Tuesday, May 31, 2016

We had to stick around this morning, due to the showers coming through our area.  When it cleared up, we ventured out to the state park close by to check it out, and we did manage to pick up an interesting geo-cache.  I'll post a picture for it.  More showers coming in tonight.  Driving around the countryside here, we are seeing some beautiful homes and prime farmland.  We really like the area, and I'm sure we will be back again sometime.

 This covered bridge is just south of the Morrison-Rockwood State Park.  I'll have to find out the particulars on it another time.  It's in very good condition.

 This deck overlooks Lake Carlton in Morrison-Rockwood State park.

 We liked this unique sign going into the Morrison-Rockwood State Park.  They had geo-caches in the park, but the trails were too muddy to do today.  It would be fun to do them in the fall.  Hummm, another trip planned!  Maybe we can catch it on our way back southwest in October.

A geo-cache brought us to this interesting barn.  It was built in 1926 and was frequented by Al Capone during the prohibition.  The guards would keep watch from the windows above the main level.  In 1930 the federal agents raided the still and closed it down.  Without geo-caching we would have never known this. 

Monday, May 30, 2016 - Happy Memorial Day

Our truck took us to Dixon again today.....it knows the way now!  We had such a beautiful day, so we decided to go back and finish the bike path that we didn't do yesterday and get the caches on it.  This part is gravel and packed gravel, so it wasn't as nice as the trail yesterday, and it was more hilly.  We found 18 caches and 3 DNF's today.  We were at our last cache and Jim scared up a newborn fawn that could hardly walk.  We didn't want to put any more stress on it than we already have, so we walked away from it.  The grasses were about 4 feet high, so it was well hidden.  On our way out, we found the cache that we had almost given up on.  The same people 'planted' the caches that we did both days, and they tested our capabilities!  I'll post a few pictures of what we looked for the past two days!  We returned to a nearly empty campground.  Three new rigs came in on the waterfront, and that makes 6 RV's in all on our leg. 

 Can you find the cache?  Tricky!

 This little gadget is what they called a whiz bang.  It unscrews and has a plastic bag with a log (piece of paper) in it to sign.  When it is hidden, it's very hard to see.

 I'm not sure what they called this one, but it's a plastic tube pounded into a drilled hole and it contains the log paper to sign.  Very hard to see.  Now maybe you can understand why we had so many Did Not Find's! 

Sunday May 29, 2016

We found out in our short stay in Thomson, IL that many roads lead to Dixon!  We have tried them all.  We spent the past two days in Dixon doing the Reagan thing, and today we went over to ride our bikes on the wonderful Dixon Bike Trail.  They have caches along the trail, so we biked and cached.  Life doesn't get any better than this!  They were all very well hidden, and we didn't do so well.  We found 21 but we DNF 7!  I didn't realize we hadn't found that many until I logged them on the geo-cache site.  That is humbling!  We did enjoy it, though, and we put on 11 miles biking on the paved and sometimes grass/gravel trail, but it was, for the most part, very enjoyable.  It was a gorgeous day today, and we just now got a little shower.  We hope everyone is enjoying their long holiday weekend, and do remember the fallen and the Veterans.  They have kept us free.

 Jim on the bike trail.  The Phlox were blooming along the trail, and it was breath-taking.

We stopped at Angelo's for pizza after our bike ride, and they had this picture in their entry.

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Today was another history lesson.  The weather was to be nice today, after we had rain during the night, but there was a chance of rain later in the day.  We decided to visit the birth place of Ronald Reagan, and then his boyhood home.  We had skies filled with cumulus clouds, and we wanted to be near some sort of shelter if a storm was brewing.  We started in Tampico, Illinois and a small town of about 790 people.  Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment above a business, and our tour guide thought it was a bakery at that time.  We walked up a long flight of stairs to reach the apartment, which was very spacious.  They had no running water and no electricity during that time period.  Then we went to Dixon, Illinois to visit his boyhood home and toured that.  We also picked up a few geo-caches in town, and will go back tomorrow to do the bike path and cache on it.  We just couldn't chance being on the bike path when a storm might hit.  It was a good day to do this, and we enjoyed learning about our 40th president of the United States.

In 1911 Ronald Reagan was born in the upstairs apartment in this building in Tampico, IL.  The red door is the entrance to the apartment, after the long flight of stairs to reach the top.

