The leftovers from Hurricane Isaac were finally moving though our area and, although we weren’t getting real heavy rain, it looked like it was going to be raining on and off all day. We all decided that this would be a good day to stay in and get some chores done. Having spent most of the last three weeks chasing around at rallies, we have gotten behind in a lot of things. We did log one geocache for the day because we needed one on this date for our days of the year challenge. Other than that, we just stayed home and worked around the coach. We had cocktails with the Bullocks for happy hour, but had dinner in our own coach and relaxed the rest of the night.
Monday, September 3rd, Happy Labor Day. It appears that the rain has finally let up, although things are still a little grey outside. Our gang of eight decided to go out and do some geocaching, so we left the coach about 10:30, four couples in two cars, and started caching. We ended up finding a total of eight new caches, with no DNFs. The Wilson's also got their 300th cache milestone! We also saw a lot of the City of Anderson that we had not seen. A couple of the caches were on the campus of Anderson College, which is a part of the Church of God Christian denomination. We learned that Anderson is the National Headquarters for the Church of God.After caching we went back to the coach and relaxed for a while. About 5:00 we got together with the Wilsons, the Bullocks and the Babcocks for happy hour outside. This was the first time we have been able to sit outside without being overly hot or wet in a while. Later in the evening we had a steak fry with all the fixings and ate our dinner outside as well. We had a really good time, although everyone was a little down because our gang of eight is heading off in different directions tomorrow.
We have been traveling with the Babcocks since early June and have been with the Bullocks and Wilsons for a month. The Babcocks are headed for Elkhart, Indiana for some repairs, but they may catch up with us again in a week or so. The Wilsons and the Bullocks are heading for the Northeast and will both be going on a caravan from Maine to Florida later in the fall. The Bullocks are planning on staying in Florida for the winter, so we may not see them until March. After it got dark we went back in our coach and watched TV the rest of the night.Tuesday, September 4th, we said goodbye to our friends and left Anderson, Indiana about 10:00. We are headed for Remington, Indiana, a small town northwest of Indianapolis, a drive of about 125 miles. This was the first time we have traveled on our own since June. The trip was uneventful and we arrived at the Caboose Lake RV Park, just off the I-65 freeway in Remington, about 12:30. We got a nice site, overlooking a small lake, and settled in for a two night stay. This is a Passport America park, so we got a full hookup 50 amp site for $30 for two nights. Sweet! We have to be in Sedalia, Missouri for the Escapees RV Club rally in ten days, so we are just cruising around in the interim, staying a few days here and there as we slowly work our way towards the rally. We spent the rest of the day, which was finally bright sunshine, but hot and humid, in the coach, continuing to catch up on our chores and administrative tasks.
Wednesday, September 5th, we left the coach after lunch to do some geocaching in the area. We are kind of out in the country, surrounded by a number of small farming towns. The caches were scattered among the towns, so there were a few miles between a lot of the caches. Nonetheless, we had a great afternoon, finding a dozen new caches. We also managed to get two new DNFs, but that is part of the game too. One of our dozen finds was number 4,200 for us, another milestone. Yea! Several of the caches were in local cemeteries, some of which had graves dating back to the very early 1800's when this area was first being settled. We visited four small towns, Remington, Goodland, Kentland and Wolcott. None was over 2,00 population and all were very quaint and cute in their own little, small town way. They were all dominated by the grain cooperative silos, which is pretty typical of Midwest towns. We had a really nice day, the sky was overcast, but with no rain, and the temperatures were in the mid 70's, perfect weather for geocaching. It was cool and no sun to bake you while you looked for that elusive find. After our caching we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Thursday, September 6th, time to leave Indiana and head into Illinois. We packed up the coach and left the RV park about 10:00. After a quick stop for fuel at the Pilot station right across the freeway from the park, we started northwest on I-55, headed to Joliet, Illinois, about 110 miles away. Joliet is located about 45 miles southwest of Chicago and we will be there for three nights. The skies were clear, making for great travel weather. The trip was uneventful except for the heavy traffic as we moved along the I-80 corridor south of Chicago. Lots of traffic, especially trucks, making for sweaty hands driving.Since we moved from the Eastern Time Zone into the Central Time Zone when we left Indiana for Illinois, we gained an hour back, arriving at the Leisure Lake RV Resort in Joliet at 11:30 local time. This is a private, membership resort, but it is also open to the public as space is available. It is a passport park, so we got a nice full hookup site with a lake view for $25 a night, quite a savings over the public rate. We set up pretty quicky and decided to take advantage of the early arrival time and great weather to make a trip up to downtown Chicago for some sightseeing. The last time we came through this area was June 2008, when we stayed for a couple of days in Gary, Indiana, only about 50 miles southeast of Chicago. We made a trip to Chicago from there but we had torrential rain all day and didn’t get to see or do much around town. That is why we decided to come back through this area when we had the time this year.
