June15, 2014 - Yorkville, IL

Today, I slept in until 8. While George was sleeping in the wee AM hours, I rolled up the carpet, mopped the tile floor, put most of the interior stuff away in preparation for travel. After getting up, having coffee and chai latte, the mass exodus from the fairgrounds had begun. It took us an additional 20 minutes to put away the remainder of the stuff. Laurie invited us over to their motorhome for breakfast. She served pork sausage and scrambled eggs, although I only had two links of sausage since I don't like plain eggs. George had both. We then said our goodbyes to Laurie and Bob. Afterward, I drove our SUV around to the back of our motorhome. I scouted out the best way to leave and then told George and Bob how to get out. I also pointed to George as to where to move it to. After he left, I picked up the boards that we had under the jacks and put them in the back of the SUV, and then drove it to the area that we had selected to hook the car up to the motorhome. Then we had to find our way out as there were no exit signs, but that turned out to be easier then we thought. Our first motorhome back in 1990, was a 27' Travel Master Class C with a van front with living space over the cab. I drove that one with no problems and even took it down to Ancora, NJ to the NJ Inspection Station. George did most of the driving though on trips. So when we went to look at Class A motorhomes which are the kind that look like a bus with the big windshield, we saw a 32' Coachman Class A and what sold it for me was that it had two couches, and in my mind, that meant the kids would not be arguing that one had a couch and the other didn't. Bill Cosby in one of his routines says, "Parents aren't interested in justice, they are only interested in Quiet!" That is so true. So with that said, we bought that Motorhome. Now, I went to drive it somewhere, and took the mirror right off the passenger side in our driveway with a tree. And that was the last time I drove that motorhome. In 2000, we bought a 35' Winnebago Class A Adventurer and I drove that occassionally on Interstates when we had a lot of miles to drive and George needed a rest. Wasn't my favorite thing to do, but I did it anyway. So in 2008, George decided he wanted a diesel pusher and we then traded the Winnebago for a 2009 Monaco Knight 42' motorhome and I have never driven that one until today. George was driving on this parkway type of road and pulled over on to a wide shoulderto use the rest room. I told him that I wanted to try driving. When I drove the Winnebago, I had rules of conditions I wouldn't drive: no foul weather, no construction, no toll boothes, no bridges and no city driving. So in my mind, I still had those conditions, however today I drove in construction with cattle chutes, traffic with idiots, in windy conditions at 26 mph with 40 mph gusts, but I drew the line on going through a toll booth as they make me nervous even when George drives. My guess is the toll both designers never drove through them in motorhome. I have admit though, Illinois did have a wider then normal toll booth in the extreme right lane, plus it had express tolls. When we arrived at Hide-A-Way Lakes campground in Yorkville, IL, due to the high winds, one section was without power and water as a tree limb came down and took out a wire that stopped the pump from working. We had been a hankering for Gino's East Chicago deep dish pizza which we had the first time back in 2007. So since there was no power or water we went tonight and it was just as tasty as we remembered.