 The apartment was nicely furnished and very spacious.  It just had two bedrooms, but it was plenty of room, as they only had two boys. 

 This arch in Dixon is on Galena Street and the building in the background is where the Lincoln-Douglas debate was held.  It is across the street from the courthouse in town.

 Ronald Reagan's family moved to Dixon, IL when he was nine years old, and lived in this house three years.  They always rented wherever they went, and they moved a lot.  This is the home that he had the fondest memories.  When he and Nancy came back to visit in 1991, he asked when had it shrunk!

This is a family photo of Jack (father), brother Neil, Ron and Nelle (mother) Reagan.

 We went to the riverfront park to find a geo-cache and we saw this statue of Abraham Lincoln.  It is the only known statue of him in his military uniform.  He was a volunteer in the military during the Blackhawk War of 1832.

The eye of the storm!  We were returning from a wonderful day in the life of Ronald Reagan, when we met the storm that hit the western part of Illinois, and our campground.  It came down in sheets, and was so hard, that we had to stop and wait for it to pass. 

Friday, May 27, 2016

We're home alone!  We left St. Louis this morning in the rain, but we had a good travel day to Thomson, IL and will be staying here a week in the corps of engineer park.  We took the last site available, so we felt lucky to be here.  We are right on the Mississippi River, with beautiful paved biking paths adjoining the park, that are up and down the river.  We have some plans to meet friends here, do some geo-caching, bike and explore.  We had a great stay in St. Louis and on this second leg of that visit, we were able to attend Shea's graduation from 8th grade from St. Joe's in Cottleville, MO.  There were 110 graduates and they will be attending 23 different high schools next fall.  Shea is going to Cor Jesu, where Mackenzie presently attends.  Shea spent the good part of yesterday with us, so we took her to the McNair City Park and walked the paved area there and showed her a couple of geo-caches, that we found with her brother, Regan last week.  Then we walked the wetland preserve section of our campground.  We had a wonderful day with her, as she is finished with school, and only had graduation at 6:30 left to attend.  Mackenzie had an exam on Thursday morning, so she still had school.

 Shea and Papa near the fountain in McNair Park

 Shea and Granny at the gazebo. 

 We know how to take a selfie!

 

 We saw three snakes and about a dozen turtles.  The turtles were laying their eggs.

 Shea and her friend, Ava before graduation.

 We are joining in Shea's reception after graduation.  Shea is a happy gal!

The O'Connor siblings; Regan, Shea and Mackenzie

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

We arrived back in St. Louis yesterday, after several days camping near Hannibal, MO.  We had a wonderful time there and met some great people.  After chatting with, and getting to know our neighbors, Dave and Lois, we found out that Lois and I share birthday's!  So, happy birthday to you today, Lois!  They wanted our blog, and will be following us until we get home.  Today was Spirit Day at St. Joe's Catholic School, where Shea will graduate tomorrow evening.  We went early this morning for their gathering and prayer service before all of the activities of the day for the students.  The gym was filled with lots of excitement!  One kind of neat thing happened to me yesterday, when I decided to do laundry in our campground where we are presently staying.  This young gal comes in and she was doing laundry for a touring band.  It turns out to be Tantric, a band based in Boston, and they are playing in St. Louis tonight.  They have another gig tomorrow and will be going to Madison, WI for Bratfest!  I met them all, but one lead singer.  The stage manager is from Hudson, WI and has been with the band for two years.  One never knows who you will run into.  I think they are a hard rock band, and I told them that we do old time dancing, which I am sure made a big impression on them! They were all quite cool, and they seemed pretty grounded.

 We have beautiful sunsets in Arizona, but it will be hard to beat this one we had last night in St. Peter's.

 Jim's sister, Barb gave me my birthday card in early April before we left Apache Junction.  I had strict orders to not open it until my big day, which is today!  Isn't this just the coolest card?  I had to share it with you.  Thanks, Barb!

 Today is Spirit Day at St. Joe's and it's all about Shea today!  Congrats, Shea on your final day at St. Joe's.  Shea had a smile on her face all day!  Each grade did a dance routine and this was hers.  We are so proud of her!

Shea plays flute in the band, and they performed in the parking lot and then marched down the street in their school parade.  They went to Chicago last weekend for a band competition, and took superior in their music and how they conducted themselves throughout the weekend!  The latter is a very prestigious award, and it reflects on their school and family life.  They have a fantastic band teacher and they have won many awards because of him. 

