Knoxville, IA to Champaign, IL
There are some beautiful homes in Fairfield, Iowa, including this 1896 mansion.
A quick run across Illinois in the rain. The plan was to camp at Turkey Run State Park, just across the border in Indiana, but the non-stop rain forced a change of plans.
On the plus side, an earlier stop gave me time to catch some playoff hockey on ESPN.
En route to Pittsburgh, we stopped last night at The Packing House in Galesburg, IL for dinner. Great food, and incredible atmosphere in the old Swift Packing House. Above is a pic from its heyday circa 1906.
We hit Pittsburgh today around 4pm. Trying to make a USCHO live broadcast, we walked down a rather rough 5th Ave to the area around the arena. The feed was a bit of a letdown, since there were approximately 5 other people in the bar, and it was hard to tell if they were hockey fans or not.
We had only one beer, ran the gauntlet back to the hotel, then took the van to Church Brew Works on Liberty. What a phenomenally cool brewery! The old church, built in 1903, was converted to a brewpub/dining hall in 1999. The beer was great, food decent, and the building was wonderfully eccentric.
Hockey tomorrow.
I’ve been out there in the 80+ degree Iowan air working on The Rover. All fluids have been checked and topped off. Bolts have been tightened, lights all seem to be working properly (other than my high-beams) and the gas tank is full.
All camping gear has been properly re-stowed, and The Rover is as ready as it will ever be for the hot temps that we will be driving through to get to San Antonio. Des Moines is calling for 93 degrees tomorrow, and it will only warm up from there as we travel south. This will be a good test of the auxillary fan I installed in front of the radiator.
As I worked on and repacked The Rover, I’ve been streaming The Whip out of Farmer City, Illinois and listening to some damn good Blues. Thanks to Larry for the tip and introduction.
We stopped late Thursday night north of Le Roy, IL at Moraine View State Park. We set up camp in the dark and awoke the next morning surprised to see a lake right by our tent site. At one point we had three hen turkeys run in front of our tents followed shortly after by two toms.
