We have found the state of Illinois to be another very green state, but not as "trimmed" as Wisconsin and Minnesota were. They still grow a lot of corn and soy beans, and there are more trees and rolling hills. We are having a hard time with the humidity in some of these areas. Even our sheets feel damp as we get in them at night. I had a hard time getting my printer to print on the "damp" paper. Hopefully, as we travel further and into the fall and winter, the humidity will get better!
Indian Trails Resort is one of our ROD parks. It is a little run down, but still a pretty nice park.
There is a really nice clubhouse. The bottom floor has a little cafe in it that they opened on the weekends, an arcade room, and a really nice indoor/outdoor pool and hot tub. The middle floor is very nice. There is a full kitchen and a large open room they rent out for weddings and things. There was a wedding the weekend we were there. The very top loft was "for adults only" and was locked the whole time we were there.
The pool is really nice, but the weather was so hot and humid that it made the pool even more so. We didn't use it while we stayed there, but it was sure full of kids over Labor Day weekend.
There is a little horseshoe-shaped lake that is mostly moss-covered. There were some nice sites around it and there were ducks and frogs in it. I saw one boy with a frog about 12 inches long. Glad he didn't get too close! I admired his frog from about 10 feet away.
We got a nice, roomy spot--right on a corner. When we got there, the park seemed pretty full, but not very many people were there. We found out that the members could come and stay for three weeks, leave for a week (or buy out the week and stay) and then come back for another three weeks. That way, they could stay all summer. A lot of them lived quite close and would only come on weekends. A couple we met lives only 40 miles away, so they come during the week and then leave for the weekends when it is more busy!
There were many, many golf carts in the park and that was the entertainment for everyone--riding their golf cards all around the park, morning, noon & night.
I was talking to the Ranger and she told me that the American Pickers (a TV show that Terry loves) have their original shop, and the one they always show on TV, just across the Mississippi in LaClaire, Iowa, about 15 miles away. So, I surprised Terry and we went there, without him knowing where we were going. I just knew we would walk in the door and find Frank, Mike, and Danielle standing there--it didn't happen. Danielle has her own store where she sells homemade jewelry, clothing, and other craft things. She wasn't there either, but they said she may be "here this afternoon."
Terry is standing at the Pickers shop--Antique Archaeology--next to Danielle's little car and Mikes VW.
Inside their store we saw a lot of things that we have seen Mike and Frank buy on their show on TV--the Abbot and Costello heads and old bikes and motorcycles.
This was just a little truck they had displayed, with their pictures in it.
Mike and Frank have a book to teach people how to be a "picker." I thought Terry would want to buy it because he is a "wannabe picker," but he didn't get it.
These were some rare toy police cars that they bought on a recent show.
Everyone who watches American Pickers will recognise this old car out in front of their store.
When we asked when Frank and Mike were expected, they said, "Oh, possibly this afternoon." That seemed to be a common phrase. We waited around for a while, but they never showed up. It sure would have been fun to have seen them in person. Mike actually lives in LaClair and Frank lives the town next to it, so I guess they really are there sometimes.
LeClaire is right on the Mississippi River, so we walked down and hung out for a while (waiting for Frank and Mike to show up.) I sat on a dock with my feet in the water, day dreaming of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn on their raft floating down the "Ole Mississippi."
We hung out long enough to see a tugboat pushing a barge down the river.
There was a nice bike trail along the Hennepin Canal just a couple of miles from our campground. The canal was made in the late 1800's to be used as an alternate route for barges to travel from Illinois River to the Mississippi River, which saved over 400 miles of river travel. But, by the time it was finished, the locks on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers were widened twenty and forty times wider than the canal locks, so it made the canal pretty obsolete. It was used for a time for recreational travel. It was made with some first-time construction techniques that were later used in making the Panama Canal. This is one of the locks used to get the boats and barges over roads and other bodies of water.
There were lots of turtles along the canal. Terry found one that he rescued from getting chewed up by a big lawn mower. He wouldn't venture out of his shell. We thought about taking him home with us, but all of these turtles live in the water and we didn't think he would be too happy living in an RV!
Here is a whole family lined up along a log.
In some places, the slow-moving canal was filled with lillypads.
The flowers on them were a lot different than the ones in Idaho.
One day we went into Molina and saw the John Deere Commons and Pavilion. This is the area where John Deere's first plow factory was located. It was amazing to see the some of the first tractors built and then see the machinery they have today.
This machine actually "walks" in the woods, cuts down trees, limbs them, sizes them, and loads them onto the logging trucks! It has sensors that senses the terrain and distance as it "walks." It almost looks alive! This is what my Dad and Terry needed when they were logging back in 1971!
This is one of John Deere's first tractors.
This little "tractor" is run with a kind of remote control system, but neither of us remember what it does exactly--it was just pretty cool!
That same day we went to a local casino for a "buy-one-get-one-free" buffet. There was a sky walk to get over to an indoor parking lot. Terry (being a little scared of heights) even went up in it and walked out onto the over-hang--for about 5 seconds! It was a little spooky standing out there.
I stayed to take a few pictures, but Terry said, "I will meet you at the car!" This picture is taken, zoomed in, from the sky walk.
This is a really unique dam, in that it has big "rollers" that have to be manually opened and closed to adjust the water level. It has a big lock on one side to let the boats through.
I really liked this picture of a touring paddle boat going down the Mississippi!
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