Summer Travel Map

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Wrapping up the Illinois stop

August 5, 2010
Pere Marquette State Park, Grafton, IL

Yesterday was a day of chores and reflection. Geri made dog food, and I filled up the fresh water tank, running three hoses across several sites (empty sites during the week, although the reservations are almost full already for next weekend) to get to a water spigot. Before putting everything away, I changed the sediment filter on the water softener.

After all that work, we cleaned up and spent most of the rest of the day relaxing. We did start getting some "tank odor" inside, so I tracked that down to the trap by the washer/dryer and did a little sealing there (we're not using it since we're partially "dry camping", but a dry trap will cause issues). We have concluded that we can survive without water and sewer hookups for a week if we have to, but we really suffer when we don't have an Internet connection. When I booked this park, I did check it out on Google Earth and it looked fairly open. That means that the images were old, or from fall/winter/spring, or both. Since we also have the ability to turn on 'Net access via our phones when needed, I didn't worry too much about access. If I'd known that we'd have no satellite access and no phone service to speak of, I'd have shortened our stay considerably.

We did have a nice surprise in the afternoon, as Michael and Susan drove over after work and brought two humongous NY Strip Steaks for dinner. Geri whipped up Fried Potatoes and Haricots Verts, and we ate well, as usual.

We started getting some clouds late in the evening and I heard some thunder during the night, but today is sunny (so far). The Weather Channel (yes, we have TV from the dome on the front of the coach - thank goodness!) shows strong storms to our east and south, so it looks like we dodged a weather bullet. It seems a little cooler (make that less hot), but I'm not thinking that will last. We'll do some of our departure preparation today and be ready to head out in the morning.

We decided to make a quick trip to Edwardsville to the grocery, so I was able to snag a Wi-Fi connection for posting and email, but unfortunately, I decided not to bring Geri's mouse.  We've now realized that we (I) disabled her trackpad because she doesn't like it, but there's no way to activate it without having her external mouse connected. Arrgh!  At least we should have satellite and/or Park Wi-Fi tomorrow!

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