TX to IL/Biding Our Time

April 20-May 28, 2020

Our travels north to IL went off without a hitch. We did the unusual and drove straight thru Houston instead of taking any bypass. Unusual times call for unusual things, doubt we’ll ever do that again. Our first night found us staying just west of Shreveport at the Shreveport\Bossier City KOA, 480 miles of mostly US highways, and no time changes. We arrived early enough for Dave to get a dinner of crawdads, the reason for our overnight here.                                                                                          

The next day we put in 478 miles, though this time it was all interstate. Our destination was Hinton RV Park in Sikeston MO. We had spent most of the day driving across Arkansas, glad we had no issues as there were signs at the border and along the interstate saying that they were closed to Rec Lodging.  

The next day we had a reasonable ride of 215 miles before we knew it we were arriving at Lithia Springs COE at the Lake Shelbyville project. The campground was opened to those gate attendants and volunteers that are full time and awaiting the project's opening. We picked site 85 which we provide us shade if we were there into the warm days of summer.

                                                                                

The first night there we had a Mexican dinner from Mia Vera Cruz #2, we had many a great meal here last summer. Our take out dinner didn’t disappoint us.

The next evenings meal was from Monical's, our favorite local pizza chain, another great meal.

For 2 weeks we spent time walking the park, picking up all the “Bud” cans along the park roads, and just enjoying some slow spring days. We’ve been stopping into my folks to drop off groceries and getting a few projects taken care of.                                                                                                    Scenes around Lithia Springs Campground.

                                                                                                            

                                                                               

I now qualify for elderly status, yep I can now get up early and get in line to shop for essentials we need. The only thing is we don’t need anything essential, we’re in good shape, the Walmart in Shelbyville IL has most everything, though things like rubbing alcohol and hand wipes are still among the missing.  

                                                                                                                                                                     

Dave and I officially reached 7 years full-timing on May 1^st, absolutely no regrets but we miss our friends we left behind, so glad we saw them a year ago. Over the 7 years, we’ve made so many great friends, shared great adventures with many of them, we can’t wait to see what the next 7 years bring.  

We had a socially distant Mother's Day with my folks, a to go dinner from one of our favorite steak houses, my mom just wanted their strawberry pie.

Two weeks after our arrival our friends Curt and Glenda arrived, they will be volunteering at the visitor center. Since Glenda was really wanting some Monical’s pizza we, of course, had to get a couple of large pies, we won’t comment on what couple at all their pizza pie but I’ve never seen them eat all of a large pizza at one sitting.

Their arrival day we learned we could move to our home campground, about 18 miles away. So the next day we moved on over to Forrest Bo Woods COE where we will be for the summer.

We’ve shared a few meals with Curt and Glenda as well as a few campfires, where of course Dave and Curt sampled a few beers, we were able to make run to a local brewery, Triptych which we visited last summer.

                                                                                

Empty campground.

In the last few weeks, we’ve been able to do a bit of volunteering, getting supplies out to the campgrounds in anticipation of their opening, fuel runs for the campground mowers, and took care of a few gardens. We’ve made ourselves available to help in whatever capacity they need us. This last week things seem to have ramped up, signs of opening soon abound and our lake is starting to flood in a few places, the regular boat ramps have been switched to the high water boat ramps. The area we were in last year is underwater.

PS the campgrounds here opened at 8am this morning.

Until next time...