Day 218 – Beginning of Week 32. The weather forecast for today’s travel was adequate – cold & moderate wind, so we thought we were good to go. But when we departed the campground at 10:20 a.m., it was snowing lightly and a bit windy, 31 degrees. The snow wasn’t sticking to the ground so we thought it’d be just temporary.
326 miles
Camp Lakewood Campground, 1217 W. Rickelman Avenue, Effingham, IL 62401, (217) 342-6233 or (800) 961-1198, www.camplakewoodcampground.com. Check-in time was 1 p.m.; check-out time was noon. This was an independent campground; we’ve found we prefer to use them for the brief over-night stops. For those occasions we aren’t that picky about how crowded they are or where our campsite is. We’re just looking for full hook-ups if possible & quick easy in, easy out. This campground fit the bill. They were well-organized and registration was a breeze. She wasn’t sure at first whether they could fit us in; they had a big stack of reservations for people that were still arriving today. But she assigned us site #2, a pull-through site at the end of a row which meant we only had people on one side of us. The campground is situated on a hill above Lake Pauline beyond a fairly new housing development & near the decent-sized city of Effingham, Illinois. It offered all the amenities, was very clean, and a good choice for a one-night stay. The rate for full hook-ups was $45; we paid $39 with the Good Sam Club discount. We would stay there again, but consider ourselves to be lucky to have gotten in without a reservation (note to self).
It continued snowing for almost the entire trip today, anything from flurries to white-out conditions with the wind blowing the snow sideways. The wind was sustained at 22 MPH one time when we checked, gusts were higher. The high today was only 33 degrees. It was just a miserable day, weather-wise. Everything else went well though, and we crossed from IL into IN. Once we got on I-80 and started heading east, we had the wind at our back, and driving was a little more relaxing. Our route was almost all interstate highways – the 57 north, the 80 east to exit 121, 9 south, and 120 west.
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We arrived at our final destination at 6:05 p.m. This includes a one-hour time change from EST to CST & stops for a trip to the post office, getting gas and propane for the RV, lunch, and a stop before the final one at our original choice of campground (which turned out to not be open yet for the season. We’d picked that campground because they were quite large, so we thought we’d have no problem getting a site, and because they accepted the Passport America 50%-off discount card). Then we drove on to our second choice just a few miles away, back to the campground we’d stayed at when in this area last year in September, Shipshewana North Park Campground, in the lovely, rural Amish area of northern Indiana just below the Michigan border. We were assigned site #16, full hook-ups, $40 per night plus tax, and we booked three nights. They’d just opened for the season and there were four other campsites occupied. We were quickly reminded of what we’d liked before at this campground: there are many full-growth evergreen trees nicely spaced thoughout the campground & between sites, and you can hear the clip-clop of the horses as they pull the Amish buggies which occupy the roads along with the vehicles.
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