bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- The Fairgrounds needed to use the free room that they had given to the Escapees Chapter 51, so this morning we had muffins at the tent that the Wagon Masters had set up. We took our decaf and wandered over to visit with everyone.

After the gettogether, we went to Menards for a couple of items. I had asked Bob to move the two ‘sticks’, that he uses to put up our front shades, to under the rig. He needed clips to hang them on the inside of the basement door. Also he needed new pipe insulation to cover the windshield wipers. We stopped at the Titus Bakery. They were more of a deli and doughnut shop. OMG, they were the BEST doughnuts we have ever had! We were told they were very good, but they were DELICOUS! Nice and fresh! I had a chocolate covered Bismarck and Bob had the Black Forest. Yummy!

We returned to the fairgrounds. We picked up pulled pork sandwiches for lunch. We split a sandwich. Bob then went to the Classic Car Show and I took a nap with the dogs. See Bob’s FB page for car pictures. There were also these antique tractors and there was an antique bottle show and antique bike show. In addition, this weekend there was a dog show.

Bob returned in time to go to the pot luck dinner at 4:30. This time it was heavy hors d’oeuvres. So we baked our Tyson Any’tizers Tequila Lime Wings, then placed them in the crock pot to keep them warm. They were a hit, and we had none left. We were upset that the second bag had only 7 wings in the bag,

The 1st bag had 10 wings, which still did not seem to be enough. The bag says the weight is 22 oz.. The weight of the 7 wings was 15 oz.  We weighed them on our kitchen scale. I will be calling to complain.

After the dinner, we went to the arena for a concert at 6 PM. The Wright Brothers were the band. They were okay, but the the seats were uncomfortable and we could not understand anything they said.

We left around 7, and went to the campfire.

Sunday- We went over to the “hitch-up doughnuts and coffee” at  a little past 8. We said good-bye to our new and old friends.  We were not going to leave very early, because the check in time at the RV resort was 2 PM. Bob checked the radar and there was a big storm coming thru, so we decided to take off and get settled before the storm. We were only traveling 33 miles.

The people behind us stopped by to say they were disconnecting the water for a minute, and wanted us to know. We were all sharing a single water spigot. We said okay.

When Bob went to disconnect us, a few minutes later, he found their coffee cup ( a nice metal thermos cup) and our brass Y fitting gone. So I walked over to the dump station, and they were still there. I gave them their cup and asked for our fitting. Bob was with me, walking with the dogs. The gal swore that it was their fitting. We said, okay, some one else must have taken it. When we walked away, Bob said he knew it was our fitting, but he was not going to make a big deal out of it. So later in the afternoon, we went to Menards and purchased a new one. They only cost about $7.

I took the dogs in the car and Bob drove the rig. We drove south, watching the sky. We arrived at Lake Haven RV Resort, to find that the office was closed. They had an envelope in their mail box for us. We drove the car over to check the site, and it was empty, so we drove into our site and set up. We ate the left over pulled pork sandwich from yesterday and waited for the storm to hit. It clouded over and the storm dissipated!

Bob went to the laundry and washed the sheets and towels and I started many loads of laundry in the rig, since we had FHU 50 amp. We were staying for 2 nights. $39 each night with a Good Sam discount.

We went to the Metro Diner for dinner.

Monday- We left around 9:30 to go to the Indiana State Capitol for the tour. So far, all the Capitol tours have been free.

 

Above is the floor in the rotunda, below is the ceiling.

Below, is an enemy of the beer drinkers! This lady was head of the National and International Temperance League!

Below is the Governors Office. He does not leave anything on his desk. The desk is made from wood from the USS Indiana. Below is a replica of the ship, which was in the office.

Here is the very nice, and large, conference table.

This little sign was on the desk.

Below is the office ceiling.

As soon as we stepped into the office, we noticed the difference in the carpet. It was much thicker. Another interesting fact, was that all the chairs at the conference table were the same. Most of the Governor’s offices, that we have visited, the Governor has a much nicer chair than everyone else. The current Governor was elected, not appointed, when VP Mike Pence left.

Outside the office, was this working phone booth.

Our guide says that he asks kids what they think this is…they don’t know and answer with strange answers… one kid thought is was a coffin.

On the second floor, there are 4 of them, but they do not have the real working phone in them. They are used by the legislators for a quiet place to talk on their cellphones.

