Doppelganger

For those of not familiar with the term, it loosely means someone that looks like you.  Here in Utica, Illinois we found ours.  On Friday evening a Red GMC crew cab pickup pulling a Jayco Eagle fifth wheel pulled into the space next to ours.  The fifth wheel is not the same model as ours, but close and the truck is not a dually, nor a Ford, but we will forgive them for that lapse in judgment.  A quick look at this arriving rig and you would think for sure it was us, and then to pull up in the space next to ours.

Here is our doppleganger with our rig in the foreground

We have been here in Utica, Illinois since Monday and it has been very hot and very humid.  We did take a nice hike one morning, while it was a little cooler, through one of the state parks nearby, but for the most part we stay in the trailer with both A/C’s going.

We did find a dentist in the area to complete our 6 month cleaning and checkup and I learned I need to replace a crown.  I don’t think I told the story on this crown issue.  While in Banff at the grocery store I bought a Greek salad to have for dinner.  Olives are included in the salad and I did not check beforehand to see if they were pitted.  Well they were not and I bit down hard on the olive with pit.  I immediately felt crunching and then more crunching until finally I expelled everything to see what happened.  I had cracked a crown so that one side of it came out.  Fortunately this tooth, with the crown, had a root canal so I felt no pain and there was no discomfort eating, so I decided to wait to have it checked.  The dentist looked at it and said I was at risk for having issues with the tooth next to it now that I had a large space between the two teeth and recommended I replace it.  Fortunately he is able to start the process before we leave this next week and then I will return on our way back from Tennessee in September.  That was an expensive Greek salad!

Home Sweet Home

Today we picked up the RV (our home) and drove to Utica, Illinois, which is near the Starved Rock State Park.  Fortunately our rig survived the powerful rain storms in the Chicago area over the weekend, however many parts of the RV storage yard were under about a foot of water.

Starved Rock is about an hour outside the Naperville/Lisle area where we were staying.  We enjoy the area and are much happier to be in our familiar living quarters.  The RV park is not the usual one we have stayed at when coming to the area as that one could not accommodate us for the the full 10 days.  This park is close by and is actually nicer and less expensive.  We should have stayed here in the past.

Here is a picture of our site

Our entertainment for the afternoon was an air show by a crop duster working the corn field next to the RV park.

Glad to be back in the RV!

Dude, where’s my trailer?

So we arrived here last Thursday and parked the trailer at our old storage yard about 20 miles away.  We are staying at an Extended Stay hotel as there were no RV parks nearby.   The hotel is OK, but not the best.  After living in our RV for 5 months now we have come to realize it is our HOME and we do miss it.  As we did not have that many activities planned for our second week here in the area we decided to get the RV and go to the Starved Rock State Park area, which is about 60 miles away.  It is a place we visited just about every year for the last 5 years and a place we enjoy. 

So, on Monday we pick up our HOME and go to Utica, Illinois for 10 days.  This still allows us to come back into the Naperville area to visit with friends and see the dentist (scheduled appointment).  In addition we have to hang around as we need a new power cord for our trailer (warranty item) that was ordered by our dealer.

It is clearly evident that we have become acclimated to the RV lifestyle. 

Full Circle–5 month update

We have been on the road for 5 months now and have come full circle as we have returned to where our home was prior to starting our “Life on the Road”.  We arrived in Lisle, Illinois today after dropping our trailer off at the storage yard in Big Rock where it was stored when we lived here.  There are no RV parks in the area so we opted for an extended stay hotel and to store the trailer.  We plan to stay in the Lisle area for close to 3 weeks before moving on to Ohio.

In the five months we have been out we have covered over 8,500 miles. 

Here is the updated route map

While here, besides visiting with family and friends, the to do list includes restocking the wine cellar, stocking up at Trader Joe’s, Costco and getting our Dunkin Donuts coffee.

BFF #2

You may remember a couple of months ago I did a positing about our friends in Idaho and how they allowed us to put our trailer in their front yard and stay there for a week.  They were BFF #1 since they were the first of our friends to invite us to stay, with our trailer, at their house.  Well, welcome the Mason’s, our friends in St. Paul, Minnesota who invited us to stop by their house for the night and park our trailer in their driveway.  They make second on the list, hence BFF #2.   We did not actually stay in our trailer at their house as they did have many available bedrooms, but we did plug the trailer in so we could set up the satellite to record our TV shows.

Here is our rig in their driveway.

We had a great time visiting with them and drinking some wine while enjoying their sun porch and good food. 

We have moved on from St. Paul and have stopped in Madison, Wisconsin for a couple of days before we head into the Chicago area for our visit with family and friends.

North Dakota Sightseeing

It rained our first full day in Bismarck so we (Fran) did laundry.  On Thursday it was nice so we went out exploring.  In our 1,000 places to see book they listed Fort Mandan/Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center as a place to see.  It was about 40 miles north of us so we took the drive.  The center was nice and informative, not a huge amount of exhibits but we learned that Fort Mandan was closed due to being sandbagged to avoid being flooded, although you could drive down to it.  We did drive down and saw that the entire building is surrounded by a wall of sandbags and dirt and that the parking lot is still under a few feet of water.  The fort is very near the Missouri River which is at flood stage.  Here are some pictures I took.

This is the Interpretative Center

View from the center

The Fort Mandan center is behind the sandbags and the that is the parking lot in front of the sandbags.

This is the parking lot

This is the loop drive in front of the Fort Mandan center.  The Missouri River is right at the edge of this road when it should be yards further out.

We left Bismarck on Friday and are staying the weekend in Garfield, MN.  Sort of out in the middle of nowhere, but a nice, quiet campground.

Check Another State Off

In my family it has been a goal of ours to have traveled to all 50 states in our lifetime.  We each have been keeping track of how many states we have visited and what remains.  Because of our many trips over the years with our RV’s, each of us has a fairly high number.  Add my business trips into the mix and I have almost made it.  North Dakota was one of four states left on my list.  I only have Vermont, Delaware and Hawaii left on my list.  Most people tell me that most likely I traveled through Delaware and was not aware of it, but if I don’t remember it I am not counting it.

Off the 47 states I have visited, 31 of those have been in one of our RV’s, so I guess with our “Life on the Road” our new goal is to visit all in our RV (except Hawaii).  The remaining RV states would be all east coast and the far south. 

Bismarck, North Dakota

We have left Glasgow, Montana and moved on to Bismarck, North Dakota.  Sorry for no postings the last few days but there was really nothing to write about.  Glasgow was fairly boring and we did not do much as we did not want to venture outside due to gnats and mosquitos.  The area had been hit with flooding prior to our arrival so the insect population is high!

We did drive out to the Fort Peck dam, which is a very long earthen dam and a huge lake.  Here is a view from the dam.

We took a drive up a nearby highway that leads into Canada just to see what was there.  The only interesting place on this drive was St. Marie, Montana.  This is a town that looks like something out of the 50’s.  It is pretty much deserted as it was an old Air Force base.  All the buildings look like military housing but are boarded up, burned down, etc.  Many streets are blocked off and there are signs everywhere indicating the town is under video surveillance and you are not to trespass in blocked off areas.  It all looked so secret.  The old airport has a high chain link fence with barbed wired atop it.  I did an internet search and learned that it was the Glasgow Air Force base but then was taken over by Boeing who used it for airplane testing (secret planes I think!).  Best I can tell it is still owned by Boeing but it does not look like they are using it.

We are here in Bismarck until Friday then will move into Minnesota for the weekend.