Saturday - Sunday, August 29-30, 2020 - Moving to Mill Creek Park Campground, Marshall, IL; Visiting Casey, IL

Saturday - Sunday, August 29-30, 2020 - Moving to Mill Creek Park Campground, Marshall, IL; Visiting Casey, IL

Saturday, August 29

Fortunately the rain stopped overnight and it was a beautiful morning as we readied for our move from Fort Wayne, IN to Marshall, IL.  Once we had Bentley hitched up to the truck, a gentleman walked over to Dean to ask him where he purchased a "homemade item" that Dean uses to secure the 5th wheel to the hitch.  Dean explained he had made it, and took it out of the back of the truck to show it to him.   I don't remember when this happened, but after traveling one day, Dean noticed the bottom half of our ladder on the back of the RV was gone.  After we replaced the ladder, Dean took one of the rungs from the old ladder, tied an old tie down strap to each side of the rung, that would fit over and around the top part of the back tire.  He stands on the rung to secure the hitch and pin.  Afterwards, he just puts it in the bed of the truck while we travel.  He uses it when we unhitch as well.  It has worked really well for him for several years now.  The man was intrigued and said he was going to make one.  

We left Johnny Appleseed Campground in Fort Wayne, IN at 9:53AM working our way to Marshall, IL where we have a reservation at Mill Creek Park Campground for two nights. 

Just seeing "Logan" in Logansport reminded me of Grandson Logan...we miss him!

Lots of farming in the area - corn and soybeans are what we see most.

Large group of motorcycles traveling this beautiful Saturday morning.

Interesting building we saw as we passed through West Layfette, IN

Never tire of seeing our nation's flag, especially when the wind is blowing like this.

I love seeing these old brick building walls.  

Beautiful church as we passed through Oxford, IN

A large stretch of work like this constructing new power lines.  Interesting to watch.  We think they are probably being added for wind turbines that are under construction in the area.

We made it to Illinois!

Paris, IL - some beautiful old buildings!

Some neat downtown buildings in Paris, IL

The bad thing about pulling Bentley through a town - you can't always get the pictures you'd like.  What a gorgeous Courthouse!

It was 3:20pm when we were parked at Mill Creek Park Campground.  It was an interesting drive for us.  Sometimes Bobbie (our GPS) leads us astray a bit.  She routed us the back way to Marshall, IL and the road to the park that was on the GPS, took us down a gravel road.  Dean didn't go far before he realized this could not possibly be correct.  I got out and walked back to the paved road we turned off of, to watch for traffic while Dean backed Bentley up across the road.  We turned and within a minute or less Bobbie rerouted us to the correct road.  You gotta love your GPS' - most of the time they do a good job, but occasionally they get mixed up too!

Mill Creek Park Campground is situated just a short distance from Mill Creek Lake.  We quickly discovered this park is mostly utlilized by RVer's who rent their spot on a long term basis.  We arrived on Saturday and it was FULL!  Fortunately, the sites were quite large, so we didn't have issues getting into our site, like you often do when a park is full.  Many people had golf carts to get around the park, many had boats, and at least half or more had some kind of a covered open "tent" to sit under out of the sun.  In addition, several sites had good sized "tent rooms" where they can store items when they leave, golf carts, grills, patio furniture, etc.  The park does not have a sewer system.  People either use blue boy's or they have large gray waste tanks at their site, that are pumped out by a local service.  It was very busy on Saturday.  It was a nice park and the people were friendly - often waving as they drove by.  A negative we discovered after setting up - there is not a good Verizon signal.  We can live without it but since I was hoping to get the blog caught up - it meant a couple more days behind.

It was warm enough during the day we had to turn the air on, due to the sun hitting our large windows, but as the sun started to sit it cooled off nicely.

  

We could hear music playing in various areas of the park, but the surprising thing - that we didn't care for - was how they ramped it up in the evening - and it went on after 10pm.  It was definitely a negative for us.  The worse part was most of the music came from a place across the road from us - and therefore near our bedroom.  Apparently this is normal here as it continued well after 10.  I found some ear plugs and we turned the TV on and I finally fell asleep.  