Our guide took us to the Treasurer’s office to show us the safe’s. Below is the outer door.

Notice that there is an inner door. Then inside, there were two safe’s. Here is the first one. Note, it has another safe inside of it in the lower left corner.

This is the other safe in the room. The tour guide had us try to open and close the door. It was extremely heavy and I had to put all my weight into it, to just make it move. We could not close it all the way, as they don’t know how to re-open the safe!

Above is the mural in the house. We were able to sit in the chairs, which were very comfortable.

The light above was the chandelier in the House. Each light represents one of the House members.

Above is the Senate. These seats were even more comfortable. Note the I pads that they use for voting.

Above was one of the Senators cubicles. They do not have offices, they each have a cubical that they use to work at during the session. Obviously, this takes up less room. Indiana is one of only a few states that has all of their government, still in one building.

Below is the Supreme Court.

Above are the stain glass windows. There were a lot of “Justice” related decorations in the room. This is the original room used for the Supreme Court with the updates identical to the original. Below are the original chairs, still in use, since the beginning of their court.

These are the Justices. Note in the middle is a woman. She is the Chief Justice. She is the second woman to hold this post. The first was an African American woman in the 80’s. Below is the Capitol building.

We left and went to lunch at the City Market. The City Market is a food court, we had visited before. I had the crepe and Bob had a tamale. Both were delicious. I asked where to go to find the Catacombs tour. The owner of the crepe booth stated that they only do tours on specific days and only by appointment made 2 days in advance.

So we walked over to the Taproom. Bob had trouble deciding which of the beers he wanted to drink. There are 70 beers on tap. He finally decided, after trying several samples, on a Bohemian Porter.

After, we walked over to Below Zero Ice Cream, where they freeze the ice cream in front of you with Nitrogen. I had the same flavors as last time we were there, cream, brownie batter, and brownie bits. Bob changed to cream, cherry flavor and maraschino cherry. Both were very good. I looked them up and they are in a number of locations, so we will keep an eye out for them.

We returned to the rig. We ate dinner and Bob took the car to Costco to load up with gas. The gas everywhere had increased to $2.69. It was still $2.30 at Costco. We took the dogs, when it cooled down, to the dog park. Koda and Roxie had a great time running around, chasing the ball until they both plopped down in the shade, saying, that was enough!

Tuesday- We left around 9:30, driving the rig north about 11 miles to I-72. We traveled to Illinois. We stopped at a Philips 66, parked the rig and ate lunch. All the rest areas were closed in both Indiana and Illinois. That is very disappointing!

We turned south and arrived at the State Fairgrounds in Springfield Illinois This is our third time here. So Bob parked the rig near where we want to stay and I walked up the hill to the office. I paid the $60 for three nights, and the Camp Host took me in the golf cart back to the rig. We parked in a site, FHU, 50 amp.

We had to run to an RV dealership to pick up a new sewer hose. Ours had broken. we ran past a park that had a dog park, to look at the bark park. It was way in the back of the park, so we could not see it very well.  We returned and ate left overs for dinner.

Wednesday-  We went to the Illinois State House to take the tour. This state capitol has tours are every half hour. We arrived at the Visitor Center.There was no parking in the parking lot. So we parked in the bus parking ( there were about 20 empty parking spots) and went into the Visitor Center. I asked the gal if it was okay to park there… she said no, we would get a ticket. It turns out, the employee parking lot was being repaired and was closed. So all the employees were parking in the visitor lot, which was also not allowed. They were not given tickets.

The Visitor Center gal gave us permission to park in her spot for as long as we needed. We gladly accepted and profusely thanked her! We parked and hustled over to the capitol to make the 10:30  AM tour.

There was a problem with them deciding who was next up to be the guide. The guy was under enthused with being our guide. Oh well…

Below is the seal of the State of Illinois.

He took us straight to the House, pictured below. We did not get to go downstairs to actually sit in the chairs. Note the big screens on both sides. There is the list of the House members names. When the voting occurs, via the boxes on the desks, their vote is seen on the screen. It is also streamed live on the internet. A few minutes later, the room filled with grade school kids on a field trip, which was the reason we were upstairs.

When they updated the room, they put in an electrical system to lower the chandeliers for cleaning one time a year.

Above is the Senate. If you look on the right and left in the back, you can see some box seats, on the floor level. These are for the press. In front are some benches, where the Interns sit. The Dems are on the left and the Rep on the right, in both the House and the Senate.

