We’ve moved sites….

 

Our Location: 

Valens Lake Conservation Area, Flamborough, Ontario

Site # 144

We both slept really well last night. I will admit the tree coverage here makes it darker, plus our tinted windows adds to the dark.  By 11 am we were out walking the roads looking for a brighter site. We found several we liked better than the dark, sloped site of #175. I drove up to the office to ask about moving to one of several other sites, however the only one available for our whole stay is #144 , which worked fine, it was on my list. It has some sunlight but is much less in the trees, more level and just a nicer spot. Not first on the list but not last either. In less than 45 minutes we were packed, hooked, towed, parked, unhooked and set up.  We are happy once again.

As you can see things are very tight in Valens Lake Conservation Area.

A boardwalk over a fast flowing stream.

The new heater connection works great, we used it this morning for the first time. It heated the Igloo fabulously. We do need to find a way to keep the heat downstairs though. In Igloo 1.0 we had a curtain that we could hang at the bottom of the stairs, it worked great. We will have to figure out something for this rig as well.

Auston walking the beam.

Riley and I headed out this afternoon to spend more time with Bradey and the boys ( this of course means David, as well as Auston and Lincoln). Auston is taking gymnastics and we thought we would go watch. Yesterday we offered to pay for whatever take out they wanted for dinner tonight, and it was delicious. From a little Greek place near by, it is one of their favourite places.

Lincoln enjoying a sucker.

A very Happy Birthday to my brother Rick, he celebrates tomorrow, the 16th but I may not write a blog tomorrow so I will get my wishes in today. Rick is of course, my oldest and only brother. He lives next door to my dad, in what once was my Granddad Bill’s house. It no longer resembles that house, but the old house is still part of it. Rick is a generous, kind, helpful fella, always helping someone. He has a quick smile, is blonde, and blue eyed like me. Although I’m sure his blonde is white, while I’m still blonde! Happy Birthday brother! Below are some his first creations over the winter, all scrap metal, parts and pieces.

Happy Birthday wishes to cousin Daisy, celebrating today.  Daisy and my father are first cousins, his mom, her dad, were siblings. Daisy and her husband Robert are fabulous people, very active and community oriented. They live just a little down the road from our summer spot.

Thanks for stopping by, I won’t be posting everyday until we start travelling again, which should in 5 or 6 days. We still aren’t back to home dirt yet, another 380 miles/620 km. We will break the trip into at least 2 days, possibly 3. We shall see.

Until next time…..

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

Back in Ontario…

 

Our Location:

Valens Lake Conservation, Flamborough, Ontario

We woke to sunny skies and coolish temps in Perrysburg, Ohio but it did warm up on our drive. Wheels rolling by 7:45 am we had the best kind of drive….uneventful. The regular rough stretch entering Monroe, Michigan, but other wise other than a noisy road surface, all was good. 

Our last state this journey.

We arrived at the Canadian Customs, paid our $11.00 and rolled across the Ambassador Bridge pulling into line about 9:15 am. A new Customs Officer, reading from the “script” was pleasant and by 9:30 am we were wheels rolling on past the Customs yard onto the streets of Windsor.  Our second bonus of the day, an easy crossing.

The Ambassador Bridge

TD Duck is crossing the St. Claire River for the first time. Lol.

We are going to cross that bridge to Ontario.

Chatham Kent was our first rest stop in Ontario. The call to our intended destination brought us our first curve ball of the day. Due to new management, no returning early admissions allowed. Hmmmmm… this is not good, we had based everything on this park. Riley came up with the place we never wanted to return to, I called and yes, they are open, in fact open all year. We had little choice and took a spot. Our third bonus of the day.  A call to Dad to let him know we are back in Ontario, and on the road we were once again.

Not birds, boats on the St. Claire River as we cross, you can tell we are high up.

Riley texted our usual folks to let them know we have arrived and soon we were pulling into the Conservation area. Just under $500 CAD secured us a spot for the week.  We stayed in this park once before with the old Igloo, which was 30 amp, but now we discovered there are no 50 amp sites. Not knowing this is rig was 50 amp when we bought it, and since we plug in so infrequently, I left my 50/30 conversion at home. While the rig came with a short 50/30, this one plugs into the rig, not the end of the 50 amp cord like the one I have at home. So that didn’t help us. We decided we would continue with our plans and worry about later.

