Sunday, May 11, 2003
Opossum Creek COE Campground, Shelbyville, IL - May 5-11
We have planned a visit to see our friends Carole & Delbert Ulmer, whom we first met at Pioneer RV Park in Port Aransas, TX, in 2000. We share a love of card-playing (bridge foremost but lots of variety too), sightseeing and interesting conversations. The campground is quite nice and convenient to their house. It will be much more appealing when we can get the half-price Golden Age discount in ONLY 3 months!!
It is a good thing that we have had good companionship and indoor entertainment. The weather has not been at all wonderful, ranging from violent thunderstorms, tornado watches, flash flooding, to hot & muggy days when it wasn't raining. Now, with the (hopefully) last of the fronts through for a while, it is cool (under 60) and quite breezy. We very much appreciate the emails from many of you asking if we were all right -- our only mishap was a tree limb that landed on our roof and did not seem to cause any damage.
While here we have visited the Amish communities near Arthur, IL. These include many interesting areas where the Old Amish still maintain their non-electrified way of life. It is nice to see the lovely farms and the horse-and-buggies driving along the roads. The crafts are lovely and reasonably priced (especially compared to the Anabaptist items we saw in Texas), not that we're buying!!
We also visited Lincoln's New Salem, located near Springfield, which is a reconstruction of the village where Abraham Lincoln spent his early adulthood. Lincoln spent 6 years in New Salem, starting out as a young man with no objectives in life and departing as a man with a career in law and statesmanship. He clerked in a store, split rails, enlisted in the Black Hawk War, served as postmaster & deputy surveyor, failed in business, and was elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1834 & 1836, after an unsuccessful try in 1832. He then moved to Springfield to practice law. The buildings here were all reconstructed on their original sites, with a lot of the work was done by (surprise!!) the CCC in the early 1930s.
We have visited many interesting sites around Shelbyville, state parks on both sides of Lake Shelbyville, walked through one of IL's five remaining covered bridges near Cowden, and seen acres & acres of lovely rich farmland, with new corn just sprouting.People often ask us how we find so many interesting places to visit along the way. It is more like the interesting places find us. Everywhere we look, there are wonders to see. This is an amazing country, full of things to fascinate people interested in anything. Our biggest problem is finding TOO MUCH to see so that we don't have enough time to just relax. Local residents, chambers of commerce, visitor centers, tourist guide books -- all are helpful sources to find out what the features of an area are and to plan for the next stop. The cats would certainly be happy if we found less to see & do and spent more time offering them laps for naps!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 5:05 PM 