The location of our RV park just off I-55 gave us a straight shot into downtown Chicago and it took just under an hour to drive up there. We drove up the lakefront and around the downtown area for a while, taking in the sights and taking some pictures. We then headed for the Willis Tower, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. This skyscraper used be called the Sears Tower and when it was completed in 1973 it was the tallest building in the world. Since then several taller buildings have been built in Asia. We parked the car in the tower’s parking garage and headed for what is called the Skydeck, an observation floor on the 103rd floor of the tower.
I remember being up on the Skydeck back in the 1980's during a trip to Chicago and I remember the views being spectacular. This is one of the best known tourist attractions in Chicago and is certainly not inexpensive. It was $35 for the two of us, and that didn’t include the parking. We got our tickets and got into the elevator which takes only 60 seconds to rise the nearly 1,400 feet to the 103rd floor. My ears popped three times on the trip up. The entire exterior circumference of the 103rd floor is dedicated to the observation deck, and of course the gift shop, with very large windows looking out in all four cardinal directions. Since we were lucky to have a nice clear day, the views were indeed spectacular. Jackie even got to see the Harpo Studios building, only a few blocks from the tower. Harpo is where Oprah has her headquarters. 
One new thing added since I last visited the tower is what they call “The Ledge.” On the south facing side of the observation floor they added five enclosed glass balconies that extend four feet out from the wall of the tower. They are entirely made of glass, floor and all, so when you stand on it you feel like you are suspended in space 1,400 feet above the street below. The glass is very thick, ballistic glass and they say each balcony can support about 10,000 pounds, way more than the number of people that would be able to fit in it. I didn’t have any problem stepping out and taking a picture of my feet suspended over the street. Jackie didn’t have any issue either, but it was kind of fun watching the people with a fear of heights sneak up on the opening, peer over and then jump back.
We spent about an hour up on the observation floor, looking out, taking pictures and looking through the gift shop. We also managed to get a geocache while we were up in the tower. While we were up there Jackie checked on her phone geocaching app and found that there was a virtual cache located at the top of the tower. The only requirement to log the cache was to post a photo of one of the team with a view from the tower in the background. I took a photo of Jackie standing by one of the windows and we had a new find. Yea!By the time we got back to the car we had been parked there for less than two hours, probably closer to 90 minutes. The bill for parking - $32! I certainly wouldn’t want to have to work in Chicago and drive my own car to work every day. Yikes. After the tower visit we spent another hour or so driving around the Chicago area before starting back towards Joliet. Of course, being a weekday we hit the rush out of town and it took almost two hours to get back to Joliet. Since it was rather late we stopped at a Chili’s near the RV park for dinner before heading back to the coach. We then relaxed the rest of the night with the TV.
Friday, September 7th, the promised rains came, and with a vengeance. Off and on all day we got really heavy rain. We were glad that we made our Chicago visit yesterday when the weather was nice. When I checked geocaches in the area we saw that there was a brand new cache, just put out the day before, that was very close to the RV park and had not yet been found. First to Find, or FTFs, are a prestige thing for geocachers. The website doesn’t keep track of the number of FTFs a team has, but ask any cacher and they can give you a pretty good estimate. We only have a dozen or so, but it is because we are not as avid about them as some. Our friend John Ham, who lives in Yuma, makes capturing FTFs his prime objective. He has his phone set up to notify him whenever a new cache is published within a hundred miles of his house. He then gets up and goes out to get it, no matter the time or weather. He has hundreds of FTFs. The rain had slowed for a bit, so we did go out and get this one, which was hidden in a park a few miles from our RV park, and we found it. Yea, another FTF for us.
We then decided that this would be a good day to do the laundry, so we packed up our clothes and headed off into nearby Shorewood and found a nice laundromat. After doing our laundry we went to the Joliet Elks Lodge for a cocktail. The lodge, which is one of the older lodges in Elkdom, having been chartered in 1895, was in a very nice building not too far from our RV park. The lodge has a nice, big bar room, a very nice ballroom, and an indoor swimming pool for the members. We haven’t seen too many of those in our travels.
It was a very friendly lodge and we were greeted by several people, including two of the past Exalted Rulers. One of them took us on a tour of the lodge. The other bought us a drink. We had a couple of cocktails, got a lodge pin, and then headed for home to relax the rest of the night.
