Illinois - Days 22 - 25 - Central Illinois

Driving through Central Illinois
Sunday the 22nd through Wednesday the 25th of September, 2019


Route Maps:

route on Sunday the 22nd to Peoria

route on Monday the 23rd to Bloomington area

route on Wednesday the 25th through Bloomington and Champaign

The Campgrounds:
* Carl Spindler Marina and Campground - This is just what the name suggests - a city-owned boat ramp, a small marina, and a campground with a lot of seasonal campers.  Weird little place, but they charged me only $27 for a full hookup site, and I had places to walk the dogs.  It's smack on the Illinois River on the East Peoria side; Peoria itself was right across the river.

* Kamp Komfort - [Why, oh why do people think this spelling attracts campers to stay with them?  KOA (Kampgrounds of America) is bad enough, but in this case both words originally started with c, so it's not like they changed one of them to match the other.  It really makes this former English teach gag and I'd have avoided this place if I could.]  Despite my whining, this is a komfortable kampground, all sites are level, full hookups, and pull-throughs, they have wifi (which is why I was staying there), lots of trees.  There was a fair amount of noise, because I-74 was separated from my campsite only by a hedge and a dozen yards of grass.  But it'd been several nights since I had an internet connection, so I stayed there an extra night to catch up.  A nice feature was what looked like a butterfly migration with the campground as a stopover.

The second day there, I was walking the dogs down the just-barely-2-lane farm road in front of the campground, and when any vehicles came along I pulled us all off the road onto the grass so people didn't have to worry about hitting the dogs.  One time when we did that, the car slowed and stopped and a grizzled older man looked at us and said, "God bless you and your dogs."  And drove on down the road.

* Lincoln Trail State Park - This is a very nice state park with large campsites and plenty of trees.  It has 2 campgrounds, one of which is on a lake; I decided on the other one and, as I expected, found it to be mostly empty.  The campground hosts were helpful, and the state charges only $20/night for an electric hookup site.  It's called Lincoln Trail because it's near the route his family took when they moved from Indiana to Illinois (this state plays up its connection to Lincoln for every ounce they can squeeze out of it).

Comments Along the Road:
I visited 3 cities and a town during these 3 days, and I'll do separate posts on them.  This post is mostly just how we went from Springfield north through central Illinois over to the Ohio River Road in the east.

I heard on the radio this morning that flooding from Hurricane Imelda is so bad in southeast Texas that 80% of the small town of Winnie is underwater.  Winnie, population 3,200, is near Beaumont just off I-10.  It is not a wealthy town.  Its residents are going to have tough times ahead.

Much of my route over the next couple of days lies along Historic Route 66.

I've been seeing a lot of chilli parlors lately.  Note the spelling - it's deliberate.  That's how they spell it here in Illinois.  In 1993, the state legislature proclaimed Springfield the Chilli Capital of the Civilized World, which shows a sense of humor I think.  Apparently they make chilli here with ground beef and pinto beans - good for family dinners but not the real thing.

I passed a hawk sitting on a fence post, and what's unusual about that is the post was only about 4' high, or maybe less.  I've only ever seen them sitting up much higher than that.

I got stuck for a while behind a huge truck full to the brim with fresh green beans.  After staring at them for a while, I was ready to stop him and ask for a handful.

Not far south of Peoria is the small town of Eureka where there's a highway sign saying: "Eureka College - Home of Pres. Ronald Reagan."  So of course I looked it up and learned that no president has graduated from a school this small.  They had about 550 students in 2018, so you can imagine how small it was when Reagan graduated in 1932.

Trumpeter Swan

Tundra Swan

I saw 3 swans in a pond south of Peoria.  The bird book says none of the swan species are in this part of Illinois at any time.  But Tundra Swans pass north of here during spring and fall migration, and Trumpeter Swans have been reintroduced into Wisconsin and a couple of pockets of them winter in other parts of central Illinois.  So these birds might be strays from either group, I suppose - it's hard to tell them apart from a distance (you need binoculars to see the yellow on the Tundra Swan's eyes, not a speeding vehicle).

