Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Spring Lake State Fish & Wildlife Area, Manito, IL - May 12-20
We chose this location to be near Willie's sister, Cathy, and her husband, John, who live in Morton (near Peoria). It is a lovely primitive area with large grassy sites, most of which are separated by wooded areas. We were unable to see our neighbors, which we only had during the weekend. The rest of the time we had the CG to ourselves. Our only complaint was that we could have used a bit more sun to keep the solar panels charged.
We spent almost all our time here visiting family so sightseeing was kept to a minimum. We did take a nice drive to the Sand Ridge State Forest, another lovely primitive camping area, and the Chatauqua Natl Wildlife Refuge located at several spots along the Illinois River. The drive to Cathy & John's house was about 28 miles and there were various routes to choose from, so we got some sightseeing in that way, too. The optimal way (not counting the way with the missing bridge, which would have saved us about 5 miles) took us right past the Pekin Social Security office, where Willie was able to file for SS in person (after pulling all the forms from the internet at Cathy & John's house). It's nice to have that bureaucratic task over with!
While here we were able to visit several times with Willie's niece, Jennifer, her husband, Ralph, and their 3 children, Devin (6), Christian (3) and Sophia (1). We were able to visit them at their home in Heyworth (about 30 miles south of Bloomington). We were actually brave enough to invite them all out to the trailer one Saturday and a good time was had by all (except maybe for the cats -- they are still giving us suspicious looks!). We took a pleasant 2-mile hike and spent a lot of time at the nice playground.We also met Willie's nephew, Mike, and his wife, Kim, who live in Rock Island (one of the Quad Cities), at the centrally located town of Galesburg for a late breakfast on Sunday. We strolled through the historic part of Galesburg together and spontaneously decided to see the matinee of "X-Men 2" (our first movie since Dec).
We had a wonderful time visiting with Cathy & John. We were there almost every day and enjoyed many delicious meals together.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 5:08 PM 