Saturday, September 8th, the rain stopped overnight and we had the promise of a nice day. We left the coach before lunch to go out and do some geocaching in the Joliet area. We were able to get six caches, and one DNF, in a little over an hour. We then drove around downtown Joliet, the old part of town. Very turn of the century look, but not much going on. There is very little retail, mostly offices and government buildings. After looking around for a while we stopped at a Bob Evans restaurant for lunch.After lunch we did a shopping spree, driving to both Costco and Sam’s Club, as well as making a Walmart run. We knew that we weren’t going to be near any warehouse stores for a while, so we decided we needed to stock up on booze and other supplies. After our shopping spree we went back to the coach and relaxed the rest of the evening.
Sunday, September 9th, we had another travel day. The weather was great and we packed up and left Joliet about 9:30 or so. We headed south on I-55, heading for the Springfield, Illinois area. We arrived at the Double J RV park, just south of Springfield, about 2:00. We are only staying for one night, so we quickly got the basics set up and then just stayed in the coach doing chores the rest of the day. We have visited Springfield on previous trips and didn’t have any reason to go out and explore.
Monday, September 10th, we packed up and left the RV park near Springfield, Illinois about 10:00 and headed west on I-72. Our destination today is Bowling Green, Missouri, a little over 100 miles to the southwest of Springfield. The first 60 miles or so were on the Interstate, but then we veered off to the south on U.S. 54. This was a somewhat narrow road that wound through several small towns in Illinois, including one called Pittsfield. We had to take pictures of the signs in Pittsfield because Jackie’s good friend Helen lives in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We have been to that Pittsfield several times, but this was our first shot at Pittsfield, Illinois. About twenty miles or so after starting down Hwy 54 we came to the Mississippi River and the Illinois-Missouri State Line. The bridge crossing the Mississippi here is called the Champ Clark Bridge and is a steel truss bridge built in 1928. I mention this because vehicles were much smaller in 1928 than they are today and this bridge was very narrow. 
I was fortunate not to meet any big tricks coming across from the other side, but I still slowed down to about 10 mph because even just regular cars and trucks were very close, and I couldn’t move to the right because the mirror on the right side was just missing the bridge structure. Very white knuckle moments for a little while. We were also a little white knuckled when two deer jumped out of the woods and crossed the road in front of us. Fortunately, they were a few hundred feet in front of us and I was only going about 50, so I was able to slow and not be in any danger of hitting them so long as they kept moving. They did keep moving, quite rapidly I might add, but it was a little startling to see deer on the road in broad daylight. That is usually more an evening thing.Not too long after crossing into Missouri we arrived at the Cozy C RV Campground, just off the highway and about two miles east of Bowling Green, Missouri. It is a very nice campground with long pull-through sites, lots of grass, and full hookup, 50 amp sites for $27 a night. We got settled into our site and spent the rest of the afternoon taking care of chores and relaxing, enjoying the cooler weather and clear skies.
About 4:30 our friends Ray and Suzie Babcock arrived at the campground. They had a much longer day, having left Elkhart, Indiana that morning, a trip of almost 400 miles, way more than I like to do in a single day. They had gone to Elkhart after the FMCA rallies in the Indianapolis area to have some repairs done to their motorhome. They are also going to the Escapees Rally in Sedalia, Missouri this coming weekend and wanted to meet up with us prior to going into the rally.
Earlier in the day I had called the campground that we had hoped to stay in just prior to going into the rally only to learn that they were booked solid. Apparently Columbia, Missouri is the home of the University of Missouri and this weekend is their homecoming game. The lady I talked to said it was unlikely that there would be any spaces anywhere in the city. After the Babcocks got setup we had cocktails and talked about the next few days. Since we are only 150 miles from Sedalia now, we decided that we would just stay here the extra two days and make one single run on Friday to the rally. This is a nice park, not expensive, and we can just relax here before the rally. One thing about this lifestyle, you learn to be adaptive and flexible with your schedule when necessary.
After cocktails we had dinner with the Babcocks. Ray cooked some pork chops on the BBQ and Suzie and Jackie fixed some nice sides. We had a great dinner, caught up on the last week since we last saw them, and had a good time. We then went back to our own coach and relaxed the rest of the night.
