More Turkey Run

This blog will be a summary of the last six days.  It has been busy with something different every day.  Thursday, we drove around Rockville to see if progress had been made for the big opening of the Covered Bridge Festival.  It looked like all was ready.  Friday, we drove to Danville, Illinois to visit with Jean, Carol's sister.  We always take her out to lunch and were happy that her son Miles and two of his three grandsons could join us.  We had a nice time eating together and talking.  We had seen Miles and Jean a couple of months ago at Carol's brother Don's home.  At that time, Don was waiting for his surgery.  Now he has passed and our hearts are sad.  Now at 85 Jean is the oldest of the four remaining siblings and Carol is the oldest brother.  Life has a way of changing in an instant.  After lunch we went back to Jean's room and talked some more.  Unfortunately, neither Carol or I brought our phones into her room so I do not have pictures to share.

We left her place around two o'clock and drove to Warrensburg to pick up Keegan and His friend Malaki so they could spend the weekend with us at Turkey Run.  Back to camp around 8:00 p.m.  We played a few games of Old Maid before hitting the sack.

Saturday, we took the boys to Bridgeton.  In Rockville we saw this gray carriage pulled by a gray horse.  I had never seen a gray rig and horse, only black ones.  I don't know if this is something or someone special.

We saw this Trump inflatable.  Of course, there were also lots of Trump flags, shirts, hats, etc.  

We spent nearly three hours at Bridgeton and left about 2:00 p.m.  The line of cars headed into Bridgeton was between 2-3 miles long.  We had never seen such a long line of cars into any of the festival towns.

West central Indiana is just as dry as Central Illinois.  Driving on rock roads makes keeping Carol's car clean an impossibility.

Some of the trees are beginning to turn to fall colors.

Keegan took this picture of the water flowing under the Bridgeton Covered Bridge.  After we left the Festival we went back to camp and spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing cards.  We had a fire that evening so we could have s'mores.

Sunday, we drove to Danville, Indiana to The Mayberry Cafe.  It is traditional that we eat a meal at the cafe.  The guys are posing at Sherriff Taylor's patrol car.

From Danville we drove to Mansfield and spent an hour shopping at the flea market on this side of the river.  We drove back to camp but were unable to have a fire because of the high winds, dry humidity, and general dry conditions.

Monday, we spent the morning hiking some of the canyons in the park.  The boys loved exploring the trails.  The temperatures were only near 60 but the sun was shining so it was a good day to hike.

There are 70 steps from the top to the river and the swinging bridge that crosses Sugar Creek.

  At first Carol said he might not go into the canyon because of the steps but he managed to take them slow and easy and make it to the bottom and later back to the top.  Of course, the boys had no problem with the steps.

The swinging bridge that has to be crossed because all the trails begin on the other side of the bridge

Sugar Creek is very low.  They need some rain here.

Keegan and Malaki on the bridge.

This and several pictures were taken in one of the canyons.

We let Keegan and Malaki hike farther into the canyon and when they returned, they took a rest.

The elder hikers.

To occupy time while the boys hike, we took this selfie.  I don't think it is too bad.

When we got back to camp, we had a fire so we could roast hot dogs and make one final batch of s'mores.  The wind had died down some but it was still windy so we kept track of the fire.  We met Jason at the Burger King in Tuscola to exchange the boys.  I hope they had a good time camping with us.  I took this picture of a silo as we were driving some of the back roads.  In this part of Indiana, a lot of the farms have silos instead of grain bins like farmers in Illinois.

As we were headed east on Route 36 we could see the moon trying to shine through the heavy cloud cover.

This was the view to the south of US 36.  We could see there was a beautiful sunset in the west so when we got to Rockville, we turned around and drove west so we could get some photos of the sunset.

Our reward for turning around and driving west.

This picture and the one below was taken by Keegan at Warrensburg which is about 120 miles west of Rockville....both are of the same sunset and taken
+approximately the same time.

We got back to camp around 8:00 p.m. and rested the rest of the evening.  We put an extra blanket on the bed because the weatherman has issued a frost adversary for the area and an extra blanket would feel good.

Today (Tuesday), we drove back to Bridgeton to finish seeing areas we missed on Saturday.  The wind was blowing and it was cloudy so we called it a day about 1:00 p.m. and came back to camp.  We tried to sit outside but the wind and cool temperatures changed our plans.  Instead, we went inside and napped and read.  We have two small space heaters which keeps the inside of the motorhome toasty warm.  Still no rain so we aren't complaining about wind and cooler temperatures.

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.