Between Peoria and Louistown, I was following the Illinois River Road for quite a way without ever once seeing the river, even from a distance.  Illinois is pretty casual about how they designate their various "river roads."

I think I've said before that Illinois isn't much for recycling, and I learned this once again when I had trouble finding public recycling bins.  I finally tracked some down outside a Walmart in Normal, the city next to Bloomington, but it was hard to find them.

I passed what looked like a drug dog at work along the highway.  A cop had a car pulled over and his dog outside jumping around like crazy and veering into the traffic lane.  I just hoped all the cars behind me obeyed the law that says to change lanes when emergency lights are flashing.

I passed some Burma-shave type signs that said: Gun free zones/Arn't [sic] violence free/I'd rather have/A gun with me/gunssavelives.com

Remember how I said the other day that I'd passed the Kaskaskia River and was surprised to find that it was dry?  Well, today I passed a highway sign saying that was the site of the origin of the Kaskaskia River, and here too there was no sign of water - unless you count the surrounding cornfield as a sign of water.

South of Champaign I saw a highway sign that said it was 372 miles from there to Memphis.  I found this a little disorienting because it felt like I was in the middle of Illinois.  I guess 372 miles isn't all that close (wonder why the sign was even here), but Tennessee is 2 states away so I didn't expect such a sign.

And I saw another sign saying, "Welcome to Amish Country Illinois."  I turned off the road from there so didn't go into that area, but apparently there's a community of Amish in eastern Illinois.

I seem to keep crossing the Embarras River; I notice it mainly because the name makes me think of embarrass, and I keep wondering why they'd name a river that.  But it turns out "embarras" is a French term that means a river blockage or obstruction, which makes sense, with the name coming from early French explorers.  Apparently there's some whitewater boating along the river, which would suggest obstructions.

I passed an odd set of Burma-shave type signs that said, I think: "Our state/Our symbol/The Chief/honorthechief.com.  So I looked it up and I'm glad I did.  I've wondered for years where the term "Fighting Illini" came from, and this link  http://honorthechief.org/history explains not only that, but also where the name "Illinois" comes from.  And of course, what this "honor the Chief" stuff is about.  Interesting.

I was picking up an Indiana NPR station and heard farming news, including the prices on crop futures.  I keep forgetting that farmers are also business owners and care quite a bit about stock market information.  Today I heard things like the October price of soybeans, corn and lean hogs.

Speaking of soybeans, I FINALLY found out about that green crop.  Kris's guess was right - they're soybeans.  That campground I stayed in near Bloomington was surrounded by crop fields, and when I walked the dogs in the area I got a really good look at that low-growing green crop I've seen so much of in the last 4 states.

The photo on the left is off the internet, but that's exactly what I saw in those crop fields.  Soybeans.

And that means to me that there are likely a lot of very worried farmers in the Midwest right now, because they've got so many acres planted with this crop and the president's trade war with China, their biggest market, is showing no signs at all of abating.

Paris, IL, established 1823, looks much smaller than its 8,800 residents would suggest.  It was actually larger in 1940 than it is now, as has happened so often to these now-rural towns.  Despite its small population, it has several manufacturing plants: e.g. AeroGen-Tek (metal fabricators, $35,000,000 annual revenue), North American Lighting (the leading supplier of vehicle lights), so I guess unemployment's low around here.  Don't know why the town doesn't look more prosperous.

Marshall boasts the World's Largest Wooden Gavel.  I couldn't find an uncopyrighted photo online so you can see it at this website.  https://www.roadsideamerica.com/

Marshall was also the location (1950-1964) for the Handy Writers' Colony, founded by Lowney Turner Handy, her husband Harry Handy, and the successful novelist James Jones (From Here to Eternity, Some Came Running).  The driving force and primary teacher was apparently Lowney, who is variously characterized as "quirky" and "erratic."  But several writers were published as a result of their stay there.  I know about this because there's a huge mural about it downtown, but I didn't think to take a photo and there's not an uncopyrighted version online.