We met Dee and Hal when we got back from Hannibal, and they are parked across the road from us in the campground.  Their granddaughter graduates from St. Joe's tomorrow night, also, and is our granddaughter's very good friend!  Now, isn't that a small world?  They recently sold their house and are going full-timing and they wanted to pick our brain, so we enjoyed Happy Hour with them today.

Monday, May 23, 2016 - Happy Birthday to our son, Mike!

We had a quiet and more relaxed day yesterday, so I didn't post anything.  We did ride our bikes in the campground and Jim had his GPS on to see how many roads with camping sites are in the park. We did six miles, so it's a pretty large park.  We do like it here, but the ticks are terrible.  I think that is the way of life in any wooded area any more.  It really puts a damper on our fun! Our neighbors had a campfire last night, so we took our chairs and a bottle of wine over and joined them!  We were telling them how good the dry Riesling is from Wollersheim's, so we had to prove it.  That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!  We decided to go biking with them today and show them how to geo-cache.  We looked for two, and found two!  The ticks were terrible, so it just wasn't fun to be caching, so we came back and chatted into the dinner hour!  It was a fun day.  We are meeting such nice people on this little side trip, and we feel confident that we'll be seeing them again, also.  We will be returning to St. Louis tomorrow.  We have Shea's graduation Thursday evening, and then we move closer to WI on Friday.  We've been blessed with beautiful weather, but the rain is to move in tonight.  All in all, it was a good plan to come this way for a few days.

 Enjoying the campfire with Dave and Lois, our new camping friends.  They are from Columbia, MO.

 We found the cache, out of the woods and tall grass, and checking for ticks!  We all had some!

Dave, Lois and Jim.....deciding to head home.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

"I am old; I recognize that but I don't realize it.  I wonder if a person ever really ceases to feel young - I mean, for a whole day at a time."  Mark Twain........ I can relate to this! 

I love Mark Twain and I really just got to know him!  Yes, we all read some of his books, but now that I am 'more mature', I fully understand him.  We have learned how Hannibal, MO shaped his life, as we walked the streets of this little hamlet, and Hannibal is all about Twain!  We toured his home, Becky Thatcher's home (his first sweetheart), Huck Finn's home and the museum and we read many quotes from Mark Twain, as we maneuvered around the area.  So many people popped into my head, when I read some of them, as they definitely reminded me of them.  Mark Twain, or at that time, Samuel Clemens, was quite the mischievous young lad, and many of the things we saw today, reminded me of our son, Mike!  I'll post some pictures and write some captions about each, but it was a wonderful day, and the weather was perfect.

 This is a bronze of Tom Sawyer and his friend, Huckleberry Finn in downtown Hannibal.

 The lighthouse towers over the Mississippi River.  It is 54 feet tall and we hiked up 244 steps from downtown to the lighthouse.....huff and puff.

 We had to try our hand at whitewashing the fence!  Looks pretty good from here!

 I loved this picture that I saw in the museum of Mark Twain returning to his boyhood home, so I'll post it.  They have made a gift shop out of part of his boyhood home and changed the outside, so it doesn't look like this at all.

 I noticed that they had a quilt shop and it had been one of the best ten shops in the country in 2009.  I found some fabric that I needed for our grandson, Regan's college dorm room, and of course another piece that I'll need next year!  They had quite the business!  Lots of displays and beautiful fabrics.

 We watched the Mark Twain 'paddle' boat leave the dock full of people.  It was a beautiful day for a ride on the river, but we did that with Jim's parents, his sister, and two of our children in 1983.

 We found this statue of Mark Twain in the Riverview Park.  It was a geo-cache that took us here.  We did find about six geo-caches today.  It wasn't our main reason for coming to Hannibal, but as long as we were close.....we just had to do it.

 We met Al and Brenda Mandt in the Mark Twain Restaurant and Brew Pub.  They are from 'near' Austin, MN and are getting close to retirement.  They had lots of questions for us and our full-time RV lifestyle.  We exchanged e-mail addresses and I know we'll see them again.  You just have a feeling about some people you meet along the way, and those feelings never let you down.

 This is one of the entrances to the Mark Twain Restaurant and Brew Pub.  We had a delicious lunch there.

