Sycamore, Illinois

Just after we had voted Wisconsin roads the worst we've experienced, we headed south from Madison, WI, into Illinois, having decided not to spend two nights in Madison as originally planned, owing to a couple of minor problems with the trailer we'd like to attend to at a dealership in Michigan, when we came upon the world's second largest construction project and traffic jam (second after the "big dig" in Boston). While Steve was successfully threading the trailer through a 10 mile stretch of 2-lane, bumper-to-bumper 60 mph traffic squeezed between Jersey barriers, I got confused and navigated us onto route 90, an east-west highway with very few exits, headed straight for Chicago. As the kids would say, "OMG!". Because it was nearing 6:00 PM, and we were tired, hungry, and not a little crabby, we exited at the first opportunity, headed southeast on a little country road, replete with Ron Paul signs in the front yards, and happened upon (thanks to the Good Sam RV club directory), a very nice RV park in the boondocks of northern Illinois. There are two large ponds here and lots of fisher-people. There are also license plates from Oklahoma and Texas and it seems as if people park here for the summer to escape the heat farther south. I'm sorry we can't stay longer!

A few new photos...we met our friend Joe, a Cal Lutheran professor, in Minneapolis where he is spending a semester working a little, writing, and trying to test out retirement. His wife, Sue, had just left for New York to get together with college friends, so we didn't get to see her, but it was nice to see Joe, get a tour of part of Minneapolis, and see where he and Sue will be living until after Christmas.

By the way, as I said yesterday, I couldn't get my phone to download pictures after Microsoft's latest update. But I was able to email them to myself and get them posted that way.

We had a long day, and are disappointed that we won't be seeing Madison, but our water pump is making some noises that are louder than normal, so we need to get it attended to. Thanks to the internet, we found a couple of dealers on our way and elected to motor on so that we will have 1/2 to 1 day to spend in a dealership.

My next task tonight, before falling exhausted into bed is to figure out where the hell we are and how we can get to Grand Rapids while avoiding Chicago. In addition, Illinois highways are toll roads and I have to find alternate routes or listen to Steve complain all day tomorrow. We spend about $100 a day in gas, so you'd think $3.25 in tolls would be barely noticable. I think road tolls are a principle with him. He has always fumed when we had to pay a bridge toll or a highway toll. Maybe he thinks that adequate roads are a function of good government and something that should be supplied without additional taxes. What a concept.