That is Ontario, Canada. Weare almost back to our home province, but nit home.

We left around 2:30 pm with the Igloo running as usual on battery and headed off to Brantford to see daughter Bradey, SIL David, and grandsons Auston and Lincoln. It was a great visit, the boys are growing so fast, and are full of energy. We enjoyed a very nice turkey dinner, but shortly after, we headed out, stopping at Walmart but not finding a 50/30, instead finding a 30 amp extension cord. We had a solution. We bought the cord, came home, plugged in the short 50/30 to the rig, connected the 30 amp extension cord, and voila, we are good to go. I think this might be our option of choice going forward. The 30 amp chord is much easier to handle than the very heavy 50 amp. We shall of course carry both but we are thinking of using this set up. Our fourth and fifth bonus’ of the day.

The green grass of Ontario.

It’s hard to tell but there is the slightest suggestion of green in the trees, barely but it’s there. 

We travelled 250 miles/402 km. We stopped a number of times, travelling approximately 6 hours, we used about 20 gallons/75 litres of fuel, we averaged around 57 mph/91 kmh. We had a bit of a head wind, side wind at times, some stop and go traffic getting to the park and a bit of hilly countryside as well. So my math says about 12.5 mpg. Considering our fresh water is almost full, I think that was good. 

Until next time…..

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

Back in EDT Zone…

 

Our Location:

Walmart, Perrysburg, Ohio 

After a good nights sleep we had the wheels rolling at 7:45 am. Our original destination was changed almost as soon as the wheels were moving and as we clipped along we also changed our second destination, this was our third choice. 

Sorry, dirty windshield, Crescent City, Water Tower. We can’t keep it clean.

The roads overall were good, a few rough patches but not bad. We started by going back 15 miles to I-57 N rather than take state or county roads. We hooked up with US-24 East, which is only 2 lanes in Illinois. We crossed into Indiana and a little later at 9:43 CDT we moved into EDT meaning we are now back with our home province timewise. US-24 becomes a divided highway at some point in Indiana but due to a flooding detour, I can’t tell you where. We were routed probably 45-60 minutes from our original route. Eventually we managed to get back to US-24 East and continue along. Due to a ramp closer our journey to this Walmart was very adventurous and colourful. ‘Nough said. We arrived here around 3pm EDT. 

We travelled approximately 317 miles/510 km, we travelled approximately 8 hours, we used about 27 gallons/102 litres, and I filled up for $3.99  pg. I think that works out to around 12mpg. I’m happy with that. 

Good weather but a bit windy, side, tail and head. Wind is pretty cool, we need a sweater and we have been wearing long pants for about 4 or 5 days now. Spring is hinting but not quite here yet, a few more days. I think the high temp was 62F/17C, not bad for April 13. 

Until next time…..

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

A very windy day here….

 

Our Location:

Countryside Campground, Gibson City, Illinois

Rain, wind, then much more wind, and it is still blowing strong. Hopefully tomorrow is a calmer day as we are pulling out for the next leg of our journey homeward.

Green Acres RV Repair Shop, Clinton, Illinois.

Yesterday we hooked up and hauled the Igloo to Clinton, Illinois to Green Acres RV Repair. We had a propane leak that we needed to have fixed. Many calls to the Bloomington area rv repair shops netted me 10 days to look at it, and I would need to drop it there until they got around to fixing it. The nice gents at Green Acres took us right away and we were back on the road in about an hour. 

To add more excitement to the adventure the Dogsled decided to REGEN about 4 miles before we arrived at the repair shop, so we did an extra long loop until it stopped its new found trick. The Dogsled has only ever did this twice, once yesterday and once in March 2020 on our way homeward during Covid. At that time we were in a rest area just inside the Ohio state line, the old Igloo had a broken spring and the truck started to regen, but ended up on a flat bed back into Indiana and was fixed under warranty, they shut and locked the garage after the repair. We were on our way the next day. So as you can imagine I had a few butterflies while the Big Dog was playing tricks. However everything went well, we were back in place in the park by 1 pm.