Tuesday, September 11th, Patriot Day. Of course, waking up to the news showing all the reminders of that sad day in 2001 was difficult. I shed a few tears alongside my morning coffee. Very few people who were older than toddlers that day twelve years ago have forgotten the details of where they were as the various events unfolded. Being in California, we first learned of the attacks when we woke up at just after 6:00 a.m. to get ready for work. I watched the towers fall while at work, although there was not much “work” getting done as everyone was glued to the TV in the office. A prayer to all those lost on that day and to their loved ones still moving forward today.
We had lunch in the coach and about 1:00 we and the Babcocks went out to do some geocaching. Neither of us had cached in the State of Missouri before, so we would be going after our first cache in this state. It took us about three hours to get eight new finds, mostly because the caches were widely scattered. We are in the farm country of northeast Missouri and caching does not seem to have caught on here quite yet. There are caches, but they are five or six miles apart. We still had a good time and didn’t have to log any DNFs, so a good caching day. We also explored the nearby town of Bowling Green, Missouri, not to be confused with the much larger town of the same name in Kentucky. This Bowling Green has a population of about 5,300 and is a farming town, supporting the farms and ranches in the surrounding area. 
After our caching we went back to the campground for a brief rest so that the Babcock’s could walk their dog. We then loaded up the old Jeep again and headed back east to the town of Louisiana, Missouri. Yep, there is a town named after the state. Not only that, about 30 miles or so to the west of where we are is a town named Mexico. There is a junction of two U.S. Highways in Bowling Green where there is a road sign showing Mexico to the left and Louisiana to the right. We had to have a picture of that.Louisiana (for the rest of this episode the town, not the state) is about 10 miles east of our campground and is on the west bank of the Mississippi River. This is where the narrow bridge over the river that we crossed with the coach the other day is located. Our first stop was the Louisiana Elks Lodge, located right in the heart of the old, historic downtown. This is an old lodge, chartered in 1912, and I believe they are still in their original building. They have a very pretty mural painted on the outside wall, which is reproduced on their lodge pin. We had a little trouble getting in because their doorbell wasn’t working. Most Elks Lodges keep their door locked so that only members can be admitted. We knew they were open because there were a lot of cars in the parking lot, and we finally got in when someone heard us knocking on the door. It was a very nice, friendly lodge and we were greeted by several people, including the Exalted Ruler, who came over and chatted with us for a while and gave us a tour of the lodge. The inside of the lodge is much more modern than the outside, it is clear that they have renovated over the years. They have a large, dedicated Lodge Room for meetings. Very few lodges have rooms just for meetings anymore. We usually find them in lodges that are still in very old buildings. They also have six apartments on the second floor that they rent out to provide a revenue stream for the lodge. They have a membership of just under 400. We had a cocktail, got a lodge pin, and chatted with folks for a while before leaving to go to dinner.
We explored a little bit around old Louisiana, including going back to the old 1928 highway bridge across the Mississippi. We went back and forth across it again with the Jeep for photos and it was much less stressful in the car. We also took the time to find another geocache, located in a park on the bluff overlooking the bridge and the river. It was a great photo opportunity too. Louisiana was founded in 1817 and has a population of about 3,300. It was founded as a river shipping point. It took some research to finally find something about how the town got it’s name. It is believed to have been named for Louisiana Bayse, reportedly the first child born in St. Louis after the Louisiana Purchase. Her father, J. W. Bayse moved his family to the new town in 1818 when his daughter was 14 years old. The other claim to fame for the town is the 20 or so large murals painted on the sides of buildings in the historic downtown area. The one on the Elks Lodge is one of those murals.After exploring the town we stopped at a restaurant in downtown called Pikers, which had been recommended by the ER at the Elks Lodge. It was just across the street from the lodge. Although it was in an old building, the inside was very bright and modern looking. They had a great menu and a full bar. Ray and Suzie had pizzas, which were the special for the day. They each got a large pizza with any toppings for $12, They wanted leftovers and they certainly got them. I had a Cajun fettuccini dish with shrimp that was very spicy, but very good. Jackie had a seafood pasta primavera dish that was also very good. The food was excellent, but the service was very poor. It was not that the server wasn’t nice, she was, but the place had a lot of people and only two servers, one of whom was inexperienced and not much help. They need more server help, but I can recommend the food and the prices are reasonable also.
