Thursday, November 18

TRAVEL DAY: NEW HARMONY, INDIANA TO GOREVILLE, ILLINOIS.

Day 38 – We were up early this morning; the time zone change on top of the recent daylight saving’s time change is messing us up. It rained all night and was 40 degrees at 6:30 this morning. We relaxed a little, then packed up to leave. This campground was so quiet, we kinda hated to leave. Everyone was comfortable except for Java because Gracie sleeps on top of her and she can’t move!

We departed the campground at 10:40 a.m. It was 46 degrees and sunny. We only had a short distance to travel before we left Indiana and passed into Illinois when we crossed the Wabash River. The drive was scenic, at first through rolling hills, then flat farmland, then back to rolling hills. Many of the farms had a few oil wells in their fields. Most of the roads we took were country roads, no thruways/freeways today. We stopped and had our lunch in the RV at a parking lot in a small shopping mall with a movie theatre – all had been closed.

We arrived at our campground, Fern Clyffe State Park in Goreville, Illinois at 1:15 p.m. Off-season here, too, no one was manning the gate house or office. A sign instructed us to see the Campground Host to pay. There are two sections for campers – the tent campers and the RV/trailer/van/vehicle campers. As we turned into the vehicle camping loops, we were surprised to see how many sites were already taken. Everything has been so empty since leaving the eastern U.S. We drove around the loops to pick a site and found one we liked; many were already taken. We found out why when we stopped at the Campground Host’s site. Bow & arrow Deer hunting season began last weekend. Tomorrow shotgun Deer hunting begins. Oh goody. The “Host” said we should grab the site we wanted quickly because they’d be filling up due to the hunting. Rob got water for the RV while I drove the Honda to the campsite we wanted to secure. Being out of the camping prime season, it was first come, first serve, so we felt lucky to have gotten a good campsite.

As we were settling in and unpacking, the Host came by to collect the fee ($40 for two nights). He’d gathered from our reaction/surprise at hunting season, and from my question about where they were hunting and would we be safe, that we were not here to hunt. So he warned us that the hunters would be processing their kill in the campground, and that some deer heads were already hanging up! Can you imagine?! Sigh. We didn’t cancel our second night, but will be keeping blinders on. ICK. ICK. The reason we came here in particular was to visit Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge tomorrow; it is ½ hour north of here.

We spent the afternoon cooking 4 days worth of food and making a loaf of bread. We don’t want to cook every night, so doing it in bulk allows us more time to hang out and relax. The girls seem to like it here so far. And as long as the hunting isn’t close by, we think we’ll all be fine.