These lights do not drop electrically for cleaning. They have to be cranked, 1000 turns, to get it down to be cleaned one time a year. Then 1000 cranks to get it back up. Glad I don’t have that job!!

We went down the steps, to the second floor. Here is the rotunda.

Below is a mural on the main floor. It took a year to paint.

The statue below is of Lincoln. It is full size. He was 6’5”.

Near him, was Steven Douglas. He was 5’4”.

Above is the former Supreme Court Room. The Illinois Supreme Court outgrew the main building and they are now residing in their own building. This room is now used for hearings. Note the uncomfortable chairs…

The ceiling and walls are still decorated with a judicial theme.

Well, remember the grade school kids? They were in the governor’s office. Our guide left us at the door. We waited until the kids left and walked in. We looked around. It turns out, the people on the regular tour do not get to go into the office. The intern who was there, was very nice to us. He gave us a tootsie roll, like the kids were given, and let us wander around.

The intern said that the office is mostly ceremonial. The work is done to the right of the desk, in a back area.  But the governor’s bathroom was to the left of the desk. When we left the office, it was closed off with a rope, and no one else could enter.

Below is a statue, at the end of the steps down. They are reproductions. The legislature, when the building was built, thought the statues were too ‘risqué”. The architect already had the contract for the State House in Iowa, so he just moved the original statues to that building. The Iowa Capitol is designed very similar to the Illinois Capitol. We will be touring it next week. 

This is the design on the railing around the second floor of the Rotunda. We thought it was very Game of Thrones….

Below is the statue in the center of the Rotunda, on the main floor.

Outside, there were two statues. This first one is the memorial to the Police.

The second is the Firefighter memorial.

We left and returned to the car. On the way, we stopped to look at this statue of a deer.

We ran into a Farmers Market. We parked and walked thru. There were only about 10 vendors. We purchased two ears of corn. We were not impressed with the corn when we ate it. Michigan and Indiana corn is much better than what we were finding now…

We parked under the Old Courthouse, and went to lunch at the Long Nine Junction restaurant. The Long Nine had great ratings on Yelp. We gave it five stars. Bob had the grilled cheese. I had the pork BBQ with peach BBQ sauce, over their version of mac ‘n, cheese. Wow, were they good. To top it off, they had the Great Lakes Cherry BBQ chips. We purchased two bags, which we took home with us.

We left and returned to the rig. We ate dinner at home and had a quiet evening.

Thursday- We had a busy day. We went to Walmart for groceries and Steak ‘n Shake for lunch. We took a nice nap in the afternoon. After our nap, we went to the Illinois State Farmers Market, which is held in the Fairgrounds every day from 4 to 8.

We purchased a few items and returned home. We had leftovers for dinner.

Friday- We went to leave and we could not get the car brake to work when connected to the rig. So we finally gave up. We moved the dogs into the car with me, and I followed Bob for the day.

We drove to Davenport IA. We parked at West Lake City Park. This park does not accept reservations. When we arrived, there was a sign on the door, that they were in a meeting, just go ahead and park. Come back later to pay…so we parked in site 63, FHU 50 Amp. $25. What a beautiful park. It was awesome, with asphalt sites, lots of grass between the sites and behind the sites. We had a beautiful picnic table and fire ring.

We left and went to Whitey’s Ice Cream. Now we know how they have been in business since 1933. Awesome ice cream!

I have had a cough, with upper lung lobes congestion, for 3 days now. So we found an Urgent Care for me, that is in our insurance plan. We arrived to find that it might be a 2 hour wait. So we sat and read on our phones. At a little over an hour they called me in. I was not terribly impressed with the Doctor, but she did write a prescription for Prednisone, which is what I knew I needed. It is my Asthma acting up. I am allergic to something, as I keep having hives and my eyes are really itchy.

We dropped off the prescription at Walgreens, then we went to Biers Stube, German Restaurant. We just picked up carry-out. We returned to Walgreens and picked up the medication, and returned home.

We ate our dinner and Bob worked on the rig. When he had tried to hook up the car to be towed, he had noticed that his bike was lower than it should be…he found that the seat was almost off. There was a piece missing, so he had to repair that. I sat out reading, with the dogs and doing laundry.

Bob also worked on the hitch for the car, and now it works.

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