Friday, May 20, 2016

We had a wonderful indoor activity, due to the overcast skies and a bit drizzly at times.  We went to the Mark Twain State Park, where they have the home that Mark Twain (birth name was Samuel Clemens) was born in and lived until he was four years old.  They then moved to Hannibal, MO which was to have a big impact on his life. It was an earthcache, so we knew we were going to learn a lot.  They had a great 15 minute video and then we could see the many displays they had about him and his family.  It was wonderfully done!  This was a good beginning for us, as we plan to go to Hannibal tomorrow and/or Sunday to experience the rest of the story!  We did some geo-caching as we traveled to the state park, but we were limited as to what we could do.  This is a tick infested area, and each time we went to retrieve a cache, one of us had a tick on us!  We didn't do much caching today, needless to say!  We did travel all around Mark Twain Lake, today and after checking the other campgrounds out, we picked the best one.

This is Clara's Overlook, and she was Mark Twain's sister.  She was an opera singer and married into a wealthy family.  She lived her adult life in California. If you can read the sign at the base of the railing, it showed flood stage in 2008, which rose to the base of this overlook!

This is the birth place of Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and it consisted of two rooms. He was born in Florida, MO on Nov. 30, 1835.  For siblings, he had two brothers and two sisters - and a teenage slave.

 This is the bedroom for Mark Twain's parents. 

 This shows the living quarters for the family.  Notice the beautiful Log Cabin Quilt on the bed.

This tells of his life in a nutshell.

 We got a great view of the Clarence Cannon Dam and Mark Twain Lake.

These flowers were in a garden at the dam headquarters.  They are Shadow Primrose and remind us of the Evening Primrose that we see in Arizona.  Very pretty. 

Thursday, May 19, 2016

We left St. Louis this morning with sunny skies, and great travel weather, driving up Hwy. 61 north.  We arrived in Indian Creek Recreation Area campground early this afternoon, which is southwest of Hannibal, MO.  It's on Mark Twain Lake and the Clarence Cannon Dam backs up the North Fork Salt River.  It helps to control flood damage farther south in St. Louis, where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers converge.  We know Mark Twain was born nearby and we will be visiting his birth place tomorrow.  This is a corps of engineer park, and we didn't have reservations, but we have a great site on top of the bluff and we look down on the lake, 'through the trees'. People are starting to come in for the weekend, but it empties out early next week.  We have seen so many different birds here since we arrived today, and maybe I'll have a collection of them to display on my blog page.  I just walked outside today and sat on the picnic table and a Lone Star Tick was on my hand!  How did that happen so quickly?  I haven't even been in the grass yet!  They told us at the gate that they are seeing seed ticks, but that's it.  I put this bugger in a little glass jar and will be taking him to the gate to show them.  It is known to carry Lyme's Disease.  It has a white spot on its back, thus the name Lone Star. I probably won't post any pictures today, but I'll catch up when we can. 

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Happy Anniversary to us today!  Yes, it's 55 years and counting!  We had a very fun day today, after being holed up in the motor home the past two days, due to the rain.  Regan, our grandson, wanted to go geo-caching with us, so we took him up on the offer.  He catches on fast!  We had some nice caches with a little variety, so it gave him a good idea what to look for, when he goes with his buddies.  We went to the McNair City Park in St. Charles, and not far from our campground.  It was a beautiful little park with paved walkways, lots of flowers in bloom, a gazebo, and a waterfall, plus all the sports activities to do there.  Regan works at Old Navy, so we had to stop by early afternoon, but we did what we wanted to.  This evening, Shea had a lacrosse game and we were glad to be able to take that in, before we leave tomorrow.  They won 10 to 8, and it was a very competitive game, with each team well balanced.  Tomorrow we travel north to Hannibal, MO and will stay until next Tuesday.  We don't have a reservation, but we shouldn't have a problem.  We want to stay in Indian Creek Recreation Area, which is a corps of engineer park southwest of Hannibal. It is very wooded there, so if you don't hear from us, it's because we don't have good reception.

 This is Mackenzie, working on her artwork for a school project.

 Regan and Grandpa Jim checking their GPS/phone app for caching, to see where we go next.

 Regan and Jim on the hunt.......

 stopping for a photo op on a quaint little foot bridge.

 Shea is # 41 and this is tonight's game.

Shea after the game on Saturday, when she got 4 goals!