Our fire genie - this was taken shortly before we went in for the evening.

Our campsite (#41) at Mill Creek Park CG - Marshall, IL

Sunday, August 30

As usual I was up early, around 5:00 to make a cup of coffee.  I heated up the teapot so I could make a cup of coffee (we still had not made it to Walmart (or any other big box store) to purchase a new coffee pot---but we will take care of that today).  I did a few things before the teapot whistled at me.  After making my first cup of coffee, I set down to see if I might have any luck getting on the internet.  I've found that to be the case in other areas we could not get service during the day or evening.  Sure enough, it worked however, that is when I realized we had moved into Central Standard Time yesterday and it was only 4:30...I got up at 4:00am!!!  Oh well, more time to work on the blog, right?

About 5 Dean got up (thinking it was 6) and was he surprised!  Since he was already awake he stayed up but he wasn't happy about losing an hour of sleep and then no coffee to enjoy either.  I finished the last blog post about 6, while he watched TV.  We really needed some food items for our lunch as we complete our drive back to Oswego, and we needed the coffeepot so we headed into Marshall to have breakfast and visit Walmart.  We had breakfast at a restaurant downtown.  Today begins my decision to revert to my diet pre-Indiana/Michigan/ Pennsylvania trip where we both ate way too many things that are not part of our diet.

A small section of the park.

These are the large waste containers we saw at a number of sites in the park.  There is a service that comes around to pump them out---

but several use the small blue boys, pulling them to the dump station with their golf carts to empty them there. 

As we left the park, we crossed the bridge over the lake by the boat docks.  The lake was so calm this morning and beautiful with the clouds and trees reflecting in the water.

After we arrived in Marshall, we chose the Marshall Family Restaurant since it was the only one that was open.  It was evidently the place for local guys to hang out with their morning coffee - the only one's there when we arrived.

Beautiful downtown - all of the buildings are painted nicely.

The Clark County Courthouse - another beautiful structure.

As we drove through and around town I took several pictures.  Something I noticed right away downtown was the Lion statues.  The first one I noticed was in front of the Lions Service Club Building, with their logo on it.  I assumed it was there to let people know it was their building, but soon I noticed these Lions were all over town.  I took pictures of a few to share.  I had a feeling this might be the school's mascot, and after checking confirmed that feeling. 

The top left collage is of the City of Marshall's Lion - showing their city logo, police emblem, and water and sewer logos.

One other thing, which I have noticed in a few other towns recently, are the murals on the downtown building's walls, touting their history of various items that were/or are part of the community or about a special person.

As we were driving around town, Dean said look, that guy is riding a hover board, while pushing his baby in a stroller.  First time for seeing that, but it seemed to work!

You can't see the hoverboard, but he's actually moving down the sidewalk and onto the street on it in this picture.  He must be pretty good at riding it.  One of the grandkids had one and after watching them, I decided I was not coordinated enough to even try using it.  I was too afraid I would end up with something broken -- and not just my pride!

After breakfast, our next stop was Walmart where I returned the carafe we purchased in PA, and we selected a new coffeepot.  Rather than get the one I wanted (with the K-cup addition), I decided we'd just get a coffeepot, and will wait to purchase the two way coffee pot when we are in a house again.  While we were there we purchased a few groceries to get us by until we return to Oswego.

We returned to Bentley, put our groceries away, and moved on to the next place we are going to visit - a town down the highway a few miles.  It's a place I've wanted to visit for nearly five years, and we are finally going to get the opportunity.  I picked this area to stop for a couple of days just for this reason.  We are going to visit Casey, IL!  My best friend from High School and her husband visited here several years ago when they part of a motorcycle group.  I loved the pictures she posted.

