Saturday 28 July

A beautiful morning. This campground is a keeper. We dumped the tanks and got underway about 11:00 o'clock (which seems to be our usual starting time. This part of Illinois does not seem to be strongly affected by the drought. True, we saw some badly dried corn fields, but there were more that looked healthy; and the soybean fields are all green.

There are moments of real beauty

We took the interstate to Bloomfield, but a little ways north of the town we shifted over to Illinois 215. I say shifted over because the road pretty much parallels I-39, often running right alongside it. We prefer to travel the local roads rather than the interstate. They are slower, and they don't have rest areas, but you get more of a sense of the area. You are driving close enough to the fields to read the brands of seed they have planted, and you drive through the small towns so you see what the locals see close up. There is a lot less traffic, and practically no trucks. And driving a little slower gets you better fuel mileage. So why be in a hurry?

We drove past a number of wind farms. These consisted of dozens of very large aerogenerators. They often stretched from horizon to horizon. Today there was no wind, so the giant arms were still. But when they are working they must generate a great deal of electricity.  Eventually we got to an area that had countless numbers of them; then went over a small rise and saw that the road descended down a ridge to a broad plain below. The generators were poised on the edge of a plateau where the wind would be strongest.




The weather was not quite as hot today, in the 80's. Still plenty hot enough for us, but the high oil warning light did not come on. That would seem to indicate that the problem was heat-related.

After a pleasant day's drive, we arrived at Gene's cousin Juanita's house in Baraboo, WI, about 6:00pm. We arrived just as she, her friend, and her granddaughter were about to head out for the evening. They shifted cars, we backed into her driveway, and they were off. We plugged in and got settled. I expect we will see them in the morning. Gene considers Baraboo his home town, though he didn't spend that much time here, and moved away 65 years ago. Still we are looking forward to exploring his old stomping grounds.