Sweltering Infamous

August 1 – September 19, 2019

The last 7 weeks we’ve been sweltering away here in central IL. Our days have been spent volunteering, seeing my folks along with a visit from my brother, enjoying visits from friends and trying to stay cool. Not an easy thing to do in the heat and humidity.

In an effort to try and stay a little cooler, we moved to Lone Point, a local COE campground and under some trees. Lone Point Recreation area is a small campground on Lake Shelbyville that had some renovations done earlier this summer, they still had one volunteer site open so we moved there. It certainly was nice to get some shade on the RV but soon after Labor Day, when the campground closed we moved back to the volunteer sites at the Dam West Recreation Area, a day-use area. Unfortunately, with the planned budget cuts for the Lake Shelbyville Project, this campground won’t be open next summer.

Lone Point COE campground

Volunteer site at Dam West Recreation Area

We’ve spent our volunteer time doing a variety of jobs, our main goal for August was rescuing a very large garden that hadn’t been tended to in 5 years. Wish I had taken a picture before we started, we took tonnage, massive quantities of weeds out the garden. It looks quite barren and stark by the time we were done but next year it’ll look much nicer. We did a few rotations at the visitor center and the month of September we trained for our positions next summer. Next year we will be doing checks, on the loaner life jackets, at all of the beaches and boat ramps and also checking the bulletin boards around the complex for their required information. On our other day, we’ll be delivering supplies and fuel to the campgrounds. We also plan to put some time in making sure the gardens are not lost again.

In early August my brother Andy, his wife and one of their daughters were in town to visit with our parents. They were in the process of relocating to TX and decided to make a trip out of it. We had a good time catching up and look forward to seeing them when we get back to Port Aransas where our RV lot is located and where they will now reside in what was once their once vacation rental.

Awhile back in one of the girls’ only Facebook RV groups I belong to one of the members was looking for folks from the Hudson Valley, I commented we weren’t currently but had grown up there. She was looking for RV’ers because she was doing an article for the local paper. By the time I saw the post it was the day she was finishing the article but a few emails back and forth and she had the information she needed to include us in the article. Our friends' comments on FB were laughable, did we make ourselves famous or infamous? 

Our friends Alex and Paul visited us twice these past 7 weeks, we enjoyed doing some of the local tourist stuff, playing lots of cards…Dave’s game, and numerous visits to the local Mexican Restaurant.

 A visit to Casey IL-"Small Town, Big Things"

Two-story outhouse in Gays IL, sure wouldn't want to be the bottom person

One of our many meals at Mi Veracruz in Shelbyville IL, think we jump-started their new business. 

One hot September day Dave was enjoying a beer from Triptych, that he purchased when we were with our friends Curt and Glenda. I went to check him in on Untapped and saw that Curt was enjoying a beer that day from the same brewery, what a coincidence.

We did get to take a visit a place my dad had wanted to check out for a few years. The former Sangamon Ordnance Plant was in Illiopolis IL and was one of the largest producers of artillery ammunition. All that remains are bunkers in crop fields. Being the WWII buffs Dave and my dad are they enjoyed driving around seeing what was left. Who would have thought a place like this existed in central Illinois.

My parents are the reason for us coming to IL during the hot and humid summer months. They no longer have handyman and are needing more help as the years go by. We spent our summer working around their house, getting their to-do list done, and helping them get to doctors and outpatient surgery appointments. We got to enjoy a number of meals at our favorite local restaurants and just spending time together.

Until next time...