Some interesting flavours.

Today we toured around the town a bit. We stopped for fuel, toured the local market and checked out the little town park, full hookups for only $10 a night. However the spots are tight, there are about 5 or 6 spots, paved, and a cute little area. If you are able to back into tight space easily, you may want to write this one in your “possible” book. 

We have enjoyed our time in this area and are thinking of perhaps coming this way in the fall. However, it is a long time until then. So far we like the convenience of this route, we avoid a number of cities, there is plenty of places to park over night, the rest areas are plentiful, the fuel stops are also plentiful and good access. So we will consider it for a good route in the fall.

The photos are just a few things on my phone.

Until next time…..

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

No blog, still at Countryside….

 

Our Location:

Countryside Campground, Gibson City, Illinois

No words tonight.

Until next time….

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

We met someone today that we almost already knew….

 

Our Location:

Countryside Campground, Hibson City, Illinois 

A fantastic night’s sleep, the window open just a crack, the fresh breeze adding a nip to the air. We spent a quiet morning at home just relaxing. Around 11:15 we climbed into the Dogsled and headed into Bloomington to meet a very nice young man that we have heard about many times. I’m sure you have guessed it would some connection to Doug and you would be correct. Today we met hi son Jim. It was like meeting fellow RV’ers that you’ve been hearing or reading about for a long time. It was comfortable.

Many wind turbines.

IL-9 was a bit rough, a bit windy, but the views were nice.

Jim and I agreed to meet at noon at his place of work. It truly wasn’t like meeting a stranger. We chatted for a while, conversation flowing easily. Jim has a hobby that involves solar projects and set ups. You can find Jim here to find out about his many tests and summaries on various items. Jim gifted us a 200 ah low temp lithium battery. We appreciate it very much and will get it in use over the summer. A very generous gift. Thanks again Jim. Soon we were heading off, waving goodbye as he went back to work and we headed home. I can’t believe we didn’t get a picture with Jim, it completely slipped my mind!

I think this one is starting to leak and it’s visible pre for a long distance.

Overcast skies and cooler temperatures are the order of the day today with rain I the evening, overnight and tomorrow. At least we will be parked and not on the road.

Until next time…..

Take care, stay safe,

Deb

Feet down for a few days…..

 

Our Location:

Countryside Campground, Gibson City, Illinois

We left later this morning as we didn’t have far to go, we even stopped to put in a little time so we wouldn’t arrive too early. The Walmart at Salem, IL was an okay stop but if we stayed again I would park against the back curb not in the lines. 

Effingham water tower and some very pretty blossoms.

We rolled out at 8:30 am heading back to I-57N. We stopped three times, 2 rest areas, which are nice and we would definitely consider them as an overnight stop in the future and we stopped once for fuel near Champaign. Diesel was $3.99 per gallon. That was the lowest price we’ve seen today. It is interesting how gasoline prices haven’t varied too much from deep in Texas to here but diesel is up at least $0.50 to almost $.100 per gallon.

Our first rest area stop.

Wide spots here.

Today’s travel was easy, the roads were very good, lots of places to stop and only 1 slowdown that lasted 15 minutes but we kept the tires rolling. We travelled 162 miles/261 km, we used about 11 gallons/42 litres of diesel, we travelled for approximately 4 hours, keeping our speed about 57 mph/92 km.  That puts us about 15 mpg. We like that.

Rest area #2

Time to cut the grass.

You can see with the door open, these spots aren’t as big as the 
other rest area

.

We travelled I-57N most of the way, with less than 20 miles on IL-9 and S. Sangamon before arriving at our current feet down location. We have discovered that not all of the inside plugs work. I have tested all GFI plugs, thrown all of the breakers, checked all of the fuses and have decided to wait until we get home and ask nephew Jason to look at it. Having an electrician in the family is a good thing.

This purple is everywhere in the fields.

IL-9 is a nice drive.

Until next time……

Take care, stay safe,

Deb