Sunday

Today I was able to get in a short bike ride and took a few pictures of the Fall colors. Everything will be brown and barren before long.

Family Visit

Yesterday we had a nice family visit.













Played a little Wii Fit:







The boys were trying to get into the Thanksgiving spirit:

A Gathering of A-Frames - Stephen Forbes State Park Illinois

We just spent a great weekend at Stephen Forbes State Park near Salem, Illinois. The weather was great, cool, but the campfire sure felt good.



Our little heater came in handy. Fall camping is the best time to go. As we pulled into the campground Thursday early afternoon we saw several wild turkeys. Carol needed to visit a restroom bad so I hit this bridge going a little too fast. Everything went flying. A wood timber bridge with loose boards, not good. Everything in the Aliner got a little shook up.



Friday morning I took a short bike ride and found the lake, beautiful!







The weekend went great. We had plenty of group discussions around the campfire. We had a very good dinner Friday night of hamburgers, bratwurst, chili, and lots of side dishes and desserts. Saturday morning we had sausage, bacon, eggs, pancakes, and again lots of desserts. A comment was made about how at the dessert table there were so many grabbing for things they thought there must of been $5 dollar bills on the table.

After breakfast we took a group photo:



Of course we all visited each other campers to see and talk about the modifications that had been made, materials used and where to buy them.







The best part of the weekend was the people. Except we didn't get pictures of everybody. Sorry about that.















































Saturday night we went to a local eating place called the Leaky Bucket. The food was great.



It was just a very nice weekend, good weather, nice campground, good food, nice campfires and well planned and executed.

A special thanks to our host John, Jan & Wendy. We know all the work and expense that they did to put this all together and we really appreciated it. We had a good time and look forward to the next "Gathering".

Trail of Tears State Park, Jackson Missouri

We spent the last couple of days camping at a Missouri State Park, Trail of Tears near Jackson, MO. We took our bikes and our new bike rack worked, after a few adjustments.

This park overlooks the Mississippi River. It was nice watching the barges moving up and down the river. The weather was great. Fall camping is the best. Cool to cold at night and warm during the day. Nothing but sunshine and blue skies during the day and stars at night. We did have train tracks between us and the river. The trains came through now and then and they were very, very loud. The ground shook. Love those trains at 1:00 AM and at 5:00 AM and at other times too. Hard to believe we complained about the trains at the Rally in Indiana.

Sunrise over the Mississippi River: