Sunday, August 1, 2010

Utica Illinois

Well today we officially started our journey. We had spent Saturday playing with the grandkids and getting a hug in every chance we could. Blake and Gage and I went swimming and grandma played life guard and watched us. We went to dinner with Mike and Cheryl and we were able to play with Emma for a little bit. Then it was time to go home and get the boys into bed. With hugs and kisses and a few tears we left Mikes house and went back to the campground and we got the boy’s and us to bed.

We got up early today and took the boys to IHOP for pancakes. Then we took them home to Dave and Beth’s. Yesterday was David’s 31st birthday and he and Beth went out and celebrated. We visited a little bit then we had to leave, so with more hugs and kisses and tears we said our goodbyes. Thank goodness that we have cell phones, e-mail and the internet or we probably could not live this lifestyle.

We made it back to the campground at about 10:30 this morning and started to break camp. We had met some very nice people while we were at Camp Timberlake and several of them stopped by to give hugs and wish us luck.  We finished packing and got on the road at about 1:00 pm. We traveled up 9 hwy to 30 hwy and then caught I-80 around Portage. We had a short section of toll road and getting the rig through the first gate was very tense. When I exited the toll road the gate was wider and I had no problem. Max was ahead of me on the bike and was able to tell me ahead of time which lane to get into. That helped alot.

We made it to Utica Illinois where we will spend the next two nights at Hickory Hollow campground.  When we leave on Tuesday we will only have about 80 miles to travel where we will spend about 8 days in Colona Illinois.

So for the rest of tonight and tomorrow we will check out this campground. We have a nice pull through with easy access to I-80.

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Now some people have tried to leave comments on the blog. So I will try to explain how.

If anyone has problems call me and I can try to walk you thru it.

First of all you need to have a google account. It is free so if you need one go to google.com and then click on the Gmail link. Then on the right side create a Gmail account. Yes this is an e-mail account but you do not have to use it, just the log in. And it is free.

After you have created a GMail account you can come back to the blog and click on comments at the bottom of the post

Then a comments box will open and you can leave a comment. You have to pick a comment as profile so click the down arrow and choose google account. Then click post comment. It should redirect you to the login screen for you to use your newly created Gmail account. Then it should bring you back to be able to finalize the post by typing in the security words. That it! Again if anyone has any problems let me know.

4 comments:

Chipster said...

Look at me! I am posting a comment! Wheeeeeeeeee!

Chipster said...

p.s. Chipster is Jeff Davis, btw

Unknown said...

hey i hope this works we are back home great trip
mangy moose

Unknown said...

Sounds like a great start. I would really enjoy visiting all the historical points like the canal. If we get to the Phoenix/Tucson area this winter, we'll give ya holler!