I was so impressed with this community and the "niche" they have to bring visitors into their community.  After posting on Facebook with a few of the pictures I took, there were many comments, but I was surprised to find that one of our Escapee Club friends actually grew up near here.  Her daughter used to work in Parsons, KS, and later they joined our club - it's so awesome it is to meet someone and find their lives often mesh with us in someway. 

So here goes with the pictures I included in my Facebook post, as well as a few others.

I didn't realize until after we left this picture came out blurry - but I love it enough I'm including it despite the blurriness  ---  So God Made A Farmer --- where would be without our farmers!!!

Casey's claim to fame - World's Largest Things --- Big Things in a Small Town

Teeter Totter - on Saturday from 10-2, I believe it was, they have someone manning it, so you can actually experience the teeter totter!

Rocking Chair - all of the Big Things are great - however, the landscaping everything pop!

Largest golf tee.

Casey Country Club

You can walk up to a platform on the mailbox for a view or pictures!

Wooden Shoes inside a candy store!

You can go in, set on the swing and have your picture taken here.

Shortly after leaving the wing, we were walking along the sidewalk nearby, when a lady walked by us.  She didn't seem to be there visiting the sites, so I asked her if she lived in Casey.  Yes, she did.  We had such a nice visit with her.  She told us that the flowers are all planted and taken care of by a couple who live here.  What a blessing for their community!  She said it has really created much tourism for their community.   She mentioned the penny at the bank where she works, or we would have been unaware of other items in that part of town.  

Now that's a key!  

We didn't stop here, but my friend visited us after we returned to Oswego and she told me the top turns.

Adjacent to this pitchfork is a family owned restaurant, Richard's Farm.  If we are ever through here again and have an overnight stop, we'd love to stop in for lunch.

When we first arrived, we parked along the street between the largest wind chimes and rocking chair.   We were near a lady with two children and I suspect her mother.  They too were visiting all of the sites.  We walked over to the teeter totter and as we were coming back, they were getting ready to walk on to the teeter totter.  We visited a bit with them and the children.  While taking the pictures of the antlers above - we were sitting in the car in the parking lot, when the car shown above, honked at us.  I wasn't sure what that was all about, but when they pulled up near us and rolled down their window, I did too.  It was the same family, and they were pointing out the pizza cutter outside of the Pizza Restaurant across the street.
  

Twisted Nails

The Largest Penny (shows some of the biggest attractions in Casey on this side, with "In God we Trust" on the other side.  

Just a few of the gorgeous flowers near the attractions and other places around town.  It really makes the town pop!

We enjoyed our tour of the town here and all there was to see and do.  If we ever stop here again, I would prefer to visit on a weekday so we could also visit the shops.  They did open at noon on Sunday, but we wanted to get back to Bentley.  We have another long travel day tomorrow (for us, anyway) and we wanted to have some time to rest up before getting back in the truck for another 5-6 hour drive.  I've mentioned before our perfect travel time is 2-3 hours, however, we sometimes find ourselves with the need to move to one place or another a little quicker than we like - but it's usually worth it, as it almost always involves time with our kids or grandkids.  We enjoy spending time with them so we make it work!

Back at the RV, I read some Reader's Digest magazines Cindy had given me a month or two ago.  I have always enjoyed reading them.  Dean watched a golf game and we just enjoyed the downtime.  

Later Dean grilled some hamburgers.  They sure were good.  During the afternoon we noticed people were packing things up and by 4-5:00pm most everyone had left.  Afterwards, we went outside to sit and enjoy our time around the fire genie....except, 

a karaoke group on the far side of the section across from us played their music and sang for the next 4-5 hours very loud.  Actually, they were not bad singers, and some of the music was actually some we liked - it was just so LOUD!  

We quickly decided one batch of pellets was enough for us.  It was just TOO LOUD to enjoy being outside.  The campground host wasn't much further away than we were, and since it continued on for so long, maybe he was participating!!  LOL!  They were still playing after 10pm.  Since Dean could barely hear them after taking out his hearing aids, I found my ear plugs and fortunately, we both fell asleep pretty quick.