2015 July 07 - Camping with the Aframes at Thomson Causeway Recreation Area, IL

We arrived on Tuesday. The mosquitoes were waiting for us! With all of the standing water from the rains along the Mississippi River, they were out in droves. The weather was good until Saturday morning when the rain started. It rained all day, but stopped by evening, so it wasn't bad.

We went to Lock & Dam 13 and watched a few boats go thru. The canoe was paddles by two men from Stockholm, Sweden who had started in Minnesota, headed for New Orleans. Good luck!

There was a potluck on Friday evening and we all went to Poopy's Grub n' Pub in Savanna, IL. That's the last time we'll go there. They were not exceptionally crowded, but it took about 2 hours to get our food and the checks were so screwed up that it took a half hour to straighten them out.

In spite of the mosquitoes, the rain, and Poopy's, we still had a good time.

One the way home, we stopped in Le Claire, IA at Antique Archaeology, the store featured on American Pickers on The History Channel. We got there before 11:00am and the store didn't open until noon, so we took a few pics and hit the road.

2015 June 20 - Ford Tri-Motor Over Our Neighborhood

The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) was selling rides in the Ford Tri-Motor. They flew over our neighborhood several times.

The Ford Trimotor (also called the "Tri-Motor", and nicknamed "The Tin Goose") was an American three-engined transport aircraft that was first produced in 1925 by the companies of Henry Ford and that continued to be produced until June 7, 1933. Throughout its time in production, a total of 199 Ford Tri-Motors were produced. It was designed for the civil aviation market, and was also used by military units and sold all over the world. It made the first flight over the geographic south pole in 1929 with Commander Richard E. Byrd as its navigator. Source: Wikipedia.org

2015 July 04 - An Evening with Scott, Lynn and Pat

We ate burgers, then got in the boat to go out and watch the fireworks. Fun evening even though the boat acted up a bit and we were in the early stages of being towed back to the house when Scott finally got it started.

 

2015 June 28 - Walden Reunion and the Big 7 - 0!

We attended the Walden Reunion which is Marsha's paternal grandmother's side of the family. It was pretty much like every other reunion, but it was also my 70th birthday. It's all down hill from here!

 

2015 June 6 - Aliner Rally in Door County, WI -- Part 2

Saturday was a sunny day. The scheduled "open house," where people can go around and look at other people's campers, was broken up into two sections. Our time to show our camper was 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM. The second section was from 12:30 PM to 4:00 PM. It didn't quite work out that way. We had a steady stream of people in and out of our camper from 10:00 to 4:00, not to mention a few unscheduled visitors on other days. Most of the people had never seen or heard of an Alto, so they were curious. It was fun and we enjoyed it.

We hardly had time to eat a bite of lunch, so we headed for Rowley's fish boil a bit early. The boil and  story telling started at 6:00, but we were there before 5:00 to check out the bar and watch the Belmont Stakes. Right after the race, we went outside as the story teller started telling about the history of the area. As he talked, the chefs started the fire and added the ingredients to the fish boil.

The large fire in the pictures below was caused when they threw a can of kerosene onto the fire. The water was already boiling at the rim of the kettle. The extra heat causes a boilover which takes all of the fish oils out of the mixture, leaving a relatively dry flavorful fish. 

We were tired, so it wasn't long after getting back to the campground that we hit the sack. We awoke Saturday morning to a dreary, rainy day. We packed up in the rain and hit the road after the continental breakfast. The plan was to break the rip up and stop at Cut Rock State Park, just north of Rockford, but the weather was so bad, we just decided to keep going south.

After a 492 mile drive, we arrived at home and parked the rig in front of the house to be unpacked and put away in the morning.

2015 June 2 - Aliner Rally in Door County, WI -- Part 1

We left home on Tuesday and drove the 288 miles to Loren and Cindi's house in Racine, WI. We spent the night there to break up the trip. The next day, we drove the remaining 218 miles to Wagon Trail Campground outside Ellison Bay. It's only about 12 miles from the northern tip of the Door County peninsula.

The weather is cool (high in the upper 50's) and it rained Wednesday night and most of the day Thursday. Luckily, it stopped raining so that we could have the wiener roast. Although this is a very nice campground, there is no pavilion here.

Friday, Marsha and I drove around the area, stopping at the Maritime Museum and driving some back roads along the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan. It was a sunny day, but still cool. The pot-luck was at 5:30 and we didn't even go to the campfire afterward. We came back to the camper and turned the heat on. It's 10:00 PM and 45 degrees here now. It's 71 at home!