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Day 5
Wednesday, July 12, 2000
During the night we discovered why the campground was virtually deserted
and only charged $4. Seems that there's a set of train tracks about 50 yards
from where we were parked. And, not only do trains come by in the middle of the
night, they come by frequently and, because there's a crossing, they blow
their train horns very loudly.
In other words, about once an hour, this loud screaming sound comes, following
by what sounds like a tornado for a couple of minutes. It doesn't make for a
nice, peaceful sleep.
Beware campsites that are next to railway tracks (campsites to the right)
A picturesque view from Bulger's Hollow campground of the Mississippi
So, we stumble into wakefulness and get things organized. Robert tries out the
RV shower. It works pretty good, but it's hard to wash your feet (which are well
coated with Mississippi mud), because there's not really enough room to bend
your legs. We head out along the Mississippi, through Clinton (the city, not the
President) and along the river for a while. Then, because we want to reach
Peoria sometime today, we head for the Interstate.
Laura gets ready to take over the helm
Since the freeway is relatively straight with lots of room, Laura takes over the
helm of the SS Creaks and Groans and navigates her down the great
Interstate 74. Meanwhile, Robert tries out all the stuff in the back of the RV
("Look, I'm making a sandwhich!" "Look, I'm going to the
bath--whoops!") and takes a quick nap in the bed ("Look! I'm
sleeping!").
Rolling fields of corn in Illinois
We saw a lot of rolling fields of corn...
We secure a camping spot just outside of Peoria at the Jubilee College State
Park (which costs $11). We checked very carefully for train tracks, but there
were none. We get electricity (Air Conditioning!) but no water (we have an
onboard tank, so we're okay for a couple of days without fresh water).
There's a total of half a dozen folks in the 170 or so spaces. We can hardly
wait to find out why....
Ranger Rick (the resident Guy Who Supervises the Camping Grounds and lives in
his own RV at the site) told us that his wife had won a ribbon for a shirt she
made at the local fair, which made us even more excited to see the place! What
kind of shirt would Mrs. Ranger Rick make? How does a shirt win a prize?
So we mount up and head off to find the Peoria
County fair, and boy did we get lost! We crossed Peoria twice, and
finally found the sign that directed us to the Fairgrounds, where, sure enough,
there was a fair! (Which we thought was the Peoria County fair!)
The "Heart of Illinois" fair, not to be confused with the
Marshall-Putnam County Fair
One of the fabulous trucks that will be appearing later in the fair in a truck
pull (which, sadly, we didn't stay for).
Sheep were judged, ribbons were awarded, and we have no idea why they picked
these sheep (they were the sheepiest?)
We think this might be Ranger Rick's wife (who made the shirt), although now
we're not so sure...were we even at the right fair?
Laura says this dollhouse is made completely out of "plastic canvas
yarn," which is apparently like building a model airplane out of jelly
beans. But she said they did a very nice job.
Sleeping Beauty is probably sulking because she doesn't have a plastic canvas
TV set.
This amazingly tacky wedding cake looks like it's woven out of fabic.
A closeup of the "Basket Wedding Cake" (we wonder if you have to be
a basket case to order one of these)
Laura says this is a Victorian sewing case, done with cross-stitch and
bargello (which is not at all like Jello). In the center is a pin cushion, and
when you pick it up, the pyramid closes at the top. Pretty cool.
Wouldn't this be a fabulous cake at your wedding? Notice that the bride
and groom are near the bottom of the heap.
And in the center is a working fountain!
Even though this won second place, we don't think it looks very appetizing.
Guess you want to see the food winners in the first couple of days of a fair,
huh?
Laura gazes enviously on the first place winner of the Table Decorating
contest.
This entry was in the "Beany Baby" category. If you look carefully,
you can see two tiny Beany Babies on either side of the flowers. Eat your
heart out, Martha Stewart!
The title of this piece entered in the Show Us Your Photographs exhibit was
"Bad Food?"
A picture of the St. Louis arch, which we'll be seeing in person in a few days
This "collection" of cookbooks won first place...
We don't know how it beat out this Tweety Bird collection
Or this "hats with ears" collection (antlers with ears?)
Or this fabulous collection of trolls (with carefully combed hair)
We thought this was very cool. We want one. It was done by Josh Addison
or maybe Atkinson--something like that (we were so stunned by the art...)
Side view, same piece
Back (front?) of the same piece
This sailing ship model also impressed the judges (note the ribbon)
Some kind of weird bird with an attitude
A bird with a weird tail
Laura in front of a tractor that her Dad would like to own
A tractor that Robert would like to own
This guy was making brooms by hand!
And he was pretty good at it.
This demonstrated something about tractors, somehow
Then we figured it out--it wasn't a tractor party, it was a lynch party! And
guess who the guest of honor was?
A camel in Illinois
An emu in Illinois
Some kind of weird, scary piece of farm equipment (our best guess is it has
something to do with corn--what else?)
After we left the fair, we stumbled around until we found a used book store, so
we could stock up on reading material. Then we went to a steakhouse to have us a
steak (which is what the mid-West is really good at).
Sitting down at dinner, we discovered that what we thought was the
Marshall-Putnam County Fair wasn't. It was some competing Fair (competing Fair?
it didn't make sense to us). Whoops. We went to the wrong Fair! It sounds
like an insult ("You're so stupid, you couldn't find a county Fair in
Illinois!"). Oh well, at least it was a fair Fair.
Laura tries to put a good face on going to the wrong fair
Robert puts a demented face on going to the wrong fair
(Update to the "Wrong Fair" issue. We figured out
later that the Fair we were looking for wasn't actually in Peoria. It was
about 50 miles outside of Peoria. So if we had tried to get to the real
Fair, we would never have made it and been very frustrated, because our Web
Source indicated it was in Peoria. Finding the wrong Fair by accident saved us
several hours of frustration. Our new motto is: "We're so stupid, we look
smart!")
After eating lots of seared animal flesh (and some rice pudding for dessert), we
head back to Jubilee College campground (which was founded by an Episcopal
Bishop about 150 years ago).
The radio just announced that the coming trend is "individually wrapped
slices of peanut butter." Robert wants to know if you also had slices of
jam, could you roll them together and make PB&J flutes?
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