an old motel with a new purpose.  

Harvest season is in full swing in Central Illinois.  

Here we are back in Indiana.  The sign is fading and hard to read but it says:
Benjamin Harrison, America's Hoosier President and Lincoln's Boyhood Home.

Dana, Indiana is off US 36 in Indiana and the birthplace of the famous WWII journalist Ernie Pyle.  He was embedded with the troops and wrote first-hand accounts of the war starting with the first troops to land in North Africa, Sicily, and then Italy.  After that he covered D-Day and the European war and finally was killed by a sniper at Okinawa in 1945.  He wrote a couple of books about the war.  One of them covered the North Africa Campaign.  I read it because that is where by dad's wartime duties were.  Dad never spoke much about his time in the war so this book helped me learn about the places he served and the battles in which he may have been.  We saw a sign advertising an Ernie Pyle Museum in Dana so we plan to visit it next week.

We also saw a sign indicating that part of US 36 east and west of Newman, Illinois was designated "Earl Riggins Memorial Highway" to honor the fact that he was from Newman and served on the USS Indianapolis.  He was one of 300+ survivors when the ship was sank.  There were over 900 survivors but during the five days it took to find and rescue them from the water, sharks and injuries killed 600.  It was very controversial and the captain was eventually found guilt of neglect.  Mr. Riggins, like most WWII veterans, returned to Newman, married, farmed and lived a quiet life until his death five years ago.   I read that there is only one remaining survivor of the USS Indianapolis.

Anyway, I thought that there are stories of heroes in the heartland that unless you travel the backroads and highways, you will never learn about.

Route 36 leaves the farmland in Illinois and becomes tree-lined in Indiana.  Sad that the leaves haven't turned yet.

This is the bridge that US 36 crosses into Montezuma in Indiana.

This is the 4-H grounds outside Rockville.  By Friday of this week, it will be filled with RV's with people attending the Covered Bridge Festival.  There is one already there.

This is our spot for the next two weeks - Site 228.  We love this spot.  It in under the trees and very large.

As we left the campground this morning, the snoke in the trees through the sun was very pretty.  Carol was kind enough to turn around and pass by it again so I could get a picture but the second time around it wasn't as lovely.

Our first stop this morning was this store in Rockville.  It is a throwback to the five and ten cent stores in the 50's.  They have lots of older things that I don't think you could get anywhere else so we always like to browse the aisles.

After Rockville, we drove to Mansfield and Bridgeton to see how progress was coming for the festival.  Again, we love the drive, but the trees have not turned much.

This is one of many empty parking lots that will be filled on Friday when the festival begins.

This afternoon, we rested, read, slept and just relaxed.  We built the first fire of this trip.

I did manage to take a quick picture of a tree just beginning to turn.  This is what we will have to settle for right now.

That catches me up for the last four days at Turkey Run.  It has been beautiful weather, sunny, low 70's during the day and 40's at night....great camping weather.

Learning about President Ronald Reagan.

 We always said that when we retired, we would do day trips like visiting Presidents Reagan's home in Dixon, Illinois.   Until today, we had never done it.  Today, we drove to Dixon Illinois to visit one of his childhood homes and to Tampico where he was born.  It was about 50 miles from the park to Dixon.  

This arch welcomes you to Dixon

This is the back of the one of the houses in which President Reagan lived as a child.  His parents never owned a home of their own.  When President Reagan became secure financially, he brought his mother her first home.  The door on the back porch opens into their kitchen.  The window on the left is in the bedroom he shared with his brother Neil or "Moon."  His father gave both the boys their nicknames which they were known as all their lives.  President Reagan's was "Dutch." 

This house was built from a kit from Montgomery Ward.  We have seen several kit houses from Sears but never one from Montgomery Ward.  We were told that the diamond window near the peak of the house is a way to identify a Montgomery Ward home.

This was their kitchen.  None of the furniture in the home is original; however, when restoration began President Reagan and his brother were consulted and helped pick out furniture just like what was in each room.

This was the parlor located at the front of the house.  The boys were told that they were not to go into this room. It was the room their mother taught college classes of etiquette.  She wanted the room to remain neat and boy-free.

This picture on the mantle of the fireplace was taken when President Reagan returned to the restored home.  As a kid he had a secret hiding place for money under a tile by the fireplace.  He always said that he couldn't keep money because Moon would take it.  When he and Moon was there, President Reagan picked up the tile and there was four pennies under the tile that he had hidden from his brother.  He showed his brother that he did not go into the room; instead, he would get down on his knees and leaned over to the tile to put his money underneath.

Carol has been having trouble with his back and hip so he was always looking for a place to sit.

The parlor.

The dining room.   The glass-fronted cabinet contains several cups and saucers that were given to Nell Reagan as a payment for singing at young couples wedding.  She was a very talented women who sang, sewed to supplement the family income, taught a college class, and taught Sunday School classes.  Nell was a devoted believer in Jesus Christ and the loving wife and mother to her alcoholic husband.  The house had three bedrooms but the brothers shared one to allow the extra bedroom to be a guest bedroom.  She visited inmates in the local jail and read the Bible to them.  When they were released, she invited them to spend their first night of freedom in this guest room.

