Day 5 – It was nice not to have to get up & hit the road yesterday morning. We’ve enjoyed hearing the clip-clop of the horses as they go by pulling the Amish buggies. But we’re looking forward to reaching Oregon or California, wherever we end up, and then we’ll slow down the pace & spend quality time exploring. Today we will travel through northern Indiana & into northern Illinois, driving beyond Chicago to Illini State Park in Marseilles, IL. Because it’s a weekend night, we made reservations in advance after hearing that the State Parks tend to book up on the weekends.
Rob was up at 7:15, and I got up an hour later. Lazy! It was 53 degrees & sunny. I might’ve slept later but I was awakened by horses neighing close by – looked out the window & there were 4 of them frolicking, playing on the other side of a fence not far from where we were parked. Loving it! By 10 a.m. almost everyone had left the campground, only a few campers were left at sites. Heading out to a new place for the weekend? (It’s different for us this trip because we last camped during the summer – lots of families with children. Now we have yet to see kids, but the weekend is coming.) Almost everyone camping is older than us or around the same age, and lots of them camp in groups. At this campground, there were 4 similar trailers parked near each other, one couple in each, and they hung out together & went places together. It’s a completely different environment than what we were around during the summer.
Anyway……we departed at 10:15 a.m.; it was 62 degrees & sunny. Warming up rapidly; feels like it’s going to be a warm one.
Shipshewana North Park, Amish Log Cabin Lodging & Campground, 5970 North State Rd. 5, Shipshewana, IN 46565, (260) 768-7770, check-in 1 p.m., check-out noon, http://shipshewanacampgroundnorth.com/. This is a small campground in Amish country; they have a larger campground south of here. In addition to pull-through & back-in sites, they have log cabins, beautifully made & furnished by the Amish. Our site was #32 & even though the campground was nearly full our first night, it was very quiet. Each site is surrounded by mature trees & you feel like you have privacy. You can hear the horses hooves on the pavement as they go by pulling carts or buggies for the Amish. They have full hook-up sites and electric only sites and Wi-fi that works (slowly). We would definitely camp here again. Very clean campground & very nice people running it.
We got back on I-80W/I-90W and drove thru the rest of Indiana. Lots of traffic! We’ve never seen so much corn growing as we’ve seen in Indiana (and Illinois).We were very close to the Michigan border. Switched from Eastern Standard Time to Central Time in northwestern IN. Gained an hour which was nice!
I-80 traffic
We crossed into Illinois. Traffic got worse. We were nearing Chicago. I-80W split away from I-90W with the 90 going north towards Chicago. We stayed on I-80W which travelled below Chicago. As we moved away from the Great Lakes, it steadily got warmer out – still sunny, but hazy (or smoggy?).
We stopped at a rest stop for lunch in the RV. Gave the girls a break. Back on I-80W and soon into a traffic jam. Wall-to-wall trucks; couldn’t see around them as to what was going on, but as we finally started inching along, we saw the flashing lights pulling everyone into one lane. A bad accident – a truck & trailer had spun out and were off the road facing the wrong direction – not good. 86 degrees, still getting warmer.
Soon after traffic began moving again, we reached our off-ramp at exit 97 south to Marseilles, IL. Old town; cute. The Illinois River runs through the middle of it.
Marseilles, IL, Nice old downtown near Illinois River
Illinois River near Illini State Park, Marseilles, IL
Shortly thereafter we arrived at our campground, Illini State Park. We didn’t see an office to check in, so we drove through and found the site we’d reserved, #074 in the Whitetail loop, nicely shaded, electric only. We turned on the air conditioning as we set up. By 3:45 p.m. it was 89 degrees out. Gracie was hot!
I’m hot!
We drove the Honda (the tow car) to look for the office where we should’ve checked in. Saw the campground hosts & checked in with them. Then we took a drive to scope out the area. HUGE campground, lots of loops with various amenities (some electric only sites were close to the Illinois River butwere fairly close together & open, some electric only were more wooded, some without any hook-ups that were in the woods, many picnic areas, boat launches, playgrounds, etc. and the Marseilles Lock. The electric loop by the River was almost full, a few tents were in the primitive area, & the electric loop where we are only had 3 campers, including us. This is completely contrary to what the website showed when we were looking to make a reservation; it showed the campground to be full except for 2 sites, one of which we grabbed. Curious – does this mean reservations on the weekend are really not needed; the web site was wrong? We’ll see how many people come in later today when they get off work.
The Marseilles Lock, now that was interesting. We are fascinated with locks to begin with – how they operate, draining water or adding water to let boats and ships in or out – it really is quite an operation. This particular lock is at the end of one of the campground’s many roads. It is very big. We happened to get there while they were raising the water, shortly before letting 3 large barges hooked together & filled with coal, pushed by a very large, powerful tug boat, into the lock & thru to the other side. It took 4 guys to coordinate the effort, 2 of them hopping aboard the barges, the other 2 manning the lock. Rob took pictures (of course), but you need to be there to see this whole operation. One of the workers stopped for a minute to talk. He said this was just half of the barges; these three would travel up the River & be coupled with the other three before moving on. He also said that it was about 15 degrees hotter than usual at 90 degrees & that a week ago they had their first frost. Global warming, anyone?
Back to the RV & we sat around trying to cool off, having been outside for about an hour. Then we made dinner, fed the cats, touched base with our friends we are meeting in Iowa tomorrow, and watched as the trailers & RV’s started to arrive. We have a great site; most of them in this loop aren’t this shaded. Took our showers, read our books, and off to bed, A/C still on.