After dinner we took our leftovers and drove back to the campground. Highway 54 is a little spooky after dark since it is fairly narrow and winding, but we made it back safely. I was also a little worried about deer since the two of them jumped out in front of us the other day in broad daylight. After getting back to the coach we just relaxed with the TV for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, September 12th, we decided that we needed a little break, so we stayed in the coach until after lunch. We needed to go out and get at least one geocache today for our days of the year challenge. We asked the Babcocks if they wanted to go do some caching or just relax and they chose to go caching with us. We drove back into the nearby town of Louisiana, the closest caches to the campground, and started caching. The first cache we found was in downtown Louisiana, next to an office for a State Farm insurance agency. Come to find out, the State Farm Agent and his wife were people we met the night before at the Elks Lodge. When we were talking to them last night it didn’t come up that they were cachers. The cache outside their office was placed by them. What a coincidence. We chatted with them for a while and they told us about a nearby cache that was not on our caching list because it was a higher terrain rating than we normally to. It was in a cemetery that sits on the side of a steep hill and on top of a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. He said the views were worth the slight uphill walk required.
We went to the cache and were surprised at how steep the roads were in the cemetery. But he was right, the actual amount of walking was minimal and the views were great. In total we found five caches in an hour or so, including two that were back across the river in Illinois. After caching we took one of the small country roads back southwest to Bowling Green just for a change of scenery. This is very pretty country. We made a quick stop at the Walmart and then went on back to the campground.We had cocktails with the Babcocks at happy hour and then dinner at their coach. We dined on the left over pizza from last night, and it was wonderful. We ate and chatted for a while and then we went back to our coach for the rest of the night.
Thursday, September 13th, we again elected to have a stay at home day. We were going to do that yesterday, but we ended up going out for the afternoon and enjoying the good weather, so today we really did stay in all day. Got a few administrative chores done and did a little work around the coach. We had cocktails with the Babcocks and then Ray fixed some seafood curry from scratch that was excellent. Between the four of us we just about finished off a big pot of the stuff. After dinner we chatted for a while and then headed off to our own coach for the rest of the night.
Friday, September 14th, another travel day. We needed to get an early start, so I was up about 6:15 or so. Our next destination is Sedalia, Missouri and the Escapees RV Club rally, called an Escapade. Sedalia is 154 miles from where we are and the material we got when we registered for the rally was very clear that the parking crew will only park rigs until 2:00. Most FMCA rallies go to 4:00 or 5:00. They also said there are no facilities at the fairgrounds to overnight if you don’t make it in time.We had originally planned to spend the two nights before the rally in Columbia, Missouri, which is only about 60 miles from Sedalia. However, when I went to make reservations I found out that this is the home of the University of Missouri and they have a big home game, ironically with my Arizona State, my alumnus, on the weekend, and there were no RV sites available. That’s when we decided to just stay in Bowling Green and get an early start.
We were actually packed up and out of the park, with the Babcocks in trail, by 8:30, which is damn near a miracle in our travels. The roads were good and, even with a fuel stop, we made it in just over three hours. The parking crew was pretty efficient and we got parked in about a half hour. This fairgrounds has hundreds of full hookup spots, on nice grass sites, and we and the Babcocks got parked side by side. It is rare to get full hookups, including sewer, at a rally, so it will be a carefree week as far as water usage goes. Yea!
Once we got setup we had a quick lunch and about 1:30 we headed out to do some local geocaching with Ray and Suzie. We had to cache today to get one for our days of the year challenge. We took advantage of early parking for the rally and the actual rally activities don’t start until Sunday, so we decided to go out and explore and cache. We ended up getting ten new finds, along with one that eluded us and gave us a new DNF. After caching we drove around town for a while, looking at the great old historic center of Sedalia. While we were doing that we ran across the Sedalia Elks Lodge. Since it was 4:30 we decided to stop and have a cocktail. The Sedalia Elks is Lodge 125, chartered in 1889, which makes it one of the older surviving Elks Lodges. It is in a great old building that they built in 1926. The outside looks like a very upscale residence. It has a great clubroom and game room downstairs, and most of the second floor is taken up by a very pretty dedicated Lodge Room. We got a tour of the place from one of the Past Exalted Rulers and also met the lady who is the current Exalted Ruler. The lodge was very friendly and bought our second drink for us. We also got lodge pins, which had only been delivered that afternoon while we were sitting there. They had run out and ordered new pins and we got the first ones they sold.
After our visit to the Elks we went back to the fairgrounds. The weather we very nice so we had another cocktail sitting outside with
Ray and Suzie, talking to people walking by. Many folks here have dogs, so there are always a lot of people walking around. We just relaxed and enjoyed the camaraderie of the rally. After drinks we went back to our coach and had dinner on our own and then relaxed with the TV the rest of the night.With our arrival here at the Escapees Rally in Sedalia it seems like a good place to close this chapter of the blog and get I published. Until the next time we meet remember that life is what you make of it, so make the best of it. See ya.