In her bedroom we saw a Bible opened to her favorite verse, "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. "  2  Chronicles 7:14.
President Reagan used her Bible opened to this verse for the swearing in ceremony four times:  two times as governor and two times as president.   Mike Pence also used the same Bible/verse at his swearing  in for Vice-President.

 

1914 Ford was in their garage.  His father was good at repairing cars and would often earn extra income working on cars.

This statue sits at the end of the street the Reagan house is located.  Also on that same street is the library.  Nell Reagan encouraged reading and both boys visited the library weekly.  The church they attended is also on this street.  Nell and the boys attended regularly and were baptized by ministers of the church.  The school they attended was also on this street.  The citizens of Dixon call the street "Reagans' Way."

Tampico is where President Reagan and his brother were both born.

Jack and Nell Reagan lived in an apartment over the bank.  They both worked at a department store across from the bank.  Jack was a shoe salesman and Nell sold hats.

This mural was on the side of a building in the town.

This is the cabinet that covers the safe of the bank the Reagan's lived above.  The cabinet is beautiful.  

The safe inside the cabinet.

Notice the beautiful metalwork inside the safe.

This is the safe alarm which would be set daily.

The bedroom in which both President Reagan and his brother were born.

Their dining room.

Their kitchen.

The boys' room.

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This was a common window shared with the apartment over the adjoining building.  It was great for shared childcare.

This is the museum is next to the bank.  They had a guest book for visitors' to sign.  There are visitors from all over the world.  We were told that visitors from Germany are emotionally moved because of the part President Reagan played in getting the Berlin Wall torn down.

The bank.

We had a great day learning about President Reagan and his family.  His mother and smalltown upbringing helped shape his life.

We got back to camp around 4:00 p.m. and spent the rest of the day relaxing and enjoying the beautiful surroundings of the park.  It has certainly not been our usual fall trip but we did enjoy it.  Iowa is a beautiful state with interesting historical information.  We saw a national monument, a presidential library, a presidential birthplace and home, beautiful rural scenes, relaxing campsites and state parks, time well spent with a grandson,  and quaint small cities.  It was a trip worth taking.  We drove the motorhome only 1350 miles in 12 days.  That was good for us physically.

Galena

 Today we drove 30 miles north to visit Galena.  We had been here many, many years ago with the kids.  We had driven through the town yesterday coming from Iowa and it "wet our appetite" for seeing Galena more completely.  We decided to ride a sightseeing trolly to get an overview of the city.  The trolly ride was a great idea.  We drove by many of the historical homes in the city and heard their history as relates to the city.  Now since it has been nearly a week before I could post, I don't remember much of that history but wanted to post the pictures of the homes because they are so beautiful

This picture is a close-up of the tile work around the top of the above house.

There is a four block section of downtown Galena that is the heart of the historic district.  The buildings are old, the streets are narrow, the shops are unique, and the tourists fill the sidewalks.

The four-block historic district also houses several restaurants.  We ate lunch at Charlie's Place Eatery.  It was a busy place.  As we were seated, the man at the next table had just been served his meal and it looked delicious.  We asked the waitress what he was having and she told us a breakfast skillet.  His meal convinced us to order a similar dish.  I had the vegetable skillet and Carol had the meat-lovers skillet.  Both were enormous and delicious.

The Galena River flows about two blocks from the historic district.  Homes, businesses, churches, and government building are built on the hillside up from the river.  This is an old set of steps that rise from the historic district to the first row of buildings up on the hill.

This is the remnants of an original cobblestone street going from the  first level of building to the next level.  We drove a lot of really rough highways this trip but I don't think they were as rough as riding on this cobblestone street would be 

Galena Post Office

Another view of the street.

This building had an unique idea for decorating Halloween.

This house was restored and covered with stucco.  Now there is a Galena historical committee that must approve any restoration  for historic houses that would not allow it to be covered with stucco.  Now there is a set of strict rules and guidelines that restorations must follow and for which approval is necessary before anything can be done.  This applies even to the paint colors.

The houses in Galena did not begin as mansions.  They were also made of simple logs.

The Galena Cemetery is located across the river from the historic district and many of the homes.  This is the tallest monument in the cemetery.  The wife of the man buried here lived on the other side of the river up on the hillside.  From her home, she could see this monument and because it was so tall, would wave to it every morning and evening.

This is an enlargement  picture of the tilework between the two stories of the house.  

This is the Belvedere House which is the largest historic house in Galena.

This is the home of General Ulysses Grant and his wife Julia.  It was given to Grant by residents of Galena in 1865 as thanks for his service in the Civil War.

Statue of Julie Dent Grant at the Galena home.  She was the first wife of a president to be called "First Lady."

This picture was taken from an overlook in Mississippi Palisades State Park.  There were several opportunities to view the river from the heights of the ridges of the park.

We really enjoyed the day in Galena.  The houses are beautiful and we loved learning more of the history of this part of Illinois.  We decided that Galena would be a place to which we could return.  It is a